Media attacks and “fake news” cries from Trump and MAGA always make me laugh on Facecrack You know, what most people call Facebook. Thanks for the term, DJ Allyn!
I always challenge them thusly…
“If you mean OAN, Newsmax, FOX and now CBS?, I agree!”
They have PLENTY of supposed news sources perpetuatlly finding ways to frame falsely, in fake ways. And some of them do so very well, just like Hitler’s attempt to exterminate all jews was very efficient. There was a book written years ago called The Republican Noise Machine. It accurately described the intense effort going back for many years to create a propaganda machine-like media venue for the right wing. Great idea, but not that well written, IMO. (Sorry, David Brock.) In any book you have to be able to hang on to some narrative. David Brock offer that. A fact filled book? YES! A book offering almost non-existent threads one can tie together. In some places like a laundry list or list to bring to the store rather that telling the story.
Sad because this was a crucial story to tell back then and now.
But Republicans certainly hung, and hang, on to their false frame story telling quite well, thanks to creating a massive noise machine: they now have four TV networks bullcrap spewers. Some dare call “news networks.” CBS has long been a thorn in the right’s ass, like with The Smothers Brother’s Show. Even Cronkite offended the true political correctness demanding party by finally having a completely labeled editorial about Vietnam; labeled it was opinion, not that of CBS. The labeling of it didn’t matter to the true purveyors of political correctness.
Something they have accused us of for DECADES. Who knew they were the real political purveyors of PC?
ME. I have mentioned it many times over the years in this column, but the left too often considered the charge too toxic to counter. I remember one commentator saying, yes we do political correctness through shame, The right will kill, commit murder, to enforce their version of political correctness. Now ICE is one of their enforcers, or as I prefer, “Gestapo.”
Now we’ve gotten to the point that a president is demanding pulling the license and more prosecution for not covering his, “I was cheated in 2020” whine that was a poor excuse for a televised speech. A mere regurgitation in all senses of the word of what he has claimed and demanded before many times. How many times have the right’s propaganda networks not covered, or broke away from, speeches of Democratic presidents when politically convenient? Despite having as many TV news sources as moderates and the left, perhaps more depending how you count them, why aren’t they happy? Why can’t they be satisfied with this really big slice of the pie?
Because they must have ALL of the pie. They must have only state approved right wing news: propaganda. You know, like Russia had and still has thanks to Trump’s buddy Putin. Their other model is Goebbels. And if eliminating enough voters who tend, for the right wing, to vote in politically incorrect ways, they must have all the voters: all the vote… or as close as possible.
This is one of the many reason I call them the Reich Wing. They are not conservatives in the tradition of Buckley, Dirksen or Goldwater. They’re not defenders of democracy or, as they prefer, a (true) Republic. In a true Republic the citizens get to vote. Not just politically correct citizens. Not skewed with stuffed ballot boxes like Putin. Remember those You Tubes slathered like Maga-ITE poop inside the capital? You Tubes posted as a claim that ballot boxes were being stuffing for Hillary? No sound. (Any Russian spoken or even music might spoil the Goebbels-like propaganda.) Big glass or plexi boxes that NO POLLS IN THE US USE.
Most dictatorships these days vote. They are like what Trump and company wants: RIGGED. Even when he was president the lie we’re supposed to accept is always rigged against him.
No president, no movement, no party, should get to decide what is and isn’t “fake news” for others. Remember when Obama decided to shut FOX out of presidential briefings and ALL the media objected so Obama relented? GOOD. I loath FOX, but no president should get to decide what is, and what isn’t news or “fake news.” Nor should those who purchase media like CBS. There should be laws, rules, that keep them from doing that.
And people with a political agenda, whether it be Soros or Ellison, shouldn’t be allowed to buy out any network the run them to spread any brand of skew. At a bare minimum some form of equal access should be strictly enforced again all. I know that cuts out, not just many of their hosts, but many of ours. We need to get back to the Cronkite days.
I come from an objective news background as a Communications/Mass Media graduate. Mixing entertainment and news divisions is disgusting and quite dangerous, no matter what side gets an advantage.
The real purpose of the fake news claim is obviously NOT to clean up the media. It’s to target those who dare broadcast news that doesn’t make one side look good. That main, and probably, the only reason is for Trump, MAGA and their enablers to not have a bigger voice. They already have that, perhaps bigger than the left. It’s to make damn sure they have THE ONLY voice.
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“Inspection” is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 50 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
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