Be critical and analytical of what you see on television news. Television is “a hot medium.” It is a medium that can be used to manipulate the viewer and propagandize for various political points of view.
GregoryBresiger.com. is a site that has often condemned both major parties and freely admits its prejudices in favor of liberty, peace and limited government. It avidly endorsed the libertarian candidate in the last presidential election. But it is apparent to me that most of the mainstream news media has had a hard-left orientation for years; that its pretense of objective journalism has been sham at least since Trump shocked the world with his upset victory in 2016.
That, as we detailed in the last segment, enraged the mainstream media—the network news divisions, the New York Times and the Washington Post—which began fabricating its myth of the illegitimate election victory, with the Russians pulling the strings behind the scenes.
This three-year myth has all the credibility of the Nazi myth of the 1920s and 1930s that Germany lost World War I because of the “stab in the back” by the Jews. That’s a charge that has about as much credibility as Trump is one the Russians’ payroll, which was discussed here in the previous segment.
Partisans, not Journalists
In this segment, I will produce more disturbing examples of a bias so extreme that many mainstream media members should formally join the board of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and or the group “Blacks Lives Matter (BLM).”
By the way, BLM leaders, much to their credit, have been quite honest. They have told us they are Marxists ready to burn down the nation if they don’t get what they want. Many of their members and supporters now consider this statement of a basic Judeo-Christian principle today to be racist: All lives matter.
These are issues that our mainstream media rarely discusses. But let us review how mainstream media in June covered a controversial event.
There was a big demonstration outside of the White House in nearby Lafayette Park, next to where a historic church. It was recently burned by “demonstrators.” The peaceful demonstration was brutally broken up by police at the direction of the U.S. General William Barr and his boss, President Trump so the president could visit the damaged church for a photo-op. This is the mainstream media version.
The Pictures
The pictures, or the selective use of them by CBS News earlier this month, painted an ugly picture. However, consider this, there was hardly any comment in the news report from the Trump administration. There was one perfunctionary, actually extraneous, video cut from the White House press secretary. The cut seemed designed to give short shrift to the Trump administration. The rest of the report focused on lots of people complaining how terrible and violent the police were.
However, if one viewed the presidential press secretary’s conference in its entirety and heard the administration’s version of what happened, one would have learned: 1) That the crowd was warned three times to leave but wouldn’t. 2) That various projectiles were thrown despite warnings. 3) That several police officers and Secret Services agents were injured.
One never learned these things from the biased CBS report, obviously rigged to make the administration look bad.
Let’s Look at the Record
See the entire press conference yourself and come to your own judgment. Here’s mine and it is a judgment I tried to use whenever I covered controversial events over decades as a reporter: Whenever in doubt, make sure you talk to everybody. Don’t presume you know the story before you write the story.
Make sure you include lots of different views. That’s because the truth whatever it is—whether it was the fault of a violence crazed Trump administration looking to crush peoples’ rights or fault of the people outside the White House who were not peaceful protestors but professional rioters or just evil people who wanted to cause a violent incident and not caring about who would be hurt—only comes out of a sincere, concerted effort to be accurate and fair.
Rigged Media
In America, in the year 2020, CBS News, and most of mainstream media, are anything but that. They obviously have an agenda: Bend and distort the news as much as you can, but get rid of Trump. Elect Joe Biden.
Someone should tell them they are supposed to be journalists—men and women doing their best trying to report accurately and fairly—not kingmakers.
By the way, in the case of the Lafayette Park incident, seeing the whole press conference, in which the Trump side was explained as opposed to the distorted version on the news, one gains insight to how the mainstream media operates. Watch how many of the reporters pose their “questions” to the Trump spokeswoman.
Often, they are anything but questions. They are arguments, possibly put into a question form. These reporters aren’t acting like men and women trying to get information for their stories; they are advocates, actually stating a point of view, and proud of it. One almost expects some these angry people to add to their questions, “you want to make something of it?”.
“Back to You, Norah”
Watch the White House correspondent for CBS News. You can tell from her body language and from the way she asks questions that she is really upset about something. It is pointless to criticize her. She is obviously doing the bidding of her boss, Norah O’Donnell. And she is doing the bidding of her jefes, who want their political agenda followed.
One leaves these “newscasts” thinking: Just when did Americans elect CBS News and the rest of the mainstream media to govern them?
But it’s not fair to pick on CBS News. Next time, let’s look at some others.
