Press agent journalism substitutes for the real thing. Truth-telling is a lost art, absent in Western reporting on issues mattering most. The fourth estate was never more disreputable than now, a shameful disgrace to its profession – featuring disinformation, fake news and advocacy instead of what legitimate journalism is supposed to be.
Servant of the elites DEAN BAQUET, New York Times Editor. One of the people involved in massive lying to the American people. Complicit in innumerable crimes. And that’s a fact fit to print.
Trump is wrong on most issues, on the mark about the media’s deplorable state, painful to follow, impossible to know anything about the state of the nation and world by following its reports – red meat for critics like myself to take them to task, the deplorable NYT my favorite target.
Defending itself from justifiable criticism, arguments by the Times ring hollow.
Claiming its columnists, correspondents and editors are journalists, not Trump’s enemies, is utter rubbish.
They’ve waged war on the president from the time he announced his candidacy in June 2015 – remaining unrelenting from then to now, part of a major media plot to remove him from office, a disgrace to the profession for trying.
The Times: “If only President Trump denounced neo-Nazis as passionately and sincerely as he castigates journalists.”
Fact: He blasted white supremacists, neo-Nazis, the KKK, and other hate groups. The Times and other media scoundrels turned a deaf ear.
The Times: “(F)or all our failings, journalism remains an indispensable constraint on power. Trump has systematically tried to delegitimize the institutions that hold him accountable…”
Fact: US media scoundrels are beholden to wealth, power and privilege exclusively. They cheerlead US wars of aggression. They support corporate empowerment. They blast Trump largely for the wrong reasons, not the right ones, notably ignoring his war crimes – a taboo topic never to bring up, only against US enemies, not its presidents, Congress or Pentagon commanders.
The Times: “The New York Times and The Washington Post have separately tallied Trump’s lies, with The Post calculating that he has now made more than 1,000 misleading statements since assuming the presidency.”
Fact: All politicians lie, notably US presidents, Obama the nation’s liar-in-chief for eight painful years, Trump continuing what’s traditional in America. Nothing politicians say should be believed. Media scoundrel lie more than them. Relying on them for news and information assures being misinformed and disinformed.
The Times: “Trump’s caricature of journalists as dishonest is hypocritical and…insult(ing)…”
Fact: The truth hurts. Trump and others opposing his agenda are with him on this issue.
The Times: “…Trump is buoying the repressive instincts of dictators around the world.”
Fact: Bipartisan administrations and congressional members love dictators – as long as they’re US allies. They support so many of them, despising independent democratic governments Washington doesn’t control.
The Times: Trump “has always had a soft spot for racists…”
Fact: From inception, America has been a hugely racist society, beginning with George Washington, many other presidents following him, notably slave owners, Lincoln for wanting to deport freed slaves, Wilson for re-segregating the federal bureaucracy, others during Jim Crow years, FDR for incarcerating Japanese Americans, and every US president waging war on Islam, Trump included.
The Times: “(O)ur president is mentally unstable,” calling his behavior “bizarre.”
Fact: “Unstable” and “bizarre” are Times code words for a president it despises for defeating Hillary, its favorite, providing press agent services for her throughout the campaign – a contemptible display of extreme bias.
The Times: “(W)e are enduring an epic struggle over the principles on which our country was founded. These include the idea that a flawed free press is an essential institutional check on flawed leaders.”
Fact: The so-called principles involve rule of, by and for the privileged few, no others. Independent media alone comprise a responsible free press in America. Corporate ones like The Times, along with corporate and government-funded public radio and television should never be trusted. They suppress and/or sanitize all news, information and analysis vital to know, replacing it with worthless rubbish – a Times specialty.
STEPHEN LENDMAN was born in 1934 in Boston, MA. In 1956, he received a BA from Harvard University. Two years of US Army service followed, then an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1960. After working seven years as a marketing research analyst, he joined the Lendman Group family business in 1967. He remained there until retiring at year end 1999. Writing on major world and national issues began in summer 2005. In early 2007, radio hosting followed. Lendman now hosts the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network three times weekly. Distinguished guests are featured. Listen live or archived. Major world and national issues are discussed. Lendman is a 2008 Project Censored winner and 2011 Mexican Journalists Club international journalism award recipient. His new site is at http://stephenlendman.org
Press agent journalism substitutes for the real thing. Truth-telling is a lost art, absent in Western reporting on issues mattering most. The fourth estate was never more disreputable than now, a shameful disgrace to its profession – featuring disinformation, fake news and advocacy instead of what legitimate journalism is supposed to be.
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I would be in sympathy with the left, were it not for the refusal, with a few exceptions, to include the violation of animal lives in their agenda. The one intelligent exception is Patrice Greanville, who is often undermined by those who value only human life & refuse to challenge the status quo of judeo.christian dominion: “Editor’s Note: Many in America and others in the “developed World” are accustomed to thinking they live in a superior civilization, and that people in India and much of the Third World, still stuck in miserable conditions and dreadful underdevelopment (read: they lack the… Read more »