Tucker Carlson on mainstream media lies and getting to the truth

Theo Von: One of the sad things is that we don't know where to get any information anymore.

Tucker Carlson: It's a fair question.  How do you make sense of the world if you don't believe what people are telling you about the world?  How can you make rational decisions if you can't be certain that the input is accurate?  I can't really answer that.  I know what I do which is I don't read any - The New York Times, The Washington Post - I don't want that in my head... or NBC News.  They're liars, I know they're liars.  I've written for all three of those; I know that they lie so I don't get anywhere near it.

TV: When you say they lie, do you write an article and you give it to your publisher or producer, and then they say "no" and change it?

TC: No, it means they don't assign stories on things they want to ignore.

TV: I see.  And where do they get those orders from?

TC: It's all by instinct.  So their job is to protect the people who are in charge.  It's to protect the people who have power currently.  The point of journalism is to challenge the people who have power on behalf of the rest of the country.  And they've inverted the formula.  And so if you work for The Washington Post, the idea is just protect Jeff Bezos and his friends at all costs, and that's what they do.

But I'll tell you a way that I think is a good start to figuring out what's true is watch what they become hysterical about.  You'll see somebody occasionally say something that people just land on him.  "Shut up!  Shut up!  Let's put him in jail!"  Whatever that guy is saying is true.  Or points in the direction of the truth.

When someone says something that's legit and say that noone's mad at this schitzophrenic on the bus who's talking about whatever, the earth is flat, lizard people (which, by the way, may be true, I don't know).  Nobody cares because he's not a threat to anyone because he's insane.  Insane people are not to the existing order because they're crazy, they're self-discrediting.  But when they become hysterical about somebody - "he's a conspiracy theorist!" - without even refuting what he told you, then you know he's on to something.

~ Tucker Carlson, interview with Theo Von, 54:45 mark, October 31, 2023

JFK addresses the media about the Cold War

On many earlier occasions, I have said—and your newspapers have constantly said— that these are times that appeal to every citizen’s sense of sacrifice and self-discipline.  They call out to every citizen to weigh his rights and comforts against his obligations to the common good.  I cannot now believe that those citizens who serve in the newspaper business consider themselves exempt from that appeal. 

I have no intention of establishing a new Office of War Information to govern the flow of news.  I am not suggesting any new forms of censorship or new types of security classifications.  I have no easy answer to the dilemma that I have posed, and would not seek to impose it if I had one.  But I am asking the members of the newspaper profession and the industry in this country to reexamine their own responsibilities—to consider the degree and the nature of the present danger—and to heed the duty of self-restraint which that danger imposes upon us all.

~ President John F. Kennedy, “ADDRESS: THE PRESIDENT AND THE PRESS,” April 27, 1961

David Stockman on the Trump legacy

The everlasting irony of Donald J. Trump’s presidency is this: He had all the right enemies, but virtually without exception made all the wrong decisions during his hapless four-year sojourn in the Oval Office. 

The list of his enemies is enough to make any right-thinking supporter of peace, prosperity and liberty proud.  That starts with the TV networks and print organs of the mainstream stenographers club, who peddle the state’s propaganda and call it news.  This most especially includes the masters of mendacity at CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. 

It also includes the bipartisan national security mafia, the climate change howlers, the race card hondlers, the Russophobes, the Neocon War Brigades, the NATO/IMF/UN acolytes, the Washington nomenclatura, the careerist racketeers of Capitol Hill, the beltway shills of the Lincoln Project, the Silicon Valley thought police and the celebrity scolds of entertainment and media, among others. 

With so many worthy enemies it is amazing that he managed to do so little good and so very much wrong.

~ David Stockman, "Orange Man Gone," LewRockwell.com, January 23, 2021

USA Today endorses Joe Biden, its first-ever presidential endorsement

This is not something we do lightly or do eagerly. 

~ Bill Sternberg, head of USA Today’s editorial board, October 20, 2020

Robert Higgs on how the mainstream media has changed over the past 50 years

Go back fifty years or so, and you can find news that was, to some extent, actually news: you know, more or less factual answers to the classic journalistic questions: what, who, when, where, and how. I'm not sure exactly when the change happened, but at some point the news became entertainment. Not funny entertainment, mind you, but something aimed less at informing and more at arousing people, especially by stimulating their fears, keeping them in a state of constant apprehension, and confirming people's ideological beliefs and cementing their allegiance with one political team or another. 

Discussions of current events became shouting matches between sets of nincompoops who could speak of political trivia, but had no understanding of anything truly important in social, political, and economic affairs. Along the way, truth -- even a clear understanding of how truth differs from falsehood or from one's sentiments or wishful thinking -- fell completely out of favor. It is now no longer "a thing," as the lingo goes.

~ Robert Higgs, Facebook post, October 6, 2020

AP Stylebook offers guidance on using the word "riot"

New guidance on AP Stylebook Online: 

Use care in deciding which term best applies: 

A riot is a wild or violent disturbance of the peace involving a group of people. The term riot suggests uncontrolled chaos and pandemonium. (1/5) 

Focusing on rioting and property destruction rather than underlying grievance has been used in the past to stigmatize broad swaths of people protesting against lynching, police brutality or for racial justice, going back to the urban uprisings of the 1960s. (2/5) 

Unrest is a vaguer, milder and less emotional term for a condition of angry discontent and protest verging on revolt. (3/5) 

Protest and demonstration refer to specific actions such as marches, sit-ins, rallies or other actions meant to register dissent. They can be legal or illegal, organized or spontaneous, peaceful or violent, and involve any number of people. (4/5) 

Revolt and uprising both suggest a broader political dimension or civil upheavals, a sustained period of protests or unrest against powerful groups or governing systems. (5/5)

~ AP Stylebook, tweet, October 1, 2020

Jenin Younes on media coverage of the coronavirus

[T]he media’s dereliction of duty is beyond evident.  As [Karina] Reiss and [Sucharit] Bhakdi observe, broadcasters and the press became “servile mouthpieces of the government” and never “critically questioned” the “disturbing images and frightening numbers."  Incidentally, a letter recently published by 200 Belgian scientists similarly criticized the media: “[t]he relentless bombardment of numbers, unleashed on the population day after day, hour after hour, without indicating those numbers, without comparing them to flu deaths in other years, without comparing them with deaths from other causes, has induced a true psychosis of fear in the population.  This is not information, but manipulation.” 

As an avid consumer of the New York Times, the New Yorker, and NPR, I can attest to the media having operated no differently in the United States.  Apart from a few pieces in early March that questioned the wisdom of the course we had set upon, there was no serious discussion and no debate, at least in the left-leaning media, and anyone who dissented from the prevailing view was and continues to be dismissed as stupid or selfish.  Early on, and without any nuanced analysis, Sweden was deemed a failure.  The public has been beset by such terror, driven by anecdotes often presented without context, that it has become virtually impossible to dispel these many misconceptions using facts, figures, and logic.

~ Jenin Younes, "Disease Panic vs. Medical Reality," AIER.org, September 28, 2020

Ann Coulter on the media

I don't think any progress can be made on anything in America until the media is destroyed and replaced by something with integrity.

~ Ann Coulter, "America's Great Divide: Ann Coulter interview," 27:58 mark, Frontline, January 13, 2020

Kevin Duffy on left media bias

What we have in this country is rampant ideological certitude, confirmation bias and knee-jerk rush to judgment. What we lack is objectivity, critical thinking and dedication to the truth, even if it doesn't comport with our belief systems. I may not know the truth, but I can tell you who's lying.

~ Kevin Duffy, Facebook post, September 14, 2020

Kevin Duffy on brand destruction

I don't recall a time of so much self-inflicted brand destruction: NBA, ESPN, mainstream media, Democratic Party, Federal Reserve, U.S. Dollar.

~ Kevin Duffy, tweet, September 10, 2020

Barbara Tuchman on how negative events are exaggerated

The fact of being reported multiplies the apparent extent of any deplorable development by five- to tenfold.

~ Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror (1978)

Karen DeCoster Campbell on media coverage of Michigan lake party

This is all over the news in Michigan ["Millions view video of massive Michigan lake party causing concern about Covid spread"]

Now, if you truly accept the Covid Narrative (if you can follow the moving goalposts), what is missing from being all over the news is the "concern" regarding all of the riots, looting, and protests. But every single time someone enjoys their *normal* life and goes to the beach, hangs with friends, goes to the bar, or goes out to eat, they invoke the "concerns" of the tyrant politicians, the liars in the media machine, the proletariat mask warriors, and the medical politburo.

And of course, some sinister silhouetted photo is used that makes a beach gathering look like an all-out orgy.

~ Karen DeCoster Campbell, Facebook post, July 9, 2020

Vasko Kohlmayer on censorship of social and mainstream media

As in every twilight zone, severe censorship is the order of the day. Media outlets – social and otherwise – are now patrolled by ruthless truth squads who immediately flag, complain about and report any view or fact that does chime with the official narrative. Any attempt to question it or to point to facts that show it to be untrue is immediately labelled as “offensive” “racist” “dangerous” or “a violation of the terms of use.” As a result of this concentrated and relentless effort, a great amount of valuable educational material – both in the form of video and written word – has been either blocked or removed from various internet outlets and social networks. The mainstream media outlets are not helpful either, as they appear to be voluntarily self-isolating from anything that even remotely smacks of the truth.

~ Vasko Kohlmayer, "Twilight Zone USA," LewRockwell.com, June 19, 2020

Allan Stevo on news and confirmation bias

There’s an aspect of confirmation bias that marketers have long understood as significant: the more education you have, the more successful you’ve been inside a system, the less likely you are to see contradictory information from unfamiliar sources as valid. Also, the less likely you are to approach the ideas presented to you by a trusted source in a circumspect fashion.

Basically, if you’ve got a PhD, you eat most of what’s fed to you, as long as it’s fed to you by the right people.

And the news doesn’t just have a way of getting people opinionated, it has a way of making one feel educated, almost expert on a topic.

~ Allan Stevo, "Suddenly Everyone is a Coronavirus Expert," LewRockwell.com, March 13, 2020

Rolf Dobelli on news consumption

News is for the mind what sugar is for the body. News is appetizing, easily digestible and at the same time extremely harmful. The media feed us small snippets of trivial stories, treats that in no way satisfy our hunger for knowledge. Unlike books and long, well-researched, long articles, there is no saturation when it comes to news consumption. We can devour unlimited amounts of messages; they remain cheap sugar candies. As with sugar, the side effects only become apparent with a delay.

That's why I haven't read a newspaper, consumed online news, watched a TV or listened to the radio for almost ten years.

~ Rolf Dobelli, "News lunch," Dobelli.com, March 2019

George Will on the Greek protesters

Dependency is the agenda of the other [progressive] side.  It is the agenda to make more and more people dependent and more and more things on the government.  Where we can now see today in the headlines from Europe where that leads.  It leads to the streets of Athens.  Where we had described by media as anti-government mobs.  The anti-government mobs were composed almost entirely of government employees.

~ George Will, keynote address at the 2010 Milton Friedman Prize dinner, sponsored by the Cato Institute, 10:10 mark, May 13, 2010

Peter Atwater: headlines "on the front page always confirm the bias of the reader"

When somebody picks up The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, whatever they do - and you can do it online - is to step back and say, as you're reading these headlines, "why are they here?"  "Why are these on the front page?"  And they're on the front page always to confirm the bias of the reader.  It is very, very rare that you'll see on the cover of The Journal, the Financial Times, the New York Times, something that is challenging, that's going to cause the crowd to step back.   What they want is for you to start reading and keep reading from there.  So the front page is telling you, "this is the consensus view."

So often you will have seen a story that a week ago was on page B-18 move to the front page of the B section, to move finally to the front page of the front section.  So that migration is telling you that the  story has legs, that it sticks and that the momentum is now peaking.  I think it's important to recognize that front page acreage is incredibly expensive.  So nothing can last there.  It hits and goes.  So this is the editors capitalizing on the frenzy, and once it's there it's done.

~ Peter Atwater, "Indicators Hiding in Plain Sight," interview with Grant Williams on Real Vision, 17:30 mark

Michael Goodwin on how 2016 election exposed bias of mainstream media

I’ve been a journalist for a long time. Long enough to know that it wasn’t always like this. There was a time not so long ago when journalists were trusted and admired. We were generally seen as trying to report the news in a fair and straightforward manner. Today, all that has changed. For that, we can blame the 2016 election or, more accurately, how some news organizations chose to cover it. Among the many firsts, last year’s election gave us the gobsmacking revelation that most of the mainstream media puts both thumbs on the scale—that most of what you read, watch, and listen to is distorted by intentional bias and hostility. I have never seen anything like it. Not even close.

~ Michael Goodwin, chief political columnist, The New York Post, "The 2016 Election and the Demise of Journalistic Standards," Imprimis, May/June 2017

Joseph Pulitzer
Centennial of Birth
1847-1947

New York Times publisher tells Henry Hazlitt that it can no longer fight Bretton Woods

Now Henry, when 43 governments sign an agreement, I don't see how the [New York] Times can any longer combat this.

~ Arthur Sulzberger, New York Times publisher, mid-1960s?

Aldous Huxley on totalitarianism and propaganda

A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.  To make them love it is the task assigned, in present-day totalitarian states, to ministries of propaganda, newspaper editors and schoolteachers.

~ Aldous Huxley, forward from 1946 edition of Brave New World