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Old December 21st, 2011 #1
Alex Linder
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Default How the Media Operate

[for stories that don't fit other categories better but shed light on the way in which the sausage is made]

Columnist Bill Conlin discusses with friend at Deadspin ways to play allegations soon to appear in his paper that he molested multiple children in the '70s.

http://deadspin.com/5870204/a-conver...estation-story
 
Old June 2nd, 2012 #2
MikeSmith
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http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/fran...3-1447369.html

Quote:
Frank Rockstroh was a man of many facets: a news photographer, real estate agent, advocate of left-wing causes, student of martial arts, seeker of spiritual clarity, long-distance hiker and a proud 50-percent Native American.
Quote:
His life got off to a difficult start. He was left on a church doorstep in Kansas and was adopted in Missouri by a Jewish mother and Christian father. When his father died several years later, he was taken in by his adoptive mother’s family until she married again and resettled with him in Birmingham.
Quote:
In the early 1960s he covered the civil rights movement in Birmingham for the Black Star photo syndicate. His pictures appeared often in Life magazine, said his daughter, Esther Taylor of Atlanta. They included shots of demonstrators cartwheeling down the street after being fire-hosed by police and an adult comforting a child who had been bitten by a police dog, she said.
Yeah, funny how I have never seen photos of niggers playing around after those incidents with police. I sure remember seeing lots of other photos that were published to make Whites have pity for the niggers. I'd love to see this photo of his because I can just imagine the caption: "Awwww mamma dat wuz fun wit da watta! Can we dooz it again?"
 
Old August 10th, 2012 #3
Alex Linder
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Disinformation: How It Works

by Brandon Smith

There was a time, not too long ago (relatively speaking), that governments and the groups of elites that controlled them did not find it necessary to conscript themselves into wars of disinformation.

Propaganda was relatively straightforward. The lies were much simpler. The control of information flow was easily directed. Rules were enforced with the threat of property confiscation and execution for anyone who strayed from the rigid socio-political structure. Those who had theological, metaphysical or scientific information outside of the conventional and scripted collective world view were tortured and slaughtered. The elites kept the information to themselves, and removed its remnants from mainstream recognition, sometimes for centuries before it was rediscovered.

With the advent of anti-feudalism, and most importantly the success of the American Revolution, elitists were no longer able to dominate information with the edge of a blade or the barrel of a gun. The establishment of Republics, with their philosophy of open government and rule by the people, compelled Aristocratic minorities to plot more subtle ways of obstructing the truth and thus maintaining their hold over the world without exposing themselves to retribution from the masses. Thus, the complex art of disinformation was born.

The technique, the “magic” of the lie, was refined and perfected. The mechanics of the human mind and the human soul became an endless obsession for the establishment.

The goal was malicious, but socially radical; instead of expending the impossible energy needed to dictate the very form and existence of the truth, they would allow it to drift, obscured in a fog of contrived data. They would wrap the truth in a Gordian Knot of misdirection and fabrication so elaborate that they felt certain the majority of people would surrender, giving up long before they ever finished unraveling the deceit. The goal was not to destroy the truth, but to hide it in plain sight.

In modern times, and with carefully engineered methods, this goal has for the most part been accomplished. However, these methods also have inherent weaknesses. Lies are fragile. They require constant attentiveness to keep them alive. The exposure of a single truth can rip through an ocean of lies, evaporating it instantly.

In this article, we will examine the methods used to fertilize and promote the growth of disinformation, as well as how to identify the roots of disinformation and effectively cut them, starving out the entire system of fallacies once and for all.

Media Disinformation Methods

The mainstream media, once tasked with the job of investigating government corruption and keeping elitists in line, has now become nothing more than a public relations firm for corrupt officials and their Globalist handlers. The days of the legitimate “investigative reporter” are long gone (if they ever existed at all), and journalism itself has deteriorated into a rancid pool of so called “TV Editorialists” who treat their own baseless opinions as supported fact.

The elitist co-opting of news has been going on in one form or another since the invention of the printing press. However, the first methods of media disinformation truly came to fruition under the supervision of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who believed the truth was “subjective” and open to his personal interpretation.

Some of the main tactics used by the mainstream media to mislead the masses are as follows:

Lie Big, Retract Quietly: Mainstream media sources (especially newspapers) are notorious for reporting flagrantly dishonest and unsupported news stories on the front page, then quietly retracting those stories on the very back page when they are caught. In this case, the point is to railroad the lie into the collective consciousness. Once the lie is finally exposed, it is already too late, and a large portion of the population will not notice or care when the truth comes out.

Unconfirmed Or Controlled Sources As Fact: Cable news venues often cite information from “unnamed” sources, government sources that have an obvious bias or agenda, or “expert” sources without providing an alternative “expert” view. The information provided by these sources is usually backed by nothing more than blind faith.

Calculated Omission: Otherwise known as “cherry picking” data. One simple piece of information or root item of truth can derail an entire disinfo news story, so instead of trying to gloss over it, they simply pretend as if it doesn’t exist. When the fact is omitted, the lie can appear entirely rational. This tactic is also used extensively when disinformation agents and crooked journalists engage in open debate.

Distraction, And The Manufacture Of Relevance: Sometimes the truth wells up into the public awareness regardless of what the media does to bury it. When this occurs their only recourse is to attempt to change the public’s focus and thereby distract them from the truth they were so close to grasping. The media accomplishes this by “over-reporting” on a subject that has nothing to do with the more important issues at hand. Ironically, the media can take an unimportant story, and by reporting on it ad nauseum, cause many Americans to assume that because the media won’t shut-up about it, it must be important!

Dishonest Debate Tactics: Sometimes, men who actually are concerned with the average American’s pursuit of honesty and legitimate fact-driven information break through and appear on T.V. However, rarely are they allowed to share their views or insights without having to fight through a wall of carefully crafted deceit and propaganda. Because the media know they will lose credibility if they do not allow guests with opposing viewpoints every once in a while, they set up and choreograph specialized T.V. debates in highly restrictive environments which put the guest on the defensive, and make it difficult for them to clearly convey their ideas or facts.

TV pundits are often trained in what are commonly called “Alinsky Tactics.” Saul Alinsky was a moral relativist, and champion of the lie as a tool for the “greater good”; essentially, a modern day Machiavelli. His Rules for Radicals were supposedly meant for grassroots activists who opposed the establishment and emphasized the use of any means necessary to defeat one’s political opposition. But is it truly possible to defeat an establishment built on lies, by use of even more elaborate lies, and by sacrificing one’s ethics? In reality, his strategies are the perfect format for corrupt institutions and governments to dissuade dissent from the masses. Today, Alinsky’s rules are used more often by the establishment than by its opposition.

Alinsky’s Strategy: Win At Any Cost, Even If You Have To Lie

Alinsky’s tactics have been adopted by governments and disinformation specialists across the world, but they are most visible in TV debate. While Alinsky sermonized about the need for confrontation in society, his debate tactics are actually designed to circumvent real and honest confrontation of opposing ideas with slippery tricks and diversions. Alinsky’s tactics, and their modern usage, can be summarized as follows:

1) Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.

We see this tactic in many forms. For example, projecting your own movement as mainstream, and your opponent’s as fringe. Convincing your opponent that his fight is a futile one. Your opposition may act differently, or even hesitate to act at all, based on their perception of your power. How often have we heard this line: “The government has predator drones. There is nothing the people can do now…” This is a projection of exaggerated invincibility designed to elicit apathy from the masses.

2) Never go outside the experience of your people, and whenever possible, go outside of the experience of the enemy.

Don’t get drawn into a debate about a subject you do not know as well as or better than your opposition. If possible, draw them into such a situation instead. Go off on tangents. Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty in your opposition. This is commonly used against unwitting interviewees on cable news shows whose positions are set up to be skewered. The target is blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address. In television and radio, this also serves to waste broadcast time to prevent the target from expressing his own position.

3) Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.

The objective is to target the opponent’s credibility and reputation by accusations of hypocrisy. If the tactician can catch his opponent in even the smallest misstep, it creates an opening for further attacks, and distracts away from the broader moral question.

4) Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.

“Ron Paul is a crackpot.” “Gold bugs are crazy.” “Constitutionalists are fringe extremists.” Baseless ridicule is almost impossible to counter because it is meant to be irrational. It infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage. It also works as a pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.

5) A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.

The popularization of the term “Teabaggers” is a classic example; it caught on by itself because people seem to think it’s clever, and enjoy saying it. Keeping your talking points simple and fun helps your side stay motivated, and helps your tactics spread autonomously, without instruction or encouragement.

6) A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.

See rule No. 5. Don’t become old news. If you keep your tactics fresh, it’s easier to keep your people active. Not all disinformation agents are paid. The “useful idiots” have to be motivated by other means. Mainstream disinformation often changes gear from one method to the next and then back again.

7) Keep the pressure on with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.

Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new. Never give the target a chance to rest, regroup, recover or re-strategize. Take advantage of current events and twist their implications to support your position. Never let a good crisis go to waste.

8) The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.

This goes hand in hand with Rule No. 1. Perception is reality. Allow your opposition to expend all of its energy in expectation of an insurmountable scenario. The dire possibilities can easily poison the mind and result in demoralization.

9) The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.

The objective of this pressure is to force the opposition to react and make the mistakes that are necessary for the ultimate success of the campaign.

10) If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside.

As grassroots activism tools, Alinsky tactics have historically been used (for example, by labor movements or covert operations specialists) to force the opposition to react with violence against activists, which leads to popular sympathy for the activists’ cause. Today, false (or co-opted) grassroots movements and revolutions use this technique in debate as well as in planned street actions and rebellions (look at Syria for a recent example).

11) The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.

Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem. Today, this is often used offensively against legitimate activists, such as the opponents of the Federal Reserve. Complain that your opponent is merely “pointing out the problems.” Demand that they offer not just “a solution”, but THE solution. Obviously, no one person has “the” solution. When he fails to produce the miracle you requested, dismiss his entire argument and all the facts he has presented as pointless.

12) Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it.

Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. The target’s supporters will expose themselves. Go after individual people, not organizations or institutions. People hurt faster than institutions.

The next time you view an MSM debate, watch the pundits carefully, you will likely see many if not all of the strategies above used on some unsuspecting individual attempting to tell the truth.

Internet Disinformation Methods

Internet trolls, also known as “paid posters” or “paid bloggers,” are increasingly and openly being employed by private corporations as well governments, often for marketing purposes and for “public relations” (Obama is notorious for this practice). Internet “trolling” is indeed a fast growing industry.

Trolls use a wide variety of strategies, some of which are unique to the internet, here are just a few:

1. Make outrageous comments designed to distract or frustrate: An Alinsky tactic used to make people emotional, although less effective because of the impersonal nature of the Web.

2. Pose as a supporter of the truth, then make comments that discredit the movement: We have seen this even on our own forums – trolls pose as supporters of the Liberty Movement, then post long, incoherent diatribes so as to appear either racist or insane. The key to this tactic is to make references to common Liberty Movement arguments while at the same time babbling nonsense, so as to make those otherwise valid arguments seem ludicrous by association. In extreme cases, these “Trojan Horse Trolls” have been known to make posts which incite violence – a technique obviously intended to solidify the false assertions of the think tank propagandists like the SPLC, which purports that Constitutionalists should be feared as potential domestic terrorists.

3. Dominate Discussions: Trolls often interject themselves into productive Web discussions in order to throw them off course and frustrate the people involved.

4. Prewritten Responses: Many trolls are supplied with a list or database with pre-planned talking points designed as generalized and deceptive responses to honest arguments. When they post, their words feel strangely plastic and well rehearsed.

5. False Association: This works hand in hand with item No. 2, by invoking the stereotypes established by the “Trojan Horse Troll.” For example: calling those against the Federal Reserve “conspiracy theorists” or “lunatics”; deliberately associating anti-globalist movements with racists and homegrown terrorists, because of the inherent negative connotations; and using false associations to provoke biases and dissuade people from examining the evidence objectively.

6. False Moderation: Pretending to be the “voice of reason” in an argument with obvious and defined sides in an attempt to move people away from what is clearly true into a “grey area” where the truth becomes “relative.”

7. Straw Man Arguments: A very common technique. The troll will accuse his opposition of subscribing to a certain point of view, even if he does not, and then attacks that point of view. Or, the troll will put words in the mouth of his opposition, and then rebut those specific words.

Sometimes, these strategies are used by average people with serious personality issues. However, if you see someone using these tactics often, or using many of them at the same time, you may be dealing with a paid internet troll.
Stopping Disinformation

The best way to disarm disinformation agents is to know their methods inside and out. This gives us the ability to point out exactly what they are doing in detail the moment they try to do it. Immediately exposing a disinformation tactic as it is being used is highly destructive to the person utilizing it. It makes them look foolish, dishonest and weak for even making the attempt. Internet trolls most especially do not know how to handle their methods being deconstructed right in front of their eyes and usually fold and run from debate when it occurs.

The truth is precious. It is sad that there are so many in our society who have lost respect for it; people who have traded in their conscience and their soul for temporary financial comfort while sacrificing the stability and balance of the rest of the country in the process.

The human psyche breathes on the air of truth. Without it, humanity cannot survive. Without it, the species will collapse, starving from lack of intellectual and emotional sustenance.

Disinformation does not only threaten our insight into the workings of our world; it makes us vulnerable to fear, misunderstanding, and doubt: all things that lead to destruction. It can drive good people to commit terrible atrocities against others, or even against themselves. Without a concerted and organized effort to diffuse mass-produced lies, the future will look bleak indeed.

August 10, 2012

Brandon Smith [send him mail] is founder of the Alternative Market Project (www.alt-market.com) as well as the head writer and co-founder of Neithercorp Press. He specializes in macroeconomic analysis as well as studies in mainstream media disinformation, and is now focusing on the creation of a national network of barter markets designed to insulate and protect local economies from the inevitable collapse of the current unsustainable fiat system.

http://lewrockwell.com/orig12/smith-br7.1.1.html
 
Old October 2nd, 2012 #4
Alex Linder
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[leftist source admits media are biased against Romney, gives solid examples]

Yes, Mitt Romney Is Getting a Raw Deal From the Press

John Cook

First off—there is no such thing as "the media." The people and entities who shape our political coverage represent a fractured, disaggregated, chaotic mass of divergent agendas and interests. While they often display pack behavior, they do not operate as a coordinated monolith. But that doesn't mean they're being fair to Mitt Romney. They're not.

The New York Times' David Carr argues today that the "media bias" canard being trotted out by the Romney campaign is less relevant and accurate than ever: "Many Republicans see bias lurking in every live shot, but the growing hegemony of conservative voices makes manufacturing a partisan conspiracy a practical impossibility." This is true as far as it goes. Many of the reporters, producers, and editors managing coverage of the political campaign may be culturally or politically liberal, but their first allegiance isn't to the Revolution. It's to the Story. And the Story So Far of this campaign is that Romney is a hapless, robotic, buffoon who insists on repeatedly detonating his campaign in an escalating series of Inspector Clouseau disasters.

The press is doing to Romney the same thing it did to John Kerry, and to Al Gore before him: Covering him as a loser. A weird loser. A distant loser, who is "uncomfortable in his own skin" and "failing to connect" with "regular voters." The contempt and pity for him as a candidate is almost palpable, and each moment in the campaign is distorted imperceptibly, as if by magnetism, to reinforce the Romney caricature. This is how we got a flurry of stories, for instance, about how Romney doesn't know why airplane windows don't roll down. They were based on remarks Romney made after his wife's plane experienced an on-board fire: "When you have a fire in an aircraft, there's no place to go, exactly, there's no - and you can't find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don't open. I don't know why they don't do that. It's a real problem."

There are two interpretations of that statement. One is that it was a little off-hand nonsensical joke unworthy of further comment. The other is that Romney is really weird and doesn't understand fundamental truths about aviation. To anyone reading or listening with a reasonable sense of detachment, it was quite obviously the former. But to too many reporters and producers—including people, like the Atlantic's James Fallows, who ought to know better—it became more fodder for the "Romney keeps screwing up" narrative. The Telegraph's lede for its story on the matter says all you really need to know: "Mr. Romney, who has a track record of verbal gaffes...."

Likewise, when Romney tried to get a crowd at a rally in Ohio add his running mate's name to a chant they had started—"Romney! Ryan!" instead of "Romney! Romney!"—even nominal Republican Joe Scarborough stubbornly misinterpreted it as a hamfisted attempt to change the chant from Ryan's name to his own. This is not because Joe Scarborough supports the candidacy of Barack Obama. It is because he supports the primacy of the Romney-is-a-Loser narrative, and wanted to hold up another shining example of that loser-dom for the rest of the political press to giggle at. Which they did, even though it was obviously based on a falsehood to anyone who took time to listen to the audio.

My favorite example of Romney's transformation into a Kerry figure is in this New York Times report from Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg, on the myriad challenges facing the candidate leading up to this week's debates. It ends with this exchange, from a pool reporter following the Romney campaign:

As Mr. Romney headed to an evening fund-raiser in West Palm Beach, Fla., a reporter asked if he would be campaigning more extensively.

"Ha, ha. We're in the stretch, aren't we?" Mr. Romney said before promptly changing the subject and pointing to the sky. "Look at those clouds. It's beautiful. Look at those things."

The line quickly became a gag—a pitiful loser ineffectually trying to distract a reporter from the question at hand by pointing at clouds. It perfectly summed up Romney's desperate cluelessness, and had the added bonus of featuring his stilted fake laugh—"ha, ha." (That laugh, by the way, has been repeatedly transcribed in news reports for no reason other than to make Romney seem wooden. Imagine if Obama's every "heh" or "uuuhh" made it into his quotes.) It also had nothing to do with anything. It's only value was as a gratuitous little grace note making Romney seem weird for the perfectly routine political maneuver of dodging a question.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love gratuitous little grace notes. And I loathe Mitt Romney. I want to see him defeated, and revel in mocking him for the empty plutocrat that he is. He is abundantly to blame for the caricature that has developed—he is the author of his own foolish words, and his refusal to lay out specific policies in the past two weeks has invited the feeding frenzy for anecdotes and vignettes that make him look bad. But John Kerry deserved better when he was relentlessly reduced to a wind-surfing, pussy-whipped flip-flopper by a vicious campaign press in 2004. And Al Gore deserved better when he was painted as a sighing, disingenuous, wannabe alpha male four years before that.

Those avatars, like Romney's, had elements of truth, of course. And they were fervently fomented by the Rove machine. But too many of the producers and reporters who covered those campaigns ultimately made no serious attempt to slice through easily established narrative to focus on the issues at stake. The 2000 and 2004 races were reduced to personality clashes—Bush the down-home, garrulous Christian versus Gore the professorial nob, and Bush the cowboy versus Kerry the Gaul. The 2008 race between McCain and Obama was a veritable policy forum by comparison. So far, 2012 is once again reverting to a cool-kid-versus-the-stiff template. And Romney is not the cool kid.

As we approach the debates, some are speculating that we've bottomed out on the Romney-is-weird narrative, and that the media's inherent desire for conflict will motivate them to resurrect Romney in an attempt to make it a race again. I'm dubious. It's hard to get out of the weirdo box. While the need for conflict is real, the tribal urge to kick the loser back down is extremely powerful. Kerry and Gore were never able to shake it off, and while those races went up and down in the polls, their portrayals were frustratingly constant. Can you imagine Romney—the one you see in political coverage—being portrayed as an emerging hero after the last two weeks? I can't.

So even if, as Jennifer Granholm is predicting, the punditocracy declares Romney the winner of the first debate, it won't be long before he says or does something that, if angled just so, feeds into loser narrative. And it won't be long before the political press stops resisting the urge to angle it just so, and everyone will be laughing at him again on Twitter. Stupid Romney, looking at clouds. Loser.

http://gawker.com/5947910/yes-mitt-r...from-the-press
 
Old October 2nd, 2012 #5
Susan
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The media knows it answers to no one. They aren't held accountable, they aren't sued (except rarely as when Richard Jewell sued the AJC and then they settle privately and never admit publicly how they completely fucked someone over--usually the White guy), and they never apologize for their lies, distortions, and censorship of facts.

This is why I say we need groups of pro White people across the country, in every state, who aren't beholden to anyone for their living expenses, or who have to work in any capacity for the jews, who can constantly be out there in a very public way telling White people just how they are being manipulated, lied to, screwed over, etc. by pretty much everyone in any position of authority.

I really believe this has to be a precursor to any so called revolution of Whites in this country. Whites simply don't know enough now to even be pissed off properly.

It's not enough to be on the internet saying this. We must say it out loud, out there.

The media despises Whites. It's that simple. Black columnists at newspapers are spewing their anti White venom on a daily and weekly basis. They are doing what the newspapers can't say in so many words.

Eugene Robinson and Leonard Pitts are doing it for my county newspaper, and for the AJC, respectively. They don't even try to hide their contempt for Whites. It's all out there. The newspapers are hiding behind them, knowing they will spew hatred of Whitey on a regular basis.

There's also a female spic columnist, Esther Cepeda, who now writes for my county newspaper. She can't hide her distaste for White America either very well.

But they will never not in a million years give space to a White who would write one single thing that could even remotely be construed as being pro White.
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Old October 3rd, 2012 #6
Alexander M.
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Default ‘Bahrain buys favorable CNN content’

Amid a violent crackdown on a popular uprising, Bahrain paid CNN to get favorable coverage, says a former reporter who believes her documentary on the protests there was censored by the network.

*Former CNN journalist Amber Lyon made the documentary more than six months ago. It was aired domestically in the US, but never made it to CNN international, raising claims that the management pulled the plug on the story. RT spoke to Lyon to get the full story of what happened.


http://rt.com/news/bahrain-favorable-cnn-content-538/
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