The bad news: the Kremlin has learned the power of swamping Westerners with bogus stories:
Disinformation most famously succeeded in early 2014 with the initial obfuscation about deploying Russian forces to seize Crimea. That summer, Russia pumped out a dizzying array of theories about the destruction of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine, blaming the C.I.A. and, most outlandishly, Ukrainian fighter pilots who had mistaken the airliner for the Russian presidential aircraft.
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The cloud of stories helped veil the simple truth that poorly trained insurgents had accidentally downed the plane with a missile supplied by Russia.
Russian media – including “RT”, Ed Schultz’s new employer – exist in part to try to baffle the west with BS. And, since our media is largely gullible, semiliterate and utterly completely incurious, it works like a charm.
The good news? NATO and the EU are establishing offices to try to “fact-check” the Russian propaganda effort.
The really bad news? Nobody in the western news media is used to fact-checking without a Democrat party operative telling them what the facts are.
CNN anchor Donna Brazile moves to the DNC throne, and Ed Shultz picks up the hammer and sickle.
Nothing to see here folks….move along.
So majority agrees that MSM is biased to the hilt and conspires against the Republic and conservatives. What can be done? There is no legal angle. Ministry of Truth and shutting MSM down via goobernment is antithetical to conservative free market principles. So how can we fight this asymmetric battle?
Factually false as ever. You’ll have a valid platform to criticize the fact checking of others when you actually fact check yourself, multi-source from credible news media – not tabloids, and generally demonstrate better ethics yourself. Right now you are no better than RT, and in some instances are worse.
There is not a lot of reliable indication that the MSM is biased or conspires against conservatives. Sadly, the facts are simply rarely on your side. That is objective reality, not the crazy conspiracy theories promoted by the crap right wing tabloid blogosphere and other media.
For example, you forgot to mention that RT features libertarian academics, intellectuals and writers from Reason magazine, Human Events, and the Cato Institute. Or do you consider THEM liberal too?
I doubt anyone believes much of what they encounter on RT. Poor Ed Schultz seems to have taken whatever job was available to him. It would be fair to say Ed has been rejected and repudiated by the MSM as well as by the left and center politically.
You can hardly call Ed a liberal anymore since he is pushing Putin and Trump and attacking Hillary. (Where or where was your fact checking when you brought up Ed?) Meanwhile the conservative media is still embracing both Putin and Trump; not all of it, no, but much of it.
And NO, the MSM does do their fact checking a LOT better than right wing media which has a shit track record for EVER getting their facts correct. MSM has a bad habit lately of over-reaching what they know in the early stages of catastrophic events, and then have to back track. But as real time fact checking is showing during interview with pols, particularly Trump and his surrogates, YES, MSM DOES Fact check. They also multi-source, and generally exercises higher standards of journalistic ethics than is found in the right wing bigot bubble.
Once again, you confirm my contention that conservatives believe things which are factually false, and you whine a lot about how you are poor persecuted victims when you’re emphatically NOT.
You should check out this author and academic, who seems to have the best assessment on the scholarly research into media bias, real or perceived. You can read about him here:
https://www.brookings.edu/experts/jonathan-m-ladd/
or take this summary of his work, particularly his book Why Americans Hate the Media and How it Matters”:
“Jonathan M. Ladd, who has conducted intensive studies of media trust and media bias, concluded that the primary cause of belief in media bias is media telling their audience that particular media are biased. People who are told that a medium is biased tend to believe that it is biased, and this belief is unrelated to whether that medium is actually biased or not. The only other factor with as strong an influence on belief that media is biased is extensive coverage of celebrities. A majority of people see such media as biased, while at the same time preferring media with extensive coverage of celebrities.”
I have to laugh when I see the right wing tabloids, including Powerturd, having their smear efforts backfire. When the US Attorney comes out and says there is no basis for an investigation into Ilhan Omar — apparently seeing no prima facie evidence that Omar engaged in bigamy, did not marry her brother, or commit any kind of immigration fraud — it results in her primary challenger having dropped out, and a rise in sympathy for Omar for being targeted with such a spiteful and factually false anonymous attack.
Dog Gone,
Your comments are going to sit in moderation until you give me some indication that you’re actually willing to participate in a discussion.
Your comment was wrong, as usual – logically vacant, factually risible. Your unfounded condescension is low comedy; you are no journalist.
But I”m not going to waste the time responding to a poop and run.
I’ve been exceedingly patient with you abuse of my comment section. You will follow the (very minimal) rules I set, or you can write to your audience of five over at Pusey’s Romper Room.
Either respond here, or via email (the burden is on you, not me).
What, does DG want to audition for the job of “Fact-Checker” for NATO?
good luck with that sugar!
What, does DG want to audition for the job of “Fact-Checker” for NATO?
I believe you’ve got to have your own private, unsecured server to qualify for that job, and last I knew Mad Dog was piggybacking with Penigma. So sorry…
To the point, though, I have been more or less infuriated with the media failing to catch the most risible lies by politicians–especially those of Mrs. Clinton’s husband back when America was held hostage by them–that the idea that they’d be able to cope with a KGB-led disinformation campaign is about as likely as me beating Usain Bolt in the 200 meters.
Thank you Mitch.
as likely as me beating Usain Bolt in the 200 meters.
All you have to do is to say you did and it will become reality. Who will check?
Maybe the 200 meter backstroke or butterfly, I guess. :^)
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