Diagosis: Malpractice

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My blogfather from nearly 20 years ago, Andrew Sullivan, on the many, many ways modern media fails Democracy in its slavish service to the left’s narrative.

It’s hard to come up with a single pullquote, but I’ll run with this:

I still rely on the MSM for so much. I still read the NYT first thing in the morning. I don’t want to feel as if everything I read is basically tilted through wish-fulfillment, narrative-proving, and ideology. But with this kind of record, how can I not? 

We need facts and objectivity more than ever. Trump showed that. What we got in the MSM was an over-reaction, a reflexive overreach to make the news fit the broader political fight. This is humanly understandable. It is professionally unacceptable. And someone has got to stop it.

I have a hunch most Americans won’t know the value of a conscientiously neutral media until the inevitable results of the lack of one become truly apparent…

…more than they are.

48 thoughts on “Diagosis: Malpractice”

  1. My blogfather, […] Andrew Sullivan

    Ah, OK. This was helpful. Now I understand better. I guess I won’t be so surprised at some of the things I read here from now on.

  2. One of the individuals in our hunting circle thinks that Bill Gates is using nanotechnology to track people through a vaccine for a virus that Fauci created to kill off the boomer generation for some unknown deep state plan.

    I’m fairly certain they didn’t acquire this information from the MSM.

    How exactly should I have a rational debate with them?

  3. “Slavish Service…” says the guy who can’t avoid parroting the RW narrative day in and day out. I often think your middle name should be projection.

    Riddle me this, Mr. “the Media is so biased”, how is it they score far better than does the RW (or you) on double-sourcing? How may mainstream media outlets not named Fox (or worse, OAN or Newsmax) have been sued for false reporting about the 2020 election? How many had to tell their on-air talent to stop spewing lies about Dominion voting (or anything similar)?

    The bottom line is, the biggest story of the day is the Mu variant of COVID. Silence from you on it because it doesn’t fit the RW narrative that COVID is overblown and once everyone is vaccinated it will just go away (as you fatuously asserted months ago, I’ll remind you).

    This disease, which your fearless leader (and whose lies you so freely and happily repeat), anyway, your fearless leader, God Emperor tRump, bungled very badly handling the onset (providing PPD, quarantining, distancing – in fact calling it a Democratic Hoax at one point), did something anyone with a pulse would do in ordering ahead on vaccines, had a piss poor logistical plan for roll-out, and helped to convince his sheeple (including you), that it was no big deal – and so we have 750,000 deaths, a good number of which weren’t necessary – should have been avoided. His negligence, and your silence, are kissing cousins to depraved indifference – YET, you want to belly-ache about so-called Main Stream Media bias when the most biased news is on the most watched network (namely Fox) – yet you NEVER call that out. Again, projection seems to be your raison d’ etre. Nothing to see here, nothing new and as always, as disappointing as hell. You righties are tearing this country apart yet claim it is others who are doing so.

  5. What truly struck me was this bit:
    your fearless leader, God Emperor tRump

    Really? For someone who Mitch claims to know and I assume vice versa, this is quite the tell for someone not fully attached to reality.

  6. The E-boy invents a ridiculous strawman, then asks how he’s supposed to have a rational debate with someone who doesn’t get his information from the MSM.

    Not three hours later, P-diddy provides a real-life example of someone who gets his information from the MSM.

  7. jdm on November 26, 2021 at 2:52 pm said:
    ^ Drunk or mentally ill?
    Why not both?
    All political controversy pales in comparison with the insanity of today’s progressives. We are talking about people who believe that a woman can impregnate a man, if the woman screws the man at the right point in the man’s menstrual cycle.
    What do you expect from such people? Rational economic policy? A common sense approach to the public issues of the day?

  8. Kevin Roche on the nu variant:
    I am not going to spend much time on this nonsense. Every time a variant, or set of common mutations, in CV-19 arises we get this wailing and gnashing of teeth–its more infectious, its more deadly, it will evade the vaccines. Load of garbage, used by the media, which profits off terror and politicians who like their power and feeling like Big Daddy (or Mommy) protector. The research inevitably shows that it really wasn’t any more infectious, didn’t result in more serious disease and the vaccines work as well as they do for any other strain. So ignore the freak-out is my advice.
    https://healthy-skeptic.com/2021/11/26/meet-the-nu-variant-same-as-the-old-variant-we-wont-get-fooled-again/

  9. As to the Nu, er, Omnicron (anything-but-Xi) variant, the original official report from Botswana stated the variant was detected on four vaccinated travelers. Since the vaccination rates of southern Africa are in the teens and 20s, it’d be interesting to know who or from where these travelers come.

    Or if they even existed (updated versions of the report removed the vaccinated). I mean, the Kung flu has been little or no problem in Africa which has some of the lowest vaccination rates (and highest Ivermectin usage) in the world – along with the 200 million people in the Indian state of Utter Pradesh. Why would a virus mutate there?

    A new variant from the Dark Continent! Doesn’t this all seem just a little racist? Like intended add the scary-black-people-carrying-diseases angle to scare the livin’ bejeezus out of ignorant upper middle class white women? The one’s who’ve really gotten addicted to their daily terror.

  11. Confirmed cases of new coronavirus variant:
    – South Africa: 77
    – Botswana: 6
    – Hong Kong: 2
    – Israel: 1
    – Belgium: 1

    “South Africa’s health minister says, based on a small sample of Omicron cases, the majority of hospital patients are unvaccinated: “It indicates that the vaccines are providing protection”
    https://bnonews.com/index.php/2021/11/omicron-tracker/

    In SouthAfrica the issue is not vaccine supply. It’s uptake. The same issues we’re facing here with disinformation.

  13. With any luck the South Africans will beat the virus using the Aussie method — an economic lockdown causing a crushing depression, skyrocketing deaths due to murder, suicide, and drug overdose, and of course civil unrest.
    If it saves even one life . . .

  14. There are 100 people infected with the new Covid variant in all of Africa, none died. Nobody in the US is infected with it. Dr. Fauci says we don’t know enough about it to make policy decision. South Africa says it’s no big deal, the vaccines are working.

    In response, Lesko Brandon banned air travel from 8 majority-Black nations but it’s totally not a racist move, nothing at all like when Trump banned flights from China because US citizens were dying of Covid. And we’re emphatically not preparing to lock down the nation over Christmas to hide the looming economic disaster caused by Brandon’s policies.

    That clown Fauci doesn’t know what he’s talking about, we have to do this. This is Science.* This is totally about saving lives.** You’re not a Science-denier, are you?

    *political science
    **our political lives

  15. With any luck the South Africans will beat the virus using the Aussie method

    MP, errrrr…. all those consequences will only improve their conditions brought on by the overwhelming success of their soc!@l!st goobernments,

  17. Covid Panic —

    What happened to the Radon Gas Panic?

    How about the Gluten Will Kill You Panic?

  18. Been hunting pheasants and waterfowl in North Dakota with the kids last 10 days. Never turned on a teevee. Biggest story at the lodge was how the low water in the Missouri river was effecting the goose hunting…(we didn’t notice anything unusual).

    Driving back, we heard something about a black Supremacist mowing White grannies and kids down in Wisconsin recently, but all I can find in the MSM is a bunch of bullshit about a new bat flu mutation.

    Meh…I have zero fucks.

  19. Been hunting pheasants and waterfowl in North Dakota with the kids last 10 days. Never turned on a teevee. Biggest story at the lodge was how the low water in the Missouri river was effecting the goose hunting…(we didn’t notice anything unusual).

    Driving back, we heard something about a black Supremacist mowing White grannies and kids down in Wisconsin recently, but all I can find in the MSM is a bunch of bullshit about a new bat flu mutation.

    Meh…I have zero fucks.

  20. The problem of covid pales next to the problem of rogue SUV’s murdering Christmas celebrants.

  21. the vaccines work as well as they do for any other strain.

    Yeah, well when you’re dealing with leftists, “not at all” is as good as you’re ever gonna do.

    Our guide showed me how to make a whistle from a pheasant wing bone, last week. I made one for everyone…then we all whistled Dixie.

  22. Ahhh…The Epoch Times

    Now I understand why the leftist media don’t want to discuss the Christmas parade massacre…Wisconsin’s conservative GOP Senator wants everyone to STFU.

    “Outside parties may attempt to exploit the killings at a Christmas parade in Wisconsin” the two U.S. senators who represent the state said in a rare joint statement on Saturday”

    And no wonder why!

    “ A now-deleted Facebook account—”MathBoi Fly”—linked to Darrell Brooks, 39, suggested he made a post in June 2020 that “so when we start bakk knokkin white ppl [expletive] out ion wanna hear it.. the old while ppl 2 … KNOKK DEM [expletive] OUT!! PERIOD (sic).”

    Everything going to be 👌🏻 though. All we need to do is vote harder next year, and get a GOP “conservative” majority in congress. Game changer, boys.

    Now, where’s that damn whistle.

  24. chin twat —

    “Wisconsin’s conservative GOP Senator wants everyone to STFU”

    What is this comment based on?

  25. “Wisconsin Senators Say Outside Groups May Try to ‘Exploit’ Waukesha Parade Killings”

    “Outside parties may attempt to exploit the killings at a Christmas parade in Wisconsin, the two U.S. senators who represent the state said in a rare joint statement on Saturday.”

    “The exploitation would be for “political purposes,” Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said.”

    “As the U.S. Senators representing Wisconsin, one from each political party, we are asking anyone considering such action to cease and desist,” they said.”

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/wisconsin-senators-say-outside-groups-may-try-to-exploit-waukesha-parade-killings_4127005.html

    Vote real hard next year, Allen…it’s critical we elect strong, conservative leaders to keep us safe from reprobate leftists.

  28. Excuse me…rat Emery?

    DeSantis suggests you move your head to the side and stick your new bat flu variant in your ass.

    Florida Reports Lowest Daily COVID Cases Per Capita in the Country as Lockdown States See Rise in Infections
    Landon Mion| @landon_mion|Posted: Nov 27, 2021 1:35 PM

    And how’s those mandates going for you?

    Hospitals filling up as Michigan records highest COVID case rate in U.S.
    November 15, 2021 Robin Erb, Mike Wilkinson Michigan Health Watch

    lol

  30. From that Epoch Times article,
    “Their top priority is to begin the healing process within Waukesha by providing comfort and support to surviving family members of the deceased, and those injured both in body and spirit. They must also conduct a thorough investigation and afford the accused full due process. These will not be easy tasks, and will be made even more difficult if conducted within a politically charged atmosphere,”

    My gawd. Afford the accused full due process… Concern about a politically charged atmosphere. I don’t seem to recall anyone much concerned about these things when it was Rittenhouse.

    I can say that were it me and my family, our healing process would be much more productive if we knew that “the accused” was going to be punished as opposed to coddled – or set free. Oh, yeah, and there should be a special category of punishment for DA Chisholm.

    But no, Brooks will be out again in a few years and Chisholm will be re-elected.

  31. You’re not the only one to notice Johnson’s silence on Rittenhouse, jdm

    “We ask everyone to demonstrate their interest and concern by praying for the victims, their families, and the entire community of Waukesha,” they said.

    The senators did not issue a joint statement after the incidents and trial involving Kyle Rittenhouse and the city of Kenosha. ”

    https://www.bizpacreview.com/2021/11/28/gops-ron-johnson-joins-with-dem-senator-to-ask-not-to-exploit-waukesha-parade-attack-no-such-effort-on-kenosha-1168717/

    During Rittenhouse’s trial, he did say he didn’t think it was very nice for reprobates to threaten the judge and jury, though. He’s a real peach.

  32. I should also add that I know of no statements by Johnson that the healing process begin within Kenosha after Rittenhouse was declared not guilty. No admonitions about creating a politically charged atmosphere that might cause some people to do things.

  33. Here’s a thing:

    A public school district in Minnesota told a law firm representing concerned parents that it could cost upwards of $901,121.15 to complete a government records request, according to communications obtained by the Daily Caller.

    An attorney at Mohrman, Kaardal, & Erickson in Minneapolis sent a Government Data Practices Act Request to the interim superintendent at Rochester Public School District in Minnesota on Sept. 20. The request was made on behalf of “Equality in Education,” a concerned parents association.

    The request asked the Rochester Public School District to release information on the development of curriculum, conferences, or seminars for teachers and students related to “equity and social justice topics often referred to as Critical Race Theory.”

    Curious….we’ve been told (and told, and told) that CRT isn’t being taught in public schools…how much does it cost to print one empty sheet of paper?

    Say, rat Emery? You’re an expert on all things; what’s the deal here?

  36. OK, going to try to work with some actual knowledge here; if we have indeed only 100 cases of “Omicron” out there, statistically speaking, we have a “tail” and we know absolutely nothing about it, except for educated guesses about how well vaccines will work with them based on analysis of the RNA involved.

    And of course, our brilliant President is ticking off the governments of eight African nations by cutting off travel to and from these countries, based in bupkus for evidence.

  37. Yup! Pedo Joe is, again, proving what a racist he is. With his travel bans, he is discriminating against primarily black and brown people. You know, like he accused Trump of doing, back in March 2020.

  38. AllenS.
    I also wonder what happened to the fear porn, that was spread by doctors back in 2012, about overuse of antibacterial soaps could create superbugs. Funny! When Wuflu hit, many of these same doctors pushed using alcohol and other substances, which the low IQ lefties interpreted as antibacterial soaps, cleaners and wipes to defeat the virus. On another note, three of my customers have pointed out that OSHA regulations prohibit the use of alcohol based hand cleaners, due to the effect it has on human skin.

  40. I’ve worked in the insurance and health insurance industry for 26 years. Back in the day, when HIV/AIDS was going to be an unstoppable epidemic, there was great concern that “street people” receiving their HIV cocktails were not maintaining good discipline in following their treatment plan, and that this was giving the virus a chance to react to the drugs and mutate into a super-HIV virus.

    I did a Google search yesterday to see if there was any reporting about the COVID variants possibly emerging from the virus mutating in response to the vaccinations. The Google consensus appears to be, “N’uh, no way. Impossible. Go away now.”

  41. Hard to think of a more Bond-villainous name for a viral variant.

    ‘Minions—release Omicron!’

  42. Regarding the question of whether the “Xi” (OK, “Omicron”) variant could mutate in response to vaccination, we would have to assume that the virus would actually interact with the antibodies/etc., developed in response to the vaccine, no?

    My first thought is that ordinarily, mutations in virii are random, but then the Fauci “gain of function” research was indeed pulling various tricks to add features to virii, so I guess it’s not totally preposterous to wonder whether a virus might react to antibodies. I can’t see it with South Africa, with just a 36% complete vaccination rate so far, but it might be plausible. And scary.

  43. Bubba – wouldn’t a “breakthrough” reinfection of a vaccinated individual involve the virus interacting with the antibodies created by the vaccination? And, if the second exposure “wins”, would that mean that that virus would replicate itself with resistance to the antibodies? And then, since even double-vaxxed/boosted folks can transmit the virus to other vaccinated individuals, the vaccine-resistant version is passed on, bypassing the Maginot Line of the first vaccination?

  44. As I mentioned above, this (terrifying and extraordinary) version of (the same old) virus (that we should all panic over – or at least be chin-strokingly concerned about) was detected on four vaccinated travelers to Botswana.

  45. Here’s a nice chart for you guys to vent your spleen over (fling pooh, whinge.. etc..) I believe this is more than fair to share but not necessarily reproduce, so be careful you crazy kids. I first saw this chart in (Business) Insider. It makes it pretty clear where the bias lies in the media – and to be equally clear, the creator did so with a pretty clear intent to evaluate the media from a neutral position. Read her methodology, it’s certainly far close to fair than anything you’ve ever presented about your justifications/reasoning.

    Vanessa Otero Media Bias Chart

    https://adfontesmedia.com/interactive-media-bias-chart/

    Use this link to view this interactive chart: Otero’s Media Bias Chart 5.0 (beta)
    The chart was created by Vanessa Otero, a patent attorney, who delivered a webinar to librarians on Information Literacy. The license for usage of this chart in this LibGuide was granted in October 2018. Click on the chart below to go to an interactive and more recent version of Otero’s Media Bias Chart. On version 5.0 (beta) users can search individual newspaper titles to see where they fall on the spectrum of liberal or conservative, based on Otero’s/Ad Fontes Media’s evaluation system.

  46. Hey fancy chart genius: the AP (American Pravda), just wrote a story about inflation, and how so many Presidents have tried and failed to beat it. Guess who is not mentioned in the article: President Reagan, the man who beat inflation.

  47. NW, I’d been of the impression that “breakthrough” infections were actually where the antibodies (etc.) did not interact with the virus–that there was not sufficient commonality between the two for the antibodies to work.

    Paddyboy: yes, when I want to evaluate bias and reliability in media, I always make sure my data analysis is done by a patent attorney, and one thing I’d never do would be to disclose the assumptions made in creating the graph, or hire someone who’s actually trained in data analysis to do these things. And by no means is it indicative of the quality of Otero’s work that “Huffington Post” is (a) seen as moderate and (b) is about the highest rated for reliability.

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