Your source says a peak of 86%, Gallup got 90% but either way it was an overwhelming majority.
The media told all sorts of lies to justify the war in Iraq, more recently, the New York Times published a false story about Hamas committing mass rape, if you want to go further back they lied to get us into Vietnam, and in every case it takes time for the lies to be exposed and by the time they are, fewer people see the retractions and it’s usually too late to do anything about it anyway. Even when they aren’t lying, they’re using biased language and framing to push their agenda, and their agenda is, as I said, always pro-war, because war sells papers and if they’re hostile to the White House (especially with Trump in there) then they’ll get press passes revoked and won’t be privy to information they would otherwise receive. Never in my life have I seen widespread media condemnation of any military action (unless you count the withdrawal from Afghanistan), and I believe you’ll see the same thing if you look in the past, in conflicts like Vietnam. When Trump launched an unprovoked missile strike on Syria, during his first term, these people jumped over each other to praise him, to say that “that was the moment he became presidential,” even publications that had been very critical of him before.
None of the media people (just like none of the politicians) were ever held accountable in any way for lying the public into a war, which set a clear precedent that they can do so freely going forward. Worse yet, it’s often the very same people in similar positions of power. If you think that they’re trustworthy and not biased, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
The media told all sorts of lies to justify the war in Iraq
A lie is something they were aware was not true and published it anyhow. What sources do you have that the media was publishing stories it knew weren’t true about Iraq? What examples do you have?
more recently, the New York Times published a false story about Hamas committing mass rape
What story are you talking about, and what specific allegations do you think it got wrong?
if you want to go further back they lied to get us into Vietnam
You’re saying the media knowingly made up stories because they wanted to trick the US into going to war in Vietnam? What specific examples do you have of that? Again, if this is your claim, it isn’t enough to show that they got some reports wrong. It’s not even enough to show that they printed some things that in hindsight they should have known were wrong. Your bar is to prove that they knew ahead of time that they were publishing things they knew were untrue and did it for the express purpose of trying to get the US into war in Vietnam.
Do you think they’re so incompetent as to leave evidence laying around that they had advance knowledge? I wonder, if that’s the bar you set for US media, do you also set the bar there for, say, Chinese media? If Chinese state media publishes something that’s untrue, would you dispute someone calling it a lie if you didn’t have access to some official document openly confessing to advance knowledge? Even if such records did exist, it’s not as if I, a private citizen, could get a warrant to raid their offices for it. You’re setting the standard unreasonably high, you’re just trying to shut down reasonable skepticism and legitimate criticism in favor of blind trust. I mean, what kind of idiot would write down “I know this story is false but I want you to publish it anyway,” and then leave it lying around where someone could find it, when there’s absolutely no reason to?
Here is an Intercept article about the fake news story published by the NYT to justify Israeli aggression in Gaza.
You’re saying the media knowingly made up stories because they wanted to trick the US into going to war in Vietnam? What specific examples do you have of that?
That’s not what I said at all. The US government wanted to go to war with Vietnam, the media simply wanted to win favor with the government and sell papers.
Were you aware that, in the aftermath of the Kent State Massacre, the vast majority of Americans placed more blame on the students for getting shot than on the National Guard for shooting them? Were you aware that, leading up to the shooting, there were all kinds of fake news stories on TV about how, for example, the protesters were putting LSD into the water supply? Stories that they conveniently retracted, after the moment had passed and the chance for a backlash was gone?
Anyway, the fact that they lie frequently isn’t even the main point. The main currency of propaganda is not lies, it’s emphasis. Biased framing and leading language are perfectly capable of shaping public opinion towards their agenda. Historical events that would justify or explain hostile actions of other countries are very rarely deemed relevant, and the same with internal politics that might show that only certain factions supported it. Our own crimes and acts of aggression are downplayed or ignored, so that when the other side retaliates, it seems to come out of nowhere.
For example, the 1953 coup in Iran, which was conducted by the CIA and successfully covered up for decades, demonstrates that even if Iran had a peaceful, democratic government, it would still likely be subject to US aggression so long as they tried to assert control over their own oil. The breakdown of relations in the 1979 revolution occurred when the revolutionaries took hostages at the US embassy, but what provoked that action was the US granting refuge to the deposed shah - the very same man who they had previously installed as a dictator in 1953. I think both of those events are very important to understanding US-Iranian relations, but you won’t hear the news mention them, the hostage crisis is always presented as this unprovoked act of aggression.
This is just basic media literacy, really. You should always be skeptical and aware of bias and conflicts of interests with anything you read. Unfortunately, there’s a tendency some people have to put certain sources on a pedestal as if critical thinking and skepticism isn’t necessary when reading them.
I don’t know, but it definitely seems like it. OTOH, it seems like journalists really care about the truth and bend over backwards to fact check things.
So, are you admitting you can’t actually find a single lie told by the press?
So, are you admitting you can’t actually find a single lie told by Vladimir Putin?
Where are you getting this, “seems like” he lies and “seems like” journalists care about truth and fact checking? Exactly the same number of “lies” have been produced for each in this conversation. I mean, I did link to a fake news story from the NYT but that doesn’t count because I didn’t break into their offices and find a signed confession.
You set an impossibly high standard for proof in the one case, but “seems like” is enough in the other, you’re operating off pure vibes, or more accurately, your own bias and preconceptions, with zero critical thought.
But sure, I stand corrected, they didn’t “lie” in those cases (since basically nobody ever lies, by your absurd standard), they just published blatant falsehoods at just the right time to advance their interests, then suddenly realized their “mistakes” as soon as what they wanted to happen happened.
Jesus loves me The media is reliable, this I know, for the Bible media tells me so. Blind faith rivaling any Bible-thumper.
I have. I just can’t meet an impossible standard of evidence that you’re obviously selectively applying in order to exclude evidence that you want to pretend doesn’t exist.
I see what you’re saying here: if the media prints lies from a government it’s not the media lying, it’s the government. If Israel says Hamas beheaded 40 babies and that’s found out to be a lie, it wasn’t the media lying about Hamas beheading 40 babies and so the media is entirely innocent of printing the lies fed to it by a government like Israel.
Here’s the thing: if a government lies all the fucking time and the media keeps printing what the government claims anyway, then that makes them complicit in spreading the government’s lies. We all know Israel’s government spreads lies, so printing the lies it spread about Hamas is just doing the government’s work for them. The media doesn’t get to wash its hands of the things it prints just because it puts “Israel says” before the headline.
I see what you’re saying here: if the media prints lies from a government it’s not the media lying, it’s the government
If the government manages to fool the media, yeah. If the government says to the media “the truth is X, but we’re going to pretend that it’s Y, so you print Y, ok?” and then the media goes along with it, then you can blame the media. In many cases, the media isn’t able to fact check the things the government tells them. But, relaying what the government is saying is still important. Similarly, even though the media can’t independently fact check the numbers that the Gaza Health Ministry reports, it’s still valuable to have those numbers released too.
If the media is lazy about their fact checking you can call them lazy, but you can’t call them liars, because lying requires knowing the truth and intentionally saying something untrue.
Here’s the thing: if a government lies all the fucking time and the media keeps printing what the government claims anyway, then that makes them complicit in spreading the government’s lies.
If the government says “the truth is X” and then the media says “X is true” then sure, you’re right. But, if the media says “the government said that the truth is X”, then it’s up to readers / viewers to understand that the media isn’t endorsing what the government said as being true, the media is simply telling you what was said.
The media doesn’t get to wash its hands of the things it prints just because it puts “Israel says” before the headline.
Why should it need to wash its hands? That is exactly what Israel said. Because Israel has a complete ban on reporters in Gaza, for example, there’s no way to corroborate or refute what Israel said. It’s newsworthy to repeat what Israel said, but you can’t blame the media when someone reads that and assumes that the government is telling the truth. As you said yourself, the government lies all the time, so why would you assume that “the government said X happened” means that “X happened”.
Because Israel has a complete ban on reporters in Gaza, for example, there’s no way to corroborate or refute what Israel said. It’s newsworthy to repeat what Israel said, but you can’t blame the media when someone reads that and assumes that the government is telling the truth
If there’s no way to corroborate or refute what Israel said, don’t print what Israel said. Lies aren’t newsworthy, except as a way to report on the lies themselves for the purpose of debunking them.
Remember when Israel first started bombing hospitals and blamed Islamic Jihad for it? They still don’t claim responsibility for Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, but after a year of targeting hospitals and doctors it’s ridiculous to deny it at this point.
Yet there were few retractions or corrections. As far as CNN and The Guardian are concerned, Israel didn’t bomb that hospital. What a joke.
As you said yourself, the government lies all the time, so why would you assume that “the government said X happened” means that “X happened”.
I don’t think people make that assumption anymore, but that’s because people stopped trusting the media. They published and promoted so many government lies that they’ve destroyed their own credibility.
People expect the media to investigate government claims and to publish the truth, not just parrot the lies they’re fed. When the media doesn’t do that, when all the major news outlets become court stenographers, people lose faith in the media.
Maybe people are expecting too much, but that’s what people have been taught to expect. They were taught that journalists find the truth and report on it. They’re finding out that journalists basically just print what their sources say and they can’t just trust things because they’re in the news anymore.
If there’s no way to corroborate or refute what Israel said, don’t print what Israel said.
Why? What they said is newsworthy.
“Israel bombed this building”
“Why?”
“Dunno, didn’t ask.”
Even if you don’t believe the answer, getting an answer is still newsworthy. Everyone should be aware that it’s not necessarily the truth, but it’s newsworthy as the justification they’re using. If it comes out later that the building was an orphanage, you can’t use that to challenge the government’s justification that it was a command and control center if you never got them on the record saying they bombed it because it was a command and control center.
Your source says a peak of 86%, Gallup got 90% but either way it was an overwhelming majority.
The media told all sorts of lies to justify the war in Iraq, more recently, the New York Times published a false story about Hamas committing mass rape, if you want to go further back they lied to get us into Vietnam, and in every case it takes time for the lies to be exposed and by the time they are, fewer people see the retractions and it’s usually too late to do anything about it anyway. Even when they aren’t lying, they’re using biased language and framing to push their agenda, and their agenda is, as I said, always pro-war, because war sells papers and if they’re hostile to the White House (especially with Trump in there) then they’ll get press passes revoked and won’t be privy to information they would otherwise receive. Never in my life have I seen widespread media condemnation of any military action (unless you count the withdrawal from Afghanistan), and I believe you’ll see the same thing if you look in the past, in conflicts like Vietnam. When Trump launched an unprovoked missile strike on Syria, during his first term, these people jumped over each other to praise him, to say that “that was the moment he became presidential,” even publications that had been very critical of him before.
None of the media people (just like none of the politicians) were ever held accountable in any way for lying the public into a war, which set a clear precedent that they can do so freely going forward. Worse yet, it’s often the very same people in similar positions of power. If you think that they’re trustworthy and not biased, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
A lie is something they were aware was not true and published it anyhow. What sources do you have that the media was publishing stories it knew weren’t true about Iraq? What examples do you have?
What story are you talking about, and what specific allegations do you think it got wrong?
You’re saying the media knowingly made up stories because they wanted to trick the US into going to war in Vietnam? What specific examples do you have of that? Again, if this is your claim, it isn’t enough to show that they got some reports wrong. It’s not even enough to show that they printed some things that in hindsight they should have known were wrong. Your bar is to prove that they knew ahead of time that they were publishing things they knew were untrue and did it for the express purpose of trying to get the US into war in Vietnam.
Do you think they’re so incompetent as to leave evidence laying around that they had advance knowledge? I wonder, if that’s the bar you set for US media, do you also set the bar there for, say, Chinese media? If Chinese state media publishes something that’s untrue, would you dispute someone calling it a lie if you didn’t have access to some official document openly confessing to advance knowledge? Even if such records did exist, it’s not as if I, a private citizen, could get a warrant to raid their offices for it. You’re setting the standard unreasonably high, you’re just trying to shut down reasonable skepticism and legitimate criticism in favor of blind trust. I mean, what kind of idiot would write down “I know this story is false but I want you to publish it anyway,” and then leave it lying around where someone could find it, when there’s absolutely no reason to?
Here is an Intercept article about the fake news story published by the NYT to justify Israeli aggression in Gaza.
That’s not what I said at all. The US government wanted to go to war with Vietnam, the media simply wanted to win favor with the government and sell papers.
Were you aware that, in the aftermath of the Kent State Massacre, the vast majority of Americans placed more blame on the students for getting shot than on the National Guard for shooting them? Were you aware that, leading up to the shooting, there were all kinds of fake news stories on TV about how, for example, the protesters were putting LSD into the water supply? Stories that they conveniently retracted, after the moment had passed and the chance for a backlash was gone?
Anyway, the fact that they lie frequently isn’t even the main point. The main currency of propaganda is not lies, it’s emphasis. Biased framing and leading language are perfectly capable of shaping public opinion towards their agenda. Historical events that would justify or explain hostile actions of other countries are very rarely deemed relevant, and the same with internal politics that might show that only certain factions supported it. Our own crimes and acts of aggression are downplayed or ignored, so that when the other side retaliates, it seems to come out of nowhere.
For example, the 1953 coup in Iran, which was conducted by the CIA and successfully covered up for decades, demonstrates that even if Iran had a peaceful, democratic government, it would still likely be subject to US aggression so long as they tried to assert control over their own oil. The breakdown of relations in the 1979 revolution occurred when the revolutionaries took hostages at the US embassy, but what provoked that action was the US granting refuge to the deposed shah - the very same man who they had previously installed as a dictator in 1953. I think both of those events are very important to understanding US-Iranian relations, but you won’t hear the news mention them, the hostage crisis is always presented as this unprovoked act of aggression.
This is just basic media literacy, really. You should always be skeptical and aware of bias and conflicts of interests with anything you read. Unfortunately, there’s a tendency some people have to put certain sources on a pedestal as if critical thinking and skepticism isn’t necessary when reading them.
I’m still waiting for a single example of a lie. It’s a very simple request, and if you can’t find one, you claim that the media lies is wrong.
Ridiculous double standard. Has Putin ever lied, once in his life? Yes or no please, and be prepared to meet your own standard of evidence.
I don’t know, but it definitely seems like it. OTOH, it seems like journalists really care about the truth and bend over backwards to fact check things.
So, are you admitting you can’t actually find a single lie told by the press?
So, are you admitting you can’t actually find a single lie told by Vladimir Putin?
Where are you getting this, “seems like” he lies and “seems like” journalists care about truth and fact checking? Exactly the same number of “lies” have been produced for each in this conversation. I mean, I did link to a fake news story from the NYT but that doesn’t count because I didn’t break into their offices and find a signed confession.
You set an impossibly high standard for proof in the one case, but “seems like” is enough in the other, you’re operating off pure vibes, or more accurately, your own bias and preconceptions, with zero critical thought.
But sure, I stand corrected, they didn’t “lie” in those cases (since basically nobody ever lies, by your absurd standard), they just published blatant falsehoods at just the right time to advance their interests, then suddenly realized their “mistakes” as soon as what they wanted to happen happened.
Jesus loves meThe media is reliable, this I know, for theBiblemedia tells me so. Blind faith rivaling any Bible-thumper.I never made any claims about Putin. You, however, did make claims about the media. Back up your claims.
I have. I just can’t meet an impossible standard of evidence that you’re obviously selectively applying in order to exclude evidence that you want to pretend doesn’t exist.
I see what you’re saying here: if the media prints lies from a government it’s not the media lying, it’s the government. If Israel says Hamas beheaded 40 babies and that’s found out to be a lie, it wasn’t the media lying about Hamas beheading 40 babies and so the media is entirely innocent of printing the lies fed to it by a government like Israel.
Here’s the thing: if a government lies all the fucking time and the media keeps printing what the government claims anyway, then that makes them complicit in spreading the government’s lies. We all know Israel’s government spreads lies, so printing the lies it spread about Hamas is just doing the government’s work for them. The media doesn’t get to wash its hands of the things it prints just because it puts “Israel says” before the headline.
If the government manages to fool the media, yeah. If the government says to the media “the truth is X, but we’re going to pretend that it’s Y, so you print Y, ok?” and then the media goes along with it, then you can blame the media. In many cases, the media isn’t able to fact check the things the government tells them. But, relaying what the government is saying is still important. Similarly, even though the media can’t independently fact check the numbers that the Gaza Health Ministry reports, it’s still valuable to have those numbers released too.
If the media is lazy about their fact checking you can call them lazy, but you can’t call them liars, because lying requires knowing the truth and intentionally saying something untrue.
If the government says “the truth is X” and then the media says “X is true” then sure, you’re right. But, if the media says “the government said that the truth is X”, then it’s up to readers / viewers to understand that the media isn’t endorsing what the government said as being true, the media is simply telling you what was said.
Why should it need to wash its hands? That is exactly what Israel said. Because Israel has a complete ban on reporters in Gaza, for example, there’s no way to corroborate or refute what Israel said. It’s newsworthy to repeat what Israel said, but you can’t blame the media when someone reads that and assumes that the government is telling the truth. As you said yourself, the government lies all the time, so why would you assume that “the government said X happened” means that “X happened”.
If there’s no way to corroborate or refute what Israel said, don’t print what Israel said. Lies aren’t newsworthy, except as a way to report on the lies themselves for the purpose of debunking them.
Remember when Israel first started bombing hospitals and blamed Islamic Jihad for it? They still don’t claim responsibility for Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, but after a year of targeting hospitals and doctors it’s ridiculous to deny it at this point.
Yet there were few retractions or corrections. As far as CNN and The Guardian are concerned, Israel didn’t bomb that hospital. What a joke.
I don’t think people make that assumption anymore, but that’s because people stopped trusting the media. They published and promoted so many government lies that they’ve destroyed their own credibility.
People expect the media to investigate government claims and to publish the truth, not just parrot the lies they’re fed. When the media doesn’t do that, when all the major news outlets become court stenographers, people lose faith in the media.
Maybe people are expecting too much, but that’s what people have been taught to expect. They were taught that journalists find the truth and report on it. They’re finding out that journalists basically just print what their sources say and they can’t just trust things because they’re in the news anymore.
And it’s going to get worse forever.
Why? What they said is newsworthy.
“Israel bombed this building”
“Why?”
“Dunno, didn’t ask.”
Even if you don’t believe the answer, getting an answer is still newsworthy. Everyone should be aware that it’s not necessarily the truth, but it’s newsworthy as the justification they’re using. If it comes out later that the building was an orphanage, you can’t use that to challenge the government’s justification that it was a command and control center if you never got them on the record saying they bombed it because it was a command and control center.
They don’t report Russia’s claims this way. They don’t report Iran’s claims this way.
And people can see it, which is why they don’t trust the media anymore.