Propaganda has reached its zenith when each member of the target population thinks the same; when they are afraid to think differently. At this point ‘leadership’ may commit whatever atrocities it sees fit…in the certainty that the population will either not ‘see’ it, or will view the expression of criticism as a more heinous crime than the act being observed. This is achieved through cementing a ‘false equivalence’ in the mind of the group. Such a false equivalence is being cemented in the UK right now – the idea that criticism of Israel’s persecution of Palestinians is an act of anti-Semitism.

The propagandist seeks to bend the ‘group mind’. Thoughts and actions consistent with the ‘narrative’ are deemed to be socially acceptable & politically correct…ones that challenge it are regarded as socially UN-acceptable & politically IN-correct. Overtime this is reinforced through a dynamic that exists within every human grouping, and many species of mammal – fear of disapproval. Ergo, the propagandist is employing a form of ‘crowd control’.

When the fear of disapproval becomes so strong that one’s sense of belonging, or even physical survival, depend on adherence to the narrative…when failure to comply with it attracts immediate rebuke from other members of the group…then the population can be said to be policing itself. That is how ‘cults’ function, and more frequently than you might imagine…it’s how intelligence agencies and other governmental figures attempt to work through the media.

 

Read more:

https://off-guardian.org/2018/08/13/the-goal-of-propaganda-is-a-populati...

 

It goes without saying that press bashing, Trump-style, is alarming. His critiques rarely point to genuine inaccuracies in the press. Instead, his method is to dismiss any news that impedes his agenda or disparages him as fake and dishonest. With demagogic bluster, he routinely deploys “enemies of the people” rhetoric against journalists, which some say has inspired physical threats against journalists. Early this month, he tweeted that reporters are “dangerous & sick” and accused them of causing war (!) and purposely causing “great division & distrust.” Early in his presidency, Trump said, “I’ve never seen more dishonest media than, frankly, the political media.”

Most journalists agree that there’s a great need for Trump rebuttals. I’ve written my share. But this Globe-sponsored coordinated editorial response is sure to backfire: It will provide Trump with circumstantial evidence of the existence of a national press cabal that has been convened solely to oppose him. When the editorials roll off the press on Thursday, all singing from the same script, Trump will reap enough fresh material to whale on the media for at least a month. His forthcoming speeches almost write themselves: By colluding against me, the fake media proved once and for all, that they are in cahoots with the Democrats and have declared themselves to be my true political opposition … 

The Globe’s anti-Trump project is also an exercise in redundancy, not to mention self-stroking. Most newspapers have already published a multitude of editorials and columns rebuking the president for his trash-talking of the press. Most major editorial boards opposed Trump’s election, according to this tally by Business Insider. The largest of the 19 newspapers to endorse Trump was the Las Vegas Review-Journal, owned by one of his faithful donors, Sheldon Adelson. More than 240 endorsed Hillary Clinton. Editorial-page sentiment against Trump remains largely unchanged since the election, making the call for a collective reprimand all the more pointless.

Another problem with a nationally coordinated pro-press catechism is that the audience likely to reap the greatest benefit from the haranguing—Trump and many in his base—tends not to read newspapers in the first place. While there’s always value in preaching to the choir—that’s why churches hold services every Sunday—the combined weight of 200 pro-press editorials is not likely to move the opinion needle or deter Trump from defaming and threatening reporters.

Most newspaper editorials are already a watered-down product of groupthink. It’s unlikely that expanding the size of the group and encouraging everybody to bake and serve a tuna-fish casserole on the same day will produce editorials that are more interesting and persuasive than the normal fare. 

But maybe I’m wrong. If a single day of pro-press editorials is a good idea for a collective assignment, then maybe newspapers should set aside next Saturday for 200 editorials on tariffs and next Sunday for 200 editorials on global warming and next Monday for 200 editorials on Afghanistan. Surely these issues are as compelling and urgent as press freedom.

Read more:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/08/14/americas-newspapers-just-played-right-into-trumps-hands

 

The only media that is playing the trumpet for Trump is... the Murdoch media which in a sweep can counterbalance all the "liberal" press that got their noses out of joint when Hillary got dumped...

Aside from writing this doubtful column, I am, as some may well know, dealing with an undoubtedly left-leaning weekly, which is called "Friday," but is released on Thursday.

Enigmatic world of the media!. Now the other day I received a message from a reader, in which she told us her decision to cancel her subscription.

As you know, the printed word has a hard time. Everyone says the internet is to blame - it is great, but it also destroys. Structural change to media means that this happens.

Many a printed words have a hard time. Then perhaps it is not just the structural change that is to blame. The "taz", for example, is so bad that she thinks about stopping paperwork on weekdays. Of which we are at "Friday" - still? - far away. But Abokündigungen unfortunately also occur with us.

The reasoning of the reader, however, is her own. You can learn something about journalism, democracy and civil society.

The reader first praised us for our work, but then wrote:

"Nevertheless, on Friday, many contributions leave me helpless and with a feeling of powerlessness, which paralyzes me and makes me hopeless.

 

For what can I do, for example, when I read about the political conditions in South America? Nothing. But it still makes me sad.

In order to protect my energy and zest for life, I have decided to focus on radical media abstinence and focus solely on my actual life and its improvement for me and all those I am dealing with.

 

If you wanted to provide good quality journalism for people like me, you would have to publish a paper that only reports on positive things and encourages imitation and activation. "

The positive? One of course comes to mind with Erich Kästner, who wrote in 1930:

"And again and again you send me letters in which you, underlined thick, write:

'Mr Kästner, where is the positive?'

 

Read more:

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/brief-an-eine-leserin-gefuehl-...

 

For your informoj:

 

Emil Erich Kästner (German: [ˈʔeːʁɪç ˈkɛstnɐ]; 23 February 1899 – 29 July 1974) was a German author, poet, screenwriter and satirist, known primarily for his humorous, socially astute poems ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Kästner

 

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By Ken Livingstone — an English politician, he served as the Mayor of London between 2000 and 2008. He is also a former MP and a former member of the Labour Party.

Today it seems like we are in another Cold War. It was breathtaking to watch our PM Theresa May immediately blaming Russia for the poisoning of the Skripals before the police had conducted their investigation into the evidence. 

Growing up after the Second World War our news was dominated by the threat from the Soviet Union, but when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991 I don’t think anyone could have guessed that just over two decades later we would be once again talking about the threat from Russia. Anyone who only gets their news from the British or American media is kept in ignorance of the truth; the endless accusations about the Skirpal poisoning or the conflict over Crimea is presented in a completely biased way in which most of the facts are ignored. But there is nothing new about this: dishonest reporting and lies dominated the whole of the Cold War in the days of the Soviet Union.

Although President John Kennedy in the United States started out with quite a right-wing agenda with one of his 1960 election promises being to close the missile gap with the Soviet Union, he rapidly changed and began to throw the weight of his administration behind the struggle to end racism in America’s deep south. Also, if he hadn’t been assassinated, he was planning to withdraw American troops from Vietnam if he had been re-elected in 1964 because he realized a full-scale war in Vietnam would be a disaster.

What changed his politics so much were his conflicts with the military. He had only been president a few days before they got him to continue with the planned invasion of Cuba by a small band of Cuban dissidents. The military told him that the invasion would lead to an uprising and the overthrow of Fidel Castro so America would not need to provide any air support for the invasion of the Bay of Pigs. But no sooner had the rebels landed, than the Pentagon was insisting that Kennedy agree to American air strikes on Cuba. Kennedy realized he had been lied to and refused. I would love to be able to go back in time and tell him that Castro’s regime would outlast the reign of twelve US presidents, eight of whom, including Kennedy, authorized assassination attempts on Castro, all of which failed.

Kennedy had already been shocked to discover that his campaign pledge to close the missile gap with Russia was nonsense. At his first military briefing he was told that the Soviet Union had four nuclear missiles capable of landing in the USA whereas the USA had three hundred and fifty capable of obliterating the Soviet Union.

It says a lot about the way we are lied to by governments that a man who had been a senator for eight years and was on the verge of becoming president was as completely ignorant about the truth of America’s nuclear superiority as were all the rest of us. Kennedy’s predecessor, Republican President Eisenhower, had tried to warn the American people about the growth of the power of the military industrial complex in his final television address before his presidency ended but nothing has changed and if anything it has become more powerful over the American government today than it was then when half the federal government’s budget was being spent on the military. Given that President Eisenhower had been the most senior military official in America before he became president, his warning is quite remarkable.

The lies about Russia’s military predominance are being echoed again today over issues like the Crimea. I have never seen anything in the British media that reports the fact that over ninety percent of the people living in the Crimea are Russian. Nor have I ever seen it reported in the media that the Crimea was never a part of Ukraine until 1954 when the Soviet Union’s then leader Nikita Khrushchev switched the boundaries to include the Crimea inside Ukraine. He might be that he did this simply because he was himself born and brought up in the Ukraine but there have always been rumours that he was very drunk when he took the decision but I’ve never seen that reported in the British media.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/436390-media-bias-lies-livingstone/

Page six of the New York Post (a Mr Murdoch media toilet influencer) has some doozies... Actually I think they're more funny than Amy Schumer. These pseudo-stars are actually so good at using their self-importance in a dead pan delivery of inane vacuousness that a director with an empty couch in HIS office should sign them up straight away for their next blockbusters:

 

https://pagesix.com/video/the-best-lover-is-a-dildo-gg-from-shahs-of-sunset/

 

https://pagesix.com/video/cocos-fans-are-obsessed-with-her-feet/

 

CNN White House reporter and infamous activist Jim Acosta admitted that he is not neutral in his reporting, arguing that reporters shouldn’t be neutral during President Donald Trump’s time in office.

Acosta made the recommendation in his new book “A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth in America,” according to the Guardian, which obtained a copy ahead of its June 11 release.

Acosta admitted that he is guilty of “grandstanding” and “showboating” while reporting, noting that he “opts for the bait” when asking questions during Trump press conferences.

He then references how some people say he is biased against the president by confirming their concerns.“Neutrality for the sake of neutrality doesn’t really serve us in the age of Trump,” he wrote.

Acosta also repeated the lie that he did not assault a female White House intern last year even though video footage clearly showed him hitting her arm. She was trying to take a microphone away after he refused to stop asking Trump questions, bucking press protocol.

Acosta often makes statements that are opinions. In this case, he said that a migrant caravan violently crossing borders on its way to the United States “was not an invasion” while claiming that the migrants would not climb over barriers to enter the country. Just weeks later, migrants tore down parts of the barrier separating the U.S. and Mexico while trying to storm the border.

 

Read more:

https://news.ntd.com/cnns-jim-acosta-says-reporters-shouldnt-be-neutral-in-the-age-of-trump_336094.html?

 

On what planet Jim Acosta is living? The media has never been "neutral". Never ever. Full stop. The media is absent on many issues, including the case of ASSANGE (presently losing health — KILLING EINSTEIN...), apart from reporting what MI6, the CIA and the Pentagon want. Most of the "liberal" media under Obama was in lurv with the guy while he was committing as many crimes as the previous President, but less blatantly. The only media that has been consistently biased like hell on a hot day has been the Murdoch media. Hates liberal politics. Loves CONservatives. Here in Australia, in the UK and in the USA and is slowly making inroads against Soros in Europe. The problem with Soros and the "liberal" media is that it contains a sweet hypocrisy at the core of news and actions, because they don't want to "alienate the bourgeois" with socialism bells. At least, with the Murdoch media, one knows where the smelly shit is coming from. 

 

 

Read from top.

 

Note: 

New Tang Dynasty Television (NTD, Chinese: 新唐人電視臺) is a television broadcaster based in New York City with correspondents in over 70 cities worldwide. The station was founded in 2001 by Falun Gong practitioners as a Chinese-language broadcaster[1], but has since expanded its language offerings. The company retains a focus on China in its news broadcasts, and frequently covers topics that are censored in Mainland China, such as human rights. Its self-proclaimed mission is to "promote uncensored information on China; to restore and promote traditional Chinese culture; and to facilitate mutual understanding between the East and West".[2]Since 2012, NTD has supported China Uncensored, a YouTube channel that carries criticism of the Chinese Communist Party.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Tang_Dynasty_Television

A Le Monde journalist has refused to reveal her sources during an interrogation by French domestic intelligence over stories she wrote exposing alleged corruption and cronyism in President Emmanuel Macron’s inner circle.

“They asked me many questions on the manner in which I checked my information, which was an indirect way of asking me about my sources,” Ariane Chemin told AFP, adding that she declined to answer the implied question: “I explained that I only did my job as a journalist.”

Chemin was questioned by the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI) for 45 minutes on Wednesday in the presence of her lawyer, a week after she became the fifth journalist summoned to appear before the agency in what has become a disturbing new pattern of journalistic intimidation by Macron’s government.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/460603-journalist-protects-sources-benalla-dgsi/

 

 

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A researcher based in Germany was suspended from Twitter on the same day he published an article exposing the troubling connections of more than a dozen journalists to Antifa. There was no official explanation for the ban.

On Wednesday, the journal Quillette published a lengthy article by the Stuttgart-based researcher Eoin Lenihan, mapping a network of connections between fifteen Twitter-verified journalists and “Antifa” activists they covered – often approvingly and unquestioningly.

Within hours, however, Lenihan’s Twitter account was gone. The company gave no reason for the suspension. Quillette editor Andy Ngo speculated that he was mass-reported by Antifa activists trying to suppress the results of his research.

Lenihan and his research partner analyzed almost 60,000 accounts associated with Antifa and found fifteen “verified national-level journalists” covering the movement in such a fashion that they mainly downplayed Antifa violence while advancing the activists’ talking points:

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/460596-twitter-antifa-journalist-lenihan-ban/

 

Read from top.

 

Quillette (/kwɪˈlɛt/) is an online magazine founded by Australian writer Claire Lehmann. The publication has a primary focus on science, technology, news, culture, and politics.

...

In an interview with Psychology Today, Quillette founder Claire Lehmann said the magazine provides "an alternative to the blank slate view... very common in left-leaning media."[13] Bari Weiss has called Claire Lehmann a member of the Intellectual dark web.[14][15]

In 2016 Jerry Coyne compared it to the longer-established site Slate, "but more serious, more intellectual, and without any Regressive Leftism".[16] In an article for The Outline, writer Gaby Del Valle classifies Quillette as "libertarian-leaning", "academia-focused" and "a hub for reactionary thought."[17] In the Seattle newspaper, The Stranger, Katie Herzog writes that it has won praise "from both Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins" adding that "most of the contributors are academics but the site reads more like a well researched opinion section than an academic journal."[18][19][20] In an opinion piece for USA Today, columnist Cathy Young describes Quillette as "libertarian-leaning".[7] Articles in Vice and PJ Media describe Quillette as a libertarian publication.[21][22]

Writing for The Guardian, Jason Wilson describes Quillette as "a website obsessed with the alleged war on free speech on campus".[23] Writing for The Washington Post, Aaron Hanlon describes Quillette as a "magazine obsessed with the evils of 'critical theory' and postmodernism".[24] Writing for New York's column The Daily Intelligencer Andrew Sullivan describes Quillette as "refreshingly heterodox".[25] In a piece for Slate, Daniel Engber suggested that while some of its output was "excellent and interesting", the average Quillette story "is dogmatic, repetitious, and a bore". He wrote that it describes "even modest harms inflicted via groupthink—e.g., dropped theater projects, flagging book sales, condemnatory tweets—as 'serious adversity'", arguing that various authors in Quillette engage in the same victim mentality that they attempt to criticize.[16]

 

Read more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quillette

 

Note: Gus guesses that the name Quillette is a derivative of Quillet, a French encyclopaedia that has been popular for its scientific in depth accuracy...