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American journalism is officially dead. "Reporters" are now activists, overtly biased.


               
2021 Apr 10, 10:02pm   161,069 views  1,462 comments

by Patrick   follow (59)  

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-cbs-scandal-you-may-have-missed-because-of-the-60-minutes-hit-job-on-ron-desantis/ar-BB1ftBVU

The CBS scandal you may have missed because of the 60 Minutes hit job on Ron DeSantis

The news network has published an article advising major companies on ways to "fight" Republican-backed voting laws. The report’s original headline read, “3 ways companies can help fight Georgia's restrictive new voting law.” Naturally, the story itself contains several tips on how businesses can protest Georgia-style legislation.

This is not journalism. This is political advocacy, and it’s all done in service of a traditional beneficiary of the press’s ethical lapses.

Imagine, for a moment, if one of the three major networks published a story advising businesses on how to “fight” ultra-permissive abortion laws. It’d be unthinkable. Yet, here, is CBS doing exactly that sort of politicking, but for bills such as the one passed recently in Georgia.

Perhaps realizing it had strayed headfirst into political advocacy, CBS amended the report’s headline eventually, softening its tone into something decidedly less partisan.

The headline as it appears online now reads, “Activists are calling on big companies to challenge new voting laws. Here's what they're asking for.”

In a way, this is actually worse than the original. At least in the original, CBS had the guts to declare its allegiance outright. The amended version chooses instead to hide behind “activists” to push an obvious political position.

As for the report itself, it remains unchanged. It still outlines various ways in which businesses can “fight” voting laws championed by Republican legislatures. It is still just as partisan as the day it first published.

“Do not donate," the report recommends. "Activists said companies should immediately stop making donations to Barry Fleming and Michael Dugan, the Georgia Republicans who co-sponsored the voting changes."

It continues, naming and shaming major businesses such as Delta and Home Depot for donating to Fleming and Dugan.

"Ending political donations is one of the most immediately impactful steps a company can take to sway lawmakers," the article reads.

The article also says companies can help fight Georgia-style voting laws by producing ads that "help stamp out efforts nationwide to pass voting laws similar to Georgia's," including in Arizona and Texas.

"Activists say it isn't enough for companies to issue tepid public statements in defense of voting rights," the CBS report reads. "Instead, companies should launch television and social media ads that oppose efforts in Georgia, Arizona, Texas and other states considering voter restrictions."

Companies, the story continues, can also support the coercive monstrosity known as the “For the People Act."

"If passed,” the CBS report reads, “the act would create same-day and online voter registration nationwide. It would also require states to overhaul their registration systems. The act seeks to expand absentee voting, limit the states' ability to remove people from voter rolls, increase federal funds for election security and reform the redistricting process.”

Though the CBS article is several days old, you likely missed it amid the network’s other major ethical lapse, when it promoted the lie that Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis rewarded a grocery chain with an “exclusive” deal to distribute coronavirus vaccines as part of a “pay for play” scheme involving political contributions.

If you missed all of this voting law boycott business when it happened, you can be forgiven. After all, CBS’s “report” on DeSantis is possibly the worst political hit job since Dan Rather went on-air with forgeries of former President George W. Bush's National Guard service record.

It’s obviously not a great situation when one media scandal is obscured by a concurrent scandal and all by the same newsroom. If there are adults still left at CBS, now would be a good time to take back control.


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1457   Patrick   2025 Dec 12, 11:36am  

https://www.kunstler.com/p/can-anyone-believe-anything


Do the managers of The New York Times actually still believe the Russia Collusion story they were awarded a Pulitzer for, or their 1619 Project Woke-rewrite of US history? Or their mulish defense of the Covid vaccines. Or their florid esteem for the leadership of “Joe Biden.” Or are they simply ruled by blind Trump derangement? (Or do they receive instructions from nefarious others about how to report and opine on things?)
1458   Ceffer   2025 Dec 13, 11:14am  

Anybody who musters a following will have Intels nibbling at their heels offering money for infiltrations. Everybody who gets their faces in the klieg lights adopts an editorial position sooner or later.

1462   Patrick   2025 Dec 26, 8:47am  

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/ranked-optimism-monday-december-26


For most of my life, nasty progressive reporters have hidden behind an effective framing game called “How Do You Respond.” At press events, they’ll “gotcha” a conservative official by asking a sincere-sounding question like this: “how do you respond to critics who complain your policy stinks like room-temperature French cheese— and kills children?”

It is the laziest reporting imaginable. It’s a fake way to pretend to be unbiased. The reporters aren’t actually quoting critics. They are just making stuff up, fishing for an awkward soundbite, leaving officials fumbling to answer, since they’ve always been forced to be “professional” and treat the reporters’ fake question as if it were perfectly fair and appropriate and not based on a lie.

But this year, Trump officials began pushing back. Now, whenever a reporter starts a question with “how do you respond to critics who say…”, Trump’s officials jump right down the reporter’s throat. They immediately ask, “What critics?” Without waiting for an answer, they demand, “who is saying that?” It is wonderful. The moron reporters are left with an unsolvable riddle. They can either answer, “AOC and Bernie say that,” which will draw a guffaw from everyone in the room. Or, humiliated, they can mumble something illegible and move on, which is what they usually do.

The Times tried to mount a lame defense. It did actually round up a bunch of complaining critics, all of them inherently biased. For instance, the article quoted the president of “Americans United for Separation of Church and State,” an atheist NGO; a VP from a libertarian think tank; and a ‘religion and culture professor’ at a Canadian university. Okay.

The gist of the critics’ complaint seemed to be that federal officials’ mere recognition of the holiday’s religious basis somehow amounted to “establishing a state religion.” Okay again, Scrooges.

This fracas, if you can call it that, evidences the real motive behind the effort to secularize Christmas. It’s never been about being “inclusive.” It is intended to erode the undeniably Christian religious roots of the most popular American holiday of all. Without a secular version of the holiday, how can critics deny the fact that Christmas has always been a national religious holiday— from the first time George Washington slipped on a new pair of military boots?

The bottom line is that a courageous, muscular Christianity is back at the helm. This is not new. It has only returned to active duty.

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