The current controversy is different. Many people in Washington are irate over Wikileaks — not because the email were untrue but because they proved what many had long suspected . . . that Washington is a highly corrupt place full of truly despicable people. For people who make their living on controlling media and information, it was akin to the barbarians breaching the walls of Rome. So the answer is to call for government regulation to combat what will be declared “fake” news or propaganda. It is only the latest effort to convince people to surrender their rights and actually embrace censorship.
– From Jonathan Turley’s: Washington Post Issues Correction To “Fake News” Story
Watching Hillary Clinton attack “fake news” and calling for legislative action against free speech she doesn’t like got me thinking. Why is she doing this? Yes, it’s obviously related to her notorious personality trait of never taking responsibility for anything and attaching herself to an invented controversy in order to deflect blame for her monumentally embarrassing loss to Donald Trump. But there’s more going on here. A lot more.
To set the stage, we need to examine the types of people who are most jumping on the “fake news” meme. What you’ll find is that it’s a who’s who of the most contemptible and corrupt people in America. As Glenn Greenwald so accurately noted in his piece published earlier today:
Those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.
But the problem here goes way beyond mere hypocrisy. Complaints about Fake News are typically accompanied by calls for “solutions” that involve censorship and suppression, either by the government or tech giants such as Facebook. But until there is a clear definition of “Fake News,” and until it’s recognized that Fake News is being aggressively spread by the very people most loudly complaining about it, the dangers posed by these solutions will be at least as great as the problem itself.
Just in case you think the above is an exaggeration, is there an individual in America more distrusted and more widely viewed as a compulsive liar than Hillary Clinton? The list of her outright lies is nearly endless (see: Video of the Day – Watch Hillary Clinton Lie for 13 Minutes Straight). Not only that, but Hillary Clinton was more than happy to promote obvious fake news stories one week before the election. Here’s the most egregious example:
Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank. pic.twitter.com/8f8n9xMzUU
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) November 1, 2016
This was fake news, but somehow I doubt Hillary will be looking for Congress to take her to task for legitimizing and spreading it.
Then there’s the downright comical example of Brian Williams. You know, the NBC anchor who literally lost his job for promoting fake news about himself (see: NBC’s Brian Williams is Forced to Admit His Tale of Being on a Downed Helicopter in Iraq Was Pure Fantasy). Now he is one of the “esteemed pundits” railing against the terror of fake news. You can’t make this stuff up.
The Hill reports:
MSNBC anchor Brian Williams, who lost his job with NBC’s nightly news for exaggerating details of his time reporting in Iraq, slammed President-elect Donald Trump and members of his transition team for spreading fake news throughout the election.
Pure comedy, but let’s get serious. At this point, I want to direct your attention to what is perhaps the most astute commentary on the fabricated “fake news” push to date. The following was the concluding paragraph to Jonathan Turley’s, Washington Post Issues Correction To “Fake News” Story:
The current controversy is different. Many people in Washington are irate over Wikileaks — not because the email were untrue but because they proved what many had long suspected . . . that Washington is a highly corrupt place full of truly despicable people. For people who make their living on controlling media and information, it was akin to the barbarians breaching the walls of Rome. So the answer is to call for government regulation to combat what will be declared “fake” news or propaganda. It is only the latest effort to convince people to surrender their rights and actually embrace censorship.
This perfectly describes what is going on at the most macro level, and reminded me exactly of what Wall Street did in the aftermath of its destruction of the U.S. economy during the financial crisis. Faced with a potential loss of their fortunes, jobs and reputations, Wall Street invented a meme that the industry needed to be bailed out without consequences in order to “save Main Street.” This was one of the most brazen, yet successful examples of propaganda I have witnessed in my entire life.
Wall Street got exactly what it wanted and then some. It proceeded to pay out record bonuses the very next year (2010) and not a single executive was held accountable or went to jail. Free market capitalism was completely suspended in order to save some of the wealthiest and most privileged people in America. They used the levers of the state to save themselves and preserve this key segment of status quo power.
Fast forward eight years, and we witness yet another spectacular status quo failure. Due to its clownish and completely inaccurate coverage of the 2016 election, the mainstream media and the pundit class generally completely torched its reputation. As a result, alternative, independent media is eating their lunch. Rather than accept the consequences of this historic failure, legacy media has decided to take a page from the Wall Street playbook. They are asking for a government bailout. However, this bailout is far more dangerous than the one which preceded it.
While the Wall Street bailout consisted of showering financial criminals with infinite sums of money until they were once again masters of the universe, the media is asking for a bailout via censorship. Yes, that’s right. Hillary Clinton and other status quo fake news peddlers are actively asking for Congressional action in order to silence their competition. This isn’t just about protecting the status quo narrative for the sake of maintaining a transparently false manufactured reality. It’s equally about preserving the status, wealth, reputation and careers of individuals whose failures should have landed them on the street, unemployed for their almost incomprehensible and well documented incompetence. Just like we continue to suffer from incompetent criminal elites on Wall Street, the media now wants to build a similar government-sponsored wall around itself. Such an outcome would be an unmitigated disaster for this nation.
Instead, what we actually need in this country (and what I expect to happen) was perfectly articulated in a recent article by Nathan J. Robinson in his must read article in Current Affairs titled, The Necessity of Credibility. He writes:
Yet it is telling that after the election, the people who were most wrong during the campaign are still producing voluminous commentary. No outlet that wanted to regain trust and build audiences would be keeping such people on its staff. But “pundit tenure” is powerful. Thus is also likely that the quest for credible media will necessitate the creation of new media. CNN and The Washington Post have never shown a particularly encouraging capacity for introspection and self-improvement, and it’s unlikely that they’re contemplating major internal overhauls in their mission and accountability practices. Their institutional imperatives consist, after all, largely of seeking views and clicks. For them, the 2016 election was a success rather than a failure. A lot of people, after all, tuned in. Why should they do things any differently? Thus it would be useful to have fresh, truly independent outlets, ones that disclose their biases, are transparent in their methods, and are constantly trying to improve themselves rather than simply pursuing the same useless sensationalism and empty horse-race punditry.
The last thing this country needs is another bailout of establishment crooks.
For related articles, see:
‘Then We Will Fight in the Shade’ – A Guide to Winning the Media Wars
Obama Enters the Media Wars – Why His Recent Attack on Free Speech is So Dangerous and Radical
Hillary Clinton Enters the Media Wars
Liberty Blitzkrieg Included on Washington Post Highlighted Hit List of “Russian Propaganda” Websites
Additional Thoughts on “Fake News,” The Washington Post, and the Absence of Real Journalism
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In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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What one should do if the government shutdown the internet and true media like yourself, Zero Hedge, Keiser Report, Breitbart, Drudge Report and others? Do you have any alternative to post your articles?
The solution to the media problem is quite simple. We hold the media to a higher standard than the person on the street. The entire block of “media” should have to report all aspects of an issue and then, if they want to “editorialize”, printed editorials must be separated from the base article and identified as such. Ditto for the internet, radio & TV. magazines and newspapers Then, there obviously would be persons or agencies, “keeping score” on how well each media source performs and they all should be listed on the internet, with their “score” posted at least weekly, with say six different ratings as to how many “gigs” each agency earned. with the perfect score being “triple-A”. “Intentional” misquotes, exaggerations and omissions should be given a greater penalty than an understandable “mistake”, which should require an published apology. Also, the simple word, “Civil” should be added to our First Amendment, It is obvious that our forefathers, the writers of our Constitution (and the Federalist Papers? intended for all government discourse be presented in a civil manner, with no profanity, obnoxious nicknames and gutter talk. There are many people whose upbringing includes such gutter talk, but on any governmental issue, including political issues, should “keep it civil. The country is now infested with paid “trolls” (by NWO groups and other power groups, who post to most every political issue, using profanity, obnoxious nicknames and gutter talk, just to take the civil citizen’s focus off of the issues under discussion. Then, we have many citizens who don’t realize that problem and join in with the NWO types in a one-on-one, off-subject response and unwittingly support the NWO groups agenda. And, by the way, a citizen does not have free reign to use just any language they want. A person can get fined and jail time for shouting “fire” in a crowded theater and if a person uses profanity, obnoxious nicknames in a court room they too can get fined and a short time in the “slammer”. A good rule of thumb is, “if you would not “say it” to your spouse, mother, grandparents or a judge, have the good sense not to say it in public or on the internet, for the whole world to see low class or uncivilized you are
It’s all about removing the rights of the people. Remove free speech. Remove truthful web sites with censorship. Impose nonsensical hate speech laws which censor free speech. You don’t believe the details of the holocaust – off to jail you go. You don’t believe global warming – off you go. It goes on and on and on. These criminals running the gov and media should be arrested for the lying traitors they are. They are anti-American and traitors to this country.
Michael,
Fine, I get it: you hate the Clintons especially Hillary. Fine, I don’t care, in fact I blame their campaign for losing more than I blame Trump for winning. But you are about to see presidential lying that puts Reagan & GW to shame. News media as well, your quote of Nathan J. Robinson
kinda says it all. BTW I’m a longtime nakedcapitalism.com reader and was disgusted to find that Yves Smith’s criticisms of Hillary put that site on the blacklist. Hoped you would post to here propornot.org counter factual but I guess right wing beats all… Take care –
Criticizing Hillary does not mean one is “right wing”. There are lots of very good reasons to criticize Hillary from all sorts of different perspectives. And if you’d read more of the articles at this site you’d have seen no affection for Trump either.
This was one of the frustrating things about the Naked Capitalism site which I actually like very much. The commenters tend to accept the false dichotomy of blue team versus red.
Here’s the deal. This person named Hillary Clinton exhibits behavior that very closely resembles what is called Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD). She absolutely knows she’s lying, she knows she’s creating chaos, she knows she’s using scapegoats and pointing the finger elsewhere. She knows, but she just does NOT care. That’s why she can so coldly say things like “we came, we saw, he died”, and “at this point, what difference does it make”. Her insiders know she is ill and they are what are called enablers. Having any disease, no matter what it is, does NOT excuse criminal behavior. Being an enabler does NOT excuse complicit and conspiratory behavior. I am not a physician, but I am a Gerontologist, a person who studies the aging process and addresses specifically the health care needs of people as they age. Anyone working in Memory Care or Assisted Living can recognizes the behavior of Hillary as resembling FTD. FTD is one of those dementias that Health Care Professionals find to be very taxing. We find FTD to be frustrating, stressful and exhausting. Please do an internet search of FTD and you will find that a blow to the head, (concussion) from a fall for instance, strokes and/or TIA (mini-strokes) are just a small sample of precursors to FTD. For Hillary’s protection, someone in her family needs to reel her in. If Hillary can be diagnosed with FTD or has already been diagnosed with FTD, at the very least, those close to Hillary are doing a huge disservice to her and her legacy by not taking proper care of her.
Mike, if you haven’t you should check out Michael Tracey’s twitter feed. He’s been pushing for pundit accountability in light of the abject failure of the great majority of them this election year and the complete lack of subsequent repercussions for being so wrong.
Thank you, and yes, I follow Michael Tracey. His Twitter feed is excellent.
STATE SEN. NANCY SCHAEFER EXPOSED CPS STEALING KIDS, WHEN ABOUT TO NAME NAMES, SHE WAS MURDERED
The obvious silver lining in this entire “fake news” charade is that the blowback is going to eventually be huge.
But what concerns me is they (establishment MSM and their political allies) have to know that the blowback will be huge. So they’re making it as ridiculously transparent and amateurish as possible for a reason.
What is the reason?
I’ve got a bad feeling on this one.
Heretical!
To clarify – Anglo-Saxon grip on “news” world-wide has been challenged and their masters of real fake news are looking for protection. Firstly, what is MSM? There is MSM (local) in every country (oh, I know you are EXCEPTIONALLY surprised by this). CNN/BBC/FOX do have global reach but anyone thinking that people outside Anglo-Saxon world (or what you call “international community” out of pure arrogance, ignorance and lack of geographical knowledge) rely on these sources is poorly informed. As far as controlling “social media” is concerned – it is easy to start likes of Facebook etc. outside countries that are also known as the “five eyes”. Dear “five eyes” you are just a part of the world – and shrinking one for that matter. Good luck with your “freedom” you so successfully pretended to have for decades.
I first became aware about a decade ago, how the people who speak out against perceived wrongs or injustices, where so often guilty of those same things. Or worse. It is imperative that all of us look deeply into their motivations. It’s like in this day and age the little boy who says ‘the king has no clothes’ is buck naked himself.