Inside the Meltdown at CNN CEO Chris Licht felt he was on a mission to restore the networkâs reputation for serious journalism. How did it all go wrong?
One year into the job, Licht was losing both battles. Ratings, in decline since Trump left office, had dropped to new lows. Employee morale was even worse. A feeling of dread saturated the company. Licht had accepted the position with ambitions to rehabilitate the entire news industry, telling his peers that Trump had broken the mainstream media and that his goal was to do nothing less than âsave journalism.â But Licht had lost the confidence of his own newsroom. Because of this, he had come to view the prime-time event with Trump as the moment that would vindicate his pursuit of Republican viewers while proving to his employees that he possessed a revolutionary vision for their network and the broader news media.
It comes as no surprise that corporate media likes a good, wholesome war as much as the average American. It sells. Morally ambiguous wars, or worse, peace, do not sell. People lose interest. This NYT article is illustrative of so many articles in corporate media about Ukraine and war.
The real story here, other than corporate media being a megaphone for the Pentagon, is of one man trying to redeem his past acts of violence by committing future acts of violence in yet another proxy war of superpowers. It is a story of a culture of militarism and toxic masculinity perpetuating the idea that if we can just find a good, morally unambiguous war all will be well with our society.
The New Kremlinology: Reading the New York Times With censorship soaring and real reporting all but taboo, the major dailies have just one important function left: being a political signaling system.
Historically, the amount of news coverage devoted to foreign wars has been positively correlated with the direct involvement of the U.S. military. âNormal expectations are that wars are always more newsworthy in America when American lives are at risk,â according to Tyndall, who noted that the only war in the last several decades to which the networks devoted as much time in one month as last monthâs total coverage of Ukraine was in Kosovo in April 1999 (565 minutes) when U.S. aircraft led NATOâs bombing campaign against Serbia.
But the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began in late February, âhas overturned all normal patterns of journalistic response,â according to Tyndall. He gave most of the credit to the leadership and media savvy of President Volodymyr Zelensky who has largely controlled the narrative conveyed to Americans via the networks.
âIt is a demonstration of Zelenskyâs perceived newsworthiness that both ABC World News tonight and NBC Nightly News decided to assign their anchors to an extended interview with him, despite the fact that he would not be speaking English, meaning that the audio would consist of the stilted tones of a simultaneous translator,â Tyndall observed.
It also helped that âthe overall structure of the coverage has been Kyiv-based,â in part due to Russiaâs enactment of strict censorship coverage that, among other things, made it much more difficult to cover Moscowâs views. âYet, more unusual for the American news media, there has been precious little coverage from Washington,â Tyndall observed. âNormally in a war in which the United States is not involved, it would be the default position of the American news media to search for a fair-and-balanced way to present both sides of the conflict. It is to Zelenskyâs credit that, this time, the networks had no problem seeing the conflict from his point of view.â
(...)
The Ukraine coverage in March also crowded out the latest developments in the devastating humanitarian crises caused by Afghanistanâs collapsed economy and the ongoing wars in Yemen and Ethiopia.
âClinton campaign, Democratic Party to settle campaign finance inquiry for $113Kâ
The Hill. âHillary Clintonâs 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) have settled a campaign finance inquiry, agreeing to pay a collective $113,000 in fines that stemmed from the controversial dossier on then-candidate Donald Trumpâs ties to Russia, known as the Steele Dossier. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) fined the campaign $8,000 and the DNC $105,000 for failing to properly report money spent on research for the dossier. The financial penalties came to light in a letter the FEC sent to the Coolidge Reagan Foundation, a conservative group, after it filed a complaint. The FEC determined that Clintonâs campaign disclosed the $175,000 it spent on research for the dossier as âlegal services,â but the complainant alleged it was meant for âopposition research done by Fusion .â The funds went to Perkins Coie, the law firm that recruited opposition research group Fusion GPS, which brought on retired British spy Christopher Steele. The regulatory agency noted that political committees must disclose the purpose of expenditures or disbursements that are larger than $200.â ⢠What?! You mean everybody knew the Clinton campaign paid for the Steele Dossier all the time? Say itâs not so! (Money well spent, so far as Iâm concerned, considering the leverage the permanent Clinton campaign got from it.)
BY TYLER DURDEN WEDNESDAY, MAR 30, 2022 - 03:25 PM
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has fined both Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for lying about funding the Russian "dossier" which underpinned the collusion hoax that hijacked headlines throughout the Trump presidency, according to the Washington Examiner.
The Clinton-funded dossier was also used by the FBI to justify seeking a FISA surveillance (spy) warrant on the Trump campaign.
According to the FEC, Clinton and the DNC violated strict rules governing disclosure of expenditures on opposition research, when they paid opposition research firm Fusion GPS to contract with Steele and cook up propaganda against Trump.
A combined $1,024,407.97 was paid by the treasurers of the DNC and Clinton campaign to law firm Perkins Coie for Fusion GPSâs information, and the party and campaign hid the reason, claiming it was for legal services, not opposition research.
Instead, the DNCâs $849,407.97 and the Clinton campaignâs $175,000 covered Fusion GPSâs opposition research on the dossier, a basis for the so-called âRussia hoaxâ that dogged Trumpâs first term. -Washington Examiner
The dossier, which was assembled by former (?) UK spook Christopher Steele and used now-indicted Russian national Igor Danchenko as its primary source, made wide ranging and salacious allegations against former President Donald Trump, most of which have been debunked.
Somehow we doubt the 'election interference' crowd is going to pipe up over Clinton's meddling in the 2016 US election, using a dossier that undermined Trump's presidency every step of the way.
According to the FEC memo to the Coolidge Reagan Foundation - which filed a complaint over three years ago, Clinton's campaign and the DNC argued that they were simply paying for "legal advice and services," since it was Perkins Coie that actually hired Fusion GPS. The agency, however, says that the law is clear and was violated.
The fines themselves are minuscule - with Clinton's treasurer hit for $8,000 and the DNC's treasurer for $105,000.
The New York Times, a bastion of censorship and corruption, warns the world that âAmerica Has a Free Speech Problem.â
By Tony Lyons, President, Skyhorse Publishing
snip
Thatâs where we are in America today. There is no debate, no public discourse, and we have lost the ability to resolve conflict. We have separated the country into two Americaâs, at least partially because of the policies and practices of the New York Times.
The New York Post has pointed out that the New York Times âpublished lies to serve a biased narrative.â They accused the Times of âmalicious misreportingâ and cite a book called âThe Grey Lady Winkedâ by Ashley Rindsberg.
Rindsberg is quoted as calling the New York Times âa truth-producing machine.â He believes that the âfabrications and distortionsâ theyâve peddled since the 1920s were a system of twisting facts to manipulate public opinion about everything from âHitlerâs Germany and Stalinâs Russia to Vietnam and the Iraq War.â The âreportingâ is designed to âsupport a narrative aligned with the corporate whims, economic needs and political preferencesâ of the New York Times. He believes that they have consistently created âfalse narratives.â
The New York Post says the Times has the resources to do it: âWith close to $2 billion in annual revenue, the Times has the money, prestige, experience and stature to set the narratives that other news outlets invariably follow.â
anybody who's been following Elon musk for the past 10 or 15 years knows what a charlatan looks like and so this pandemic has got a variety of charlatans and charlatan behaviors.
Musk has in the past proclaimed that he and his companies are working on exciting products â but often, the proposed innovations aren't realized within the projected timeline.
PUBLISHED MON, MAR 28 2022 6:36 AM EDT UPDATED MON, MAR 28 2022 9:15 AM EDT
Sam Shead@SAM_L_SHEADWATCH LIVEKEY POINTS
The billionaire made the remark after claiming that Twitter doesn't allow for free speech.
"Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy," he wrote on Twitter. "What should be done?"
Musk has in the past proclaimed that he and his companies are working on exciting products â but often, the proposed innovations aren't realized within the projected timeline.
The Onion. âWhen The Onionâs editorial board convened to discuss the tumultuous events of the previous month, one conclusion became evident: The world stands at a crossroads. Two visions of our collective future stand before us: On one side is a free and enlightened society, dedicated to the principles of openness, tolerance, and debate; the other is built upon ignorance, fear, and the suppression of dissent. Today, the path forward could not be clearer. Simply put, we need mass censorship now.â
