Essay by Eric Worrall
Prime Minister Trudeau’s follow up to distressing media images of police horses trampling old ladies appears to be a Communist Chinese style social credit system for news reporters, presumably to discourage publication of stories which embarrass the government.
Of course, Trudeau is not alone in doing this. Biden has also raised the introduction of incentives which provide government assistance to media outlets which produce content which his regulators approve.
Biden’s tax breaks for local media an effort to turn them into ‘versions of leftist NPR or PBS,’ critic says
Published November 15
The tax break allows eligible local media organizations to take a credit of up to $25,000 per journalist they employ
President Biden is proposing to give a major tax break to local media outlets as part of the $1.85 trillion reconciliation being considered by Congress.
The tax break would allow eligible local media organizations, including newspapers, digital news websites and television stations to receive a tax credit of $25,000 per journalist they employ, and $15,000 for the following four years. The tax break can be claimed for up to 1,500 journalists.
…
Read more: https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/biden-media-tax-breaks
In my opinion a funded social credit system for journalists is a dangerous attack on free speech and independent journalism, a consolidation of the preeminence of the government point of view on mass media, just a short step from outright government ownership of media outlets – defacto control without explicitly restricting free speech.
Obviously this unfortunate development is not directly related to climate change. But I wonder how many media outlets which play the game and accept the subsidies would risk their government handouts by giving airtime to climate skeptics, or to anyone who has a story to tell which politicians would not like? Paying someone’s mortgage is a powerful incentive to toe the line, to the detriment of everyone other than the political sponsors of these reprehensible media control schemes.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
The first amendment has to be worked-around, the ADL types hate it. Europe was much easier to control because they don’t have such a definititve clause in their legal systems.
So they will just make it all npr. Got it.
Well this situation is just going to get worse in Canada. The Fake news propagandists are already starting to shape the narrative and stories they are running about the Leadership candidate of the Conservative Party Pierre Poilievre. These articles are calling Pierre a populist and a right wing fringe supporter. Pierre is been labeled a threat to Democracy and the end of a Democratic society. This is while the Trudeau government is pushing Hate Speech laws that are censorship and other laws dealing with “Misinformation” where if the Liberal party line is questioned it is called misinformation to actually report the truth.
Funny these same bastions of truth the Paid off fake News propagandists have ignored the Justin Trudeau’s divorce to Sofie and his taking up with an “Aid” during the trips to Argentina and Africa. Even when there is video of Justin walking hand in hand on the Tofino BC. beach with this “Aid” the Fake news ignore the facts in this case. During Trudeau’s two trips these “News people were on the same plane watching the interaction and nothig was ever said.
It would be sweet justice to see Sophie run against her EX husband in their riding. She could maybe drag him down enough that a true Conservative candidate could win in the riding of Papineau, Montreal. That would be an excellent way of getting rid of him. I would imagine she hates him at least as much as all the other regular Canadiens hate his guts.
Aide. Just sayin’.
Here in the US, Democrats have started proclaiming that a Republican victory in November would spell the end of democracy in the US.
Funny how democrats never mention the US Constitution guarantees every state a republican form of government.
The female on the beach is exactly Trudeau’s wife, Sophie’s height and hair color…we don’t see her face but a number of people were there and half of Canada are not JT fans. So likely your source is questionable, Boris. But votes and payouts are the man’s M.O.
Dems have done this for decades with PSA budgets for the favored media. They are just more overt about it now like a lot of other radical steps by the proglibs running Joe.
They’re not “tax credits.” They’re not “incentives.”
They’re the citizen’s money used to collude against the citizen’s interest.
blackmail comes to mind
As I understand it this an element of Biden’s Build Back Better plan that failed mainly due to Joe Manchin (D) voting against it (for different reasons). It is nothing but “plain old mafia style influence buying” … Al Capone would be pleased. A a topic for Waats Up With That climate blog ?
Meanwhile here in NZ Justin’s bestie Jacinda has been onto this for some time. A grant funding programme to the media ostensibly to help through COVID has a range of conditions, including most controversial “must actively promote the principles of Partnership, Participation and Active Protection under Te Tiriti o Waitangi.”
Now whether of not the Treaty (between Queen Victoria and the Maori tribes) creates a Partnership is a hot political issue going to the heart of our constitutional arrangements. Jacinda’s government with no electoral mandate is introducing co-governance between the Maori tribes and the Crown into a raft of institutions and resource management.
Take a grant and you must actively promote this.
Just another creep in “The Long March Through The Institutions”.
I refer to Justin as “Baby Doc Trudeau”.
Let’s flip a coin:
Heads, the head photo is a young Mussolini
Tails, the head photo is Adolf before he grew a mustache.
Should the coin land on its edge, it’s an image of Obama in whiteface.
We’ve all seen what Trudeau does to those with “unacceptable views.”
Is this like Rodney Dangerfield paying of the ref in Caddyshack?
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=rodney+dangerfield+keep+it+fair+gif&qpvt=rodney+dangerfield+keep+it+fair+gif&view=detail&mid=A1603A0094E335589D4BA1603A0094E335589D4B&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Drodney%2520dangerfield%2520keep%2520it%2520fair%2520gif%26qpvt%3Drodney%2520dangerfield%2520keep%2520it%2520fair%2520gif%26FORM%3DVDVVXX
Not only Trudeau and Biden, but to my knowledge the PM of NZ, Adhern, has been running such a scheme with New Zealand’s media and achieved complete compliance her mandates!
I wonder who the IRS will deem “eligible”.
Perhaps this is just my ignorance but the Chinese social credit system seems to be a means to punish individuals who think, talk, or behave contrary to the central controller’s wishes. This proposed tax credit is a reward, not a punishment, and there is no mention of any attached strings.
People might assume media that receives this gift would be so thankful that they would bias their reporting in favor of the provider of the gift, perhaps very strongly, but without some enforcement mechanism that is pure speculation. This is not to say that I think a special tax credit is a good idea, only that the gist of this article doesn’t make sense to me.
The strings will be there. Press releases NEVER mention the trap contained in any program, but it is always there.
This proposed tax credit is a reward, not a punishment, and there is no mention of any attached strings.
The “reward” would only be issued to those who promote the desired agenda, and the invisible string attached is that if you fail to cooperate, you are “redefined” so as to no longer qualify.
What percentage of the eligible journalists are actively left of center?
What percentage are actively right of center?
How much money would be going to left leaning journalists & how much would be going to right leaning journalists?
Why should there be a program with a built in bias?
This is a prima facies violation of the First Amendment. Period, full stop.
It’s vaguely reminiscent of the behaviour of the Catholic church attempting to regain control of theological discussion. It simply won’t do them any good. The reason the old mainstream media is dying, is because it is no longer interesting, and, it is no longer interesting because it is just the mouthpiece of old style politicians like True dough.
It is the same idiocy of trying to bring back top hat and tails, by subsidising their use. It will just make them even more unfashionable and even less attractive. And, the same is true of the politicians who are behind it. They cannot be successful by trying to force people to like them, by buying “likes” in old main stream media.
As for the papers that go along with it … it’s economic suicide. If they cannot find the readers to fund the journalists they have, the economic reality is that there are too many journalists. So, what is True dough doing? He is artificially inflating the number of journalists by government handouts beyond the level which the market can sustain. And, rather than make the media more in tune with the readers … True Dough is making them dance to his tune and taking them away from their customer base. It’s financial suicide. Almost certainly True Dough will get booted out, the press that supported him, will then get the cold shoulder from the new administration, their funding will be axed, their readers will have left them, and far more of them will close than necessary if they had followed a free market model.
Never forget this crap:
“Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau schools reporter on quantum computing during press conference”https://youtu.be/Eak_ogYMprk