Opinion by Kip Hansen – 15 July 2022
The latest NY Times/Sienna College poll shows that we are not alone. We, most the authors and readers here at WUWT, are in line with a large majority of Americans who believe that mainstream media organizations do not accurately and fairly report about news and politics.
This failed journalism also applies to their reporting about Climate Science, Climate Change and all other controversial science topics: Covid, monkeypox, health, space exploration and technology.
The New York Times fails to report about the poll results that find ubiquitous lack of trust in the media (and, yes, the NY Times is one of the media organizations that a majority-by-a-large-margin of the public does not trust). The results of the poll are somewhat more honestly reported, albeit below the fold, in the press release from Sienna College:
“By Two-to-One, Voters Have Little or No Confidence in the Accuracy or Fairness of Mainstream Media
Only 34% of voters say they are confident (6% very confident) in mainstream media organizations to accurately and fairly report about news and politics, while 65% are not too confident (23%) or not at all confident (42%).
“While Democrats are confident in mainstream media to accurately and fairly report the news, 59-40%, 68% of independents and a whopping 86% of Republicans have little or no confidence in the mainstream media,” Levy said. “While half of voters over 65 have confidence in mainstream media’s ability to report the news, only 22% of those under 30 have confidence.” [ source ]
Only 6% of voters (they did not survey children or non-voters) are very confident that Mainstream Media (MSM) reports honestly or fairly. And only 1/3rd of voters have any confidence at all in the media’s ability to report the news.
A whopping 65% lack confidence in the MSM – and justifiably so.
While both the question and the offered answers in this instance – media confidence — are straightforward and not obviously biased, but that is not always the case.
The reporting of poll support exposes that even Sienna College and the NY Times both twist and spin the poll results to match their progressive biases.
The Sienna College Press Release on the poll shows the bias of the college’s pollsters. Reporting selected results that match MSM headlines above the fold on their press release web page. For instance:
“Similarly, Democrats and independents overwhelmingly believe that Supreme Court decisions are based more on the justices’ political views rather than the constitution and law, while Republicans by a smaller 54-39% margin say decisions are based more on the constitution,” Levy said. “A majority of voters from every region, gender, age group, race and education level says that Court decisions are based more on political views.”
And why would the public believe this? Because the MSM tells them it is so over and over — labeling each Supreme Court justice by the political party of the president that appointed them, referring to some as the “six Republican justices”. If the MSM was been reporting honestly and without bias, they would report on the judicial views of the justices: conservative, originalist, literalist, judicial activist, progressive, etc. Instead of doing journalism, the American MSM (both sides of the conservative/progressive divide) politicize almost everything along two-party lines supporting one party over the other in alignment with the politics of their news outlet’s owners.
What does the MSM tell us are the most urgent problems of the world today? The problems that should guide our every thought and action? The most urgent problems that everyone is focusing on today? That every news story is or should be about, at least in part? What is every other headline screaming about? These topics appear above the fold in almost every newspaper (or televised news report) almost every day:
Climate Change,
Corona Virus Pandemic
and
Abortion Rights
How do American voters see these issues? [ full poll questions and results pdf ]:
Q15. What do you think is the MOST important problem facing the country today?
The economy (including jobs, stock market) 20%
Inflation and the cost of living 15%
The state of Democracy/Political division 11%
Gun policies 10%
Abortion/Women’s Rights 5%
…..
Climate Change 1%
Supreme Court 1%
Coronavirus 0%
As in all sorts of polls and questionnaires, it is just as important to know the questions and the choices of answer offered as it is to know the results. For instance, in the Supreme Court question “judicial view” was not a choice, only “Constitution and Law” or “Political views of justices” which the MSM then translates/twists into “political party” of the justices: a twisted and spun version of the already biased question/answers pair.
The irony of this situation is that not only don’t/can’t we trust the mainstream media to report honestly and fairly, we can’t trust the pollsters that have found out that we don’t trust the MSM either. The pollsters too have biases and political agendas of their own.
Bottom Line:
1. If you don’t trust the Mainstream Media to tell the truth you are in the majority and, contrary to what you are generally being told by those mainstream media outlets, you are not minority outliers. In my opinion, you are perfectly justified in that belief.
2. If you see poll numbers, always (as in every single time) search out the exact questions asked and the exact answers offered the poll-takers. Never ever (as in not one single time) accept a news report about a poll at face value. Journalists [sic] seldom follow this rule and thus misreport results according to their outlet’s Editorial Narrative (see here and here).
3. The mainstream media is the most prolific source of mis- and dis-information in the United States. In the U.S., this is often intentional, as most MSM outlets are propaganda machines marching to orders from their owners (and those who own those owners). This is probably even more true in other countries.
Read More – Read Widely – Read Critically
# # # # #
Author’s Comment: (Warning: this turns out to be longer than the main essay).
And Question Everything (including this essay)!
Psychological Reactance is a positive quality that helps people avoid being influenced by propaganda. [ source: Brehm J. W. (1966). A theory of psychological reactance.] Various psychologists view it as something to be overcome, as was claimed in the paper discussed recently here at WUWT: “Claim: Republicans Need to See Evidence of Climate Change Harms”. But, I believe it is A Feature; Not a Bug.
It is my hope that the resistance to acceptance of the MSM reports and the lack of confidence in the MSM as reliable news sources is based on a rising sense of the unreality of most MSM reports about almost everything.
Commenters can leave examples of things claimed in MSM headlines that could only be believed by people living in a fantasy world.
Unfortunately, the NYT/Sienna poll shows that propaganda-by-repetition works in the real world – see the portion of their report on the Jan 6 riot, which reports that “By Small Margins: Capitol Riots were Attempt to Overthrow Govt. & Trump Committed Serious Crimes”. The Progressive MSM repeats this endlessly and televises one-sided political theater (Congressional Hearings) to reinforce this Big Lie.
Big Lie? Yes and apparently the lie was made-up by people who have never actually witnessed or been present at a real armed coup or attempted governmental overthrow.
I have been in-country for two attempts to overthrow a national government (one successful, one failure). In one case, I watched the rebel commanders gathered around a table with their maps directing troops via walkie-talkie. Luckily, I was an invited guest and was watching the winning side – and despite a couple dicey moments, lived to tell the tale.
In the other, the ship I was working on had a vague connection with the coup leaders and we had to slip our moorings during the midnight watch and slip out of port on the tide with all lights blacked-out until we were twenty miles off-shore. My wife was ashore at the time, and had to evacuate herself by chicken-bus and illegal ferry.
My advice, do not be in a country when there is a real coup or real rebellion. Hint: It will not look like a street protest that has run away with itself and people won’t be wearing funny costumes.
# # # # #
Most people must believe at least most of what they read and hear in the mainstream media, or they would not be the mainstream media.
You read the New York Times.
You must pay for it.
You see nothing wrong with that.
But I do.
You’re correct, Richard. I went to the New York Times website and saw you now must pay $0.25 (25 cents) per week to read via internet. If “you get what you pay for” you’re getting the trash that Kip is talking about.
Richard ==> We have had this conversation before, but I actually follow my own advice:
Read More – Read Widely – Read Critically
I would add, read only those that don’t charge you money to read their opinions, and don’t block you from access because you have an ad blocker running!
I subscribe, as in pay for, one subscription, The Epoch Times. I got a smoking deal on the sub. It is one of the few I consider worth paying for I have no problem unblocking my ad blocker if the site requests it and I’m there because they offer something I want to read and I value their content. It’s how many of the small outlets survive and pay the bills. If it’s one of the MSM garbage sites and I’m there just to read their latest outrage passing as journalism, I move on.
I subscribed for years to the WSJ until they hired a Louis Story (Storey?) from the NYTs and put her in charge of their comment sections. She destroyed the experience with rampant censorship, delayed postings etc. while letting obnoxious, egregious trolls run amuck. At that time, they had an extremely knowledgeable reader base and no matter how awful the story, it would soon be set straight by the commenters. I learned a great deal from the commenters and a great deal from learning what stories the WSJ would choose to publish that were false and/or misleading which is, also, of value.
I cancelled my subscription due to Story and what I saw as a decline in serious journalism and their publishing of false/fake/slanted news.
ie : New York Post
The New York Times won a Pulitzer for their Russia Collusion stories. What does that say about the Pulitzer or the times?
Government sources are government sources.
-Read Critically
About as much as it says about the Nobel Peace Prize.
Retired ==> Ah, but they got the Literature Prize right when they gave it to Bob Dylan!
Derg => Pulitzer has lost its shine — awards prizes for fake news now.
The same thing was done by the Pulitzer when they handed the New York Times and Walter Duranty the Pulitzer in the 1930s. The NYTs says they’ve tried to give that Pulitzer back but the Pulitzer Committee refuses to take it. Not sure how that works but it speaks poorly for the Pulitzer.
Schultenberger, owner of the NYTs and a Jew, also knew full well about the Holocaust but refused to allow his reporters to cover it, neither the US nor the world knew about what was going on until 1944.
How The New York Times Contributed To Ukraine’s ‘Bitter Harvest’ In the 1930shttps://thefederalist.com/2017/03/24/new-york-times-contributed-ukraines-bitter-harvest-1930s/
And we will have this conversation again.
You do get partial credit for criticizing the newspaper you read.
Richard ==>It is far worse than you think — because I also read (and subscribe) to the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, and read the free version a half a dozen other major newspapers — plus two medical journals, and three general science journals.
This does not include the journals from which I read only the occasional papers….
How do you stay sane?
Richard ==> I read More, I read WIDELY and I read CRITICALLY.
Fortunately you can still play Wordle without paying! It, and the crossword puzzle, are the only redeeming qualities of the Old Gray Hag.
Yes, Wordle is worth doing daily – I’m amazed that the Pom who invented Wordle sold it to NYT! How long before they try to charge for it? It’s the same here in New Zealand, where the New Zealand Herald is a worthless biased rag, but their Shuker’s clueless crossword keeps me entertained daily – but somebody gives me their copy as I would not pay for it, ever! Our Marxist Prime Minister Cindy Ardern bribed the MSM with $55million of taxpayers’ funds, so they toe the government propaganda line.
Mike ==> Friends and I were talking yesterday about how many bought/buy the NY Times just for the crossword…..
Some conservative media outlets actual have a much higher viewer count than their liberal competitors, so the mainstream media is slowly losing to other outlets.
True, just as TV cable news outlets CNN and MSNBC are losing viewers by the millions while Fox is gaining viewers. Many have discovered YouTube, Rumble, Substack et al and Locals among other independent offerings and some of the excellent news/commentary offerings on there. I know I have and Shapiros Daily Wire has, I believe, 140 million daily viewers/listeners dwarfing all of the MSM news outlets.
I agree with Kip’s read more read widely read critically. I have subscribed to the NYT (and WSJ) since moving back to the US in 2009 after being overseas nineteen years. Reason – a few sections are worthy e.g., Arts (and the crossword). I subscribed to the international editions of both while in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Seoul. But main reason now is see what the NYT is pushing re liberal viewpoints including climate change. The main reporting and editorial staff has changed in the past 13 years some leaving because of ideological disagreement. Staff numbers in the 20s but lead work (propaganda reporting) is from 3-4 … none of them have scientific education, training, backgroud. You can throw in 95% of the liberal / Dem US Senators and Representatives … who push climate change because it is their thing to do so they have to do it. I have to vent my disgust and anger in the Power Shack gym where I work out routinely.
Current tagline for the NYT: “All The News That’s Fit To Print”
Suggested tagline: “If We Didn’t Print It, It Didn’t Happen!”
From the home page of my Election Circus blog:
“Blog motto: “Is that true, or did you read it in the New York Times?” .
https://nypost.com/2022/02/20/the-absurd-russiagate-pulitzer-of-the-ny-times-and-washington-post/
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/new-york-times-washington-post-pulitzer-russia-hans-von-spakovsky-stephanie-luiz
Thanks, Bob. Copied and saved to read later.
What bothers the legacy media is their loss of the ability to frame an issue.
I remember an old study that people who watched the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings did not believe Anita Hill at that time, but a year later, with incessant spin on her, more believed her account.
They also miss the big three networks following the New York Times as to what was “newsworthy”, which they cannot do anywhere near as much anymore.
That’s correct, Mr. Halla. “The Big Guy” did his damndest to assassinate Justice Thomas’ character (see Thomas’ book My Grandfather’s Son), but all the slime Biden scooped out of his pocket and threw at that man of impeccable integrity just stuck to his own fingers or fell to the floor making an ugly mess.
It all boils down to knowing how to think instead of letting yourself be told what to think.
CD ==> Quite right, slim.
Indeed CD. Sadly not many people can do that as they have probably been educated by a system that told them WHAT TO THINK. —: An endemic problem now here in the U.K.
Or those of use who were educated before the indoctrination began. But we’re getting old.
On the other hand, a lot more of the over 60 crowd still believe the MSM compared to the under 20 crowd.
That’s what the poll showed. I find that weird. We lived through Vietnam and multiple other useless, near endless wars and should know how Gov. propaganda was used to frame and push them, much of which was false. Also, we lived through all of the Iraq wars, in which my son fought in Iraq War II, as a Marine. After Afghanistan and the debacle there plus Biden’s disastrous withdrawal, one can only marvel that anyone of any age trusts the Government or the media. This goes for the MSM and many governments in the Western world, too, esp., the ridiculous Libyan and Syrian wars. The media has become the mouthpiece of governments and their spy/Intel agencies.
I say all this as one who used to trust the government on these things. No more and never again.
Alasdair, you are not alone in your thinking.
“Ours may become the first civilization destroyed, not by the power of our enemies, but by the ignorance of our teachers and the dangerous nonsense they are teaching our children. In an age of artificial intelligence, they are creating artificial stupidity.”
Thomas Sowell
“With all the pious talk about “tolerance” in the media and in academia, there is virtually none for those who challenge the dogmas of political correctness in most of our colleges and universities.” – Thomas Sowell
“Education is not merely neglected in many of our schools today, but is replaced to a great extent by ideological indoctrination.” ~ Thomas Sowell
“One of the many disservices done to young people by our schools and colleges is giving them the puffed up notion that they are in a position to pass sweeping judgments on a world that they have barely begun to experience.”
Thomas Sowell
“The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.”
― Thomas Sowell
I don’t know if I was taught how to think. When I graduated from school, I believed the papers and the Government were mostly honest and correct. It took a few years of personally seeing reports of incidents that very loosely aligned with what I had seen, and talking to a few reporters about the differences. One of those involved me trying to rescue a couple from a Pinto that had been rear-ended and was burning. I couldn’t break the window (with my shoe), but an off-duty cop grabbed his tire iron and together we pulled the lady from the burning car. (We could not rescue her husband.) In the article, I got lone credit for saving her. When I pointed out to the reporter later that the lady would have died without the cop, he told me people don’t care to hear about hero cops. It doesn’t carry the punch he was looking for.
That was more overt than the FoxNews article about a shootout between a guy firing a .22 caliber pistol against his foe wielding a .9mm pistol. That’s a simple mistake made by someone (and his editor) who doesn’t know guns or the metric system. I’ve seen small rounds, but none as small as thin pencil lead and a lot smaller!
WE’ve surely all read by now how untrue the reporting of the Viet Nam war was by no less that Walter Cronkite. But I didn’t realize how bad it was until North Viet Namese generals told their side of it 10-15 years later. Yes, I’m referring to the Tet Offensive.
I learned shortly after 1980 that US senators will lie. I received through the mail a letter from Alan Cranston with him stating that although he was a Democrat, he would work with Reagan to pass his legislation if he was elected. I was naive enough to believe him. Reagan ended up facing no greater foe in the Senate than Cranston.
These events and others (especially medical journals) convinced me to verify almost everything I read, regardless of its source. Even a lot of stuff in the comments here are stated without background data that can be studied. Still – better than most sources I read. And so, a big thanks to Watts, Hansen, Middleton, Eschebach, and others for providing data/data sources so I can verify and use the information when speaking to others.
ex_Kalifornia ==> I take it that you are ex-Kalifornia and not ex-Kook.
Absolutely YES “verify almost everything [you] read, regardless of its source.” Even this, here.
Many commenters here are just repeating “Climate skeptic talking points” which is just as bad as the media repeating “Climate alarm talking points”.
One must get educated in a field of interest — at least learning the basics and gaining the ability to read and understand information about that field.
Many journals let authors get away with “murdering the language” to make their paper seem more “sciencey.” It is often hard to persevere and find out if they are talking sense or nonsense.
I have read about a 2.34mm round.
https://www.wideopenspaces.com/ammunition-sizes/
Former President Trump did the country a great service with his ‘Fake News’ label and many examples. MSM will never recover, because we now have alternative news channels thanks to the internet.
Gallup- 11% trust TV news, 16% trust newspapers. Thank you, DJT!
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2022/07/08/shocker-trust-in-news-plummets-to-all-time-low-n1611400
Old Man ==> Thanks for the poster.
Old Man ==> Yes, these polls generally agree — trust in Newspapers is down to a new low, and trust in TV/cable news is even lower.
Because — they spin, twist and lie.
Wonderful meme, Rud. Thank you. That’s a keeper!
2000 Mules carried 10’s of thousands of votes in the middle of the night to drop boxes in 5 states. The Covid virus came from the Wuhan Lab. Don’t tell the NY Slimes.
So, no word on the lizard people – or chemtrails? Is morgellons still a thing? Or HAARP? I do notice the WEF are now the bad guys…
As far as you comment, the lizard people is represented 😀
I think the CIA are the lizard people…oh wait maybe it is the FBI. Can you imagine being a parent pleading with the FBI to look into the Dr. who sexually abused their kids 🙁
Or a parent whose daughter was used and abused by Epstein and his famous/infamous “friends?” Why has the list of the john’s not been published? Why is it being kept hidden? Why did Maxwell commit suicide? Oops, the last one hasn’t happened–yet.
You can always tell when even griff no longer believes in the lies he’s paid to push.
Q. What’s the difference between a conspiracy theory and reality?
A. Just a matter of weeks these days.
off topic dimwit
Unfortunately, not one vote can be rejected simply because it was carried to a lockbox by a mule. That allegation does not change a single vote, or prevent election fraud in 2022
If the GOP had done this to Democrats, you can bet serious money those votes would be rejected in short order.
Wrong
The mules could be punished
But the votes they delivered have to be judged individually
to be sure they were cast by a registered voter who actually cast the vote.
That’s the law. However the law also bans people from voting multiple times.
Some mules confessed that they were paid $10 per vote. Nursing Homes have people voting who are senile…always demrat…cell phone tracking shows mules moving in the middle of the night from box to box dropping multiple batches of votes at a time….some caught on video….state laws vary but laws are being broken.
“Only 6% of voters “
There’s that number again. Are these voters 6% wetter?
Depends!
Or diapers.
almost certainly..
A better question, perhaps, is are those voters the live ones or the dead ones?
Kip, this is exactly right. However, it’s even more insidious than that because the propaganda industry (a.k.a. MSM) coordinates its narratives and rhetoric. If you want proof, read up about the Journolist (yes, with an O) scandal from a few years ago. It will be quite enlightening to anyone unaware how these people work. Ever wonder why the propagandists at the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, AP, NBC, etc. all seem to settle on the same narrative as most important to push and use the same rhetoric (“big lie” from your article being one example)? They coordinate it before they publish or go on TV to push their lies.
Independent, you’re right that “it’s even worse than that”, however, it’s even worse than that. The Newspapers and Television in socialist countries only show the Fake News from the far left. If you brought up some obvious counters to this they think you’re lying or crazy. What a mess.
Ron, true but that is different from the US MSM how?
“”Do you know who the greatest propagator of disinformation in the history of the world is? The U.S. government.”
That was Sen Rand Paul’s comment to DHS chief Mayorkas when he was grilling him over the creation of the DHS “disinformation governance board” (Minitru- home of Scary Poppins).
https://www.theblaze.com/news/rand-paul-mayorkas-disinformation-board#toggle-gdpr
“The CIA leaks narrative spin to the Washington Post. The FBI leaks their narrative spin to the New York Times; and the State Dept. primarily uses CNN for the same purposes. This media distribution model is the one constant in an ever changing universe.”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2020/02/21/washington-post-cia-starts-bernie-is-a-russian-asset-narrative/
The coordinated media and political talking points are the result of the classic problem. If you commerce in lies, you will eventually be tripped up and exposed by inconsistencies in your stories. Crime investigators and prosecutors have long known this, as well as any principled person with any sense. Most know from personal experience with their own lies or with those of their young children. So the attempted antidote to this is for politicians and the media to collude by agreeing to lie using the same story lines, talking points and video clips, even down to specific word choices repeated ad infinitum ad nauseum.
In support of your last point, I just read this excerpt from Sigmund Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays’ book Propaganda –
1) If you manipulate the leader of a group, the people will follow
2) Words are powerful, and the key to influencing group emotions is through the clever use of language
3) Any medium of communication is also a medium for propaganda
4) Reiterating the same idea over and over creates habits and convictions
5) One can manipulate individual actions by creating circumstances that modify group custom
https://www.sott.net/article/469811-Propaganda-Trudeau-style
It is the old, new again, version of George Orwell’s “Newspeak” where only certain words could be spoken and where thoughts were controlled through the forced use of certain words.
The DNC and Democrat politicians speak, the MSM listens and in unison, they all repeat the same lies in the exact same words ad nauseam.
All went downhill after a famous quote:
We’ll Know Our Disinformation Program Is Complete When Everything the American Public Believes Is False.”William Casey , director of the C_I_A 1981-87.
Starting with that quote.
Alex ==> Gee, I’d like to have a source for that quote.
It is all hands on deck to get Trump right now for the leftist propogandists.
Can’t go a day without some story about someone saying that Trump should be prosecuted. Can’t go a day without some reference to some supposedly damning new evidence the congressional Kangaroo court called the J6 Committee has gotten.
After that the next priority is demonizing the SCOTUS for its rulings on abortion and gun control, especially abortion. But overall they concentrate on demonizing anyone that opposes the leftist agenda. Of course The Green New Deal has jumped to the fore for a day or two but it will subside and abortion will once again take the lead. Only so many broadcast hours in the say and column space.
Next they must lie and mislead about the economy and inflation. It is after all integral to the leftist agenda and they must do their best to calm the lambs so they don’t know they are being led to the slaughter.
The war in Ukraine is also there every single day. Every effort must be made to instill the idea that Ukraine is winning and that the steady territorial losses they have been suffering will be taken back. And to justify the cost while our own border is being invaded and huge bucks are given to the Military-Industrial Complex while Americans suffer under the increasing burden of inflation out pacing wages.
And of course hide many things as this article states an example of. Trying to hide Hunter’s corruption has been a constant, as has the part of Federal undercover agents or those acting as such, in J6 and other events.
Czar Ras-Putin has lost about 35,000 soldiers so far…..Putey made a big boo boo……what do you call a Ruzzian tank? – a target.
How do you know 35k?
There is so much disinformation in this proxy war we will never know.
That is so true. This is a tale of Ukraine part true and part foretelling the future. The entire Ukraine debacle feels unreal to me and like a play “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely actors…”
Yes, real people are dying. Yes, it’s a tragedy but it feels like all this is happening because someone wanted it to happen.
Could it be all of this has nothing to do with Russia, Ukraine and NATO but the 100s of billions of dollars unleashed, unaccounted for and given to the MIC and God knows who all else to “save” Ukraine?
Ukraine – a modern tragedy in seven acts
https://bit.ly/3Io4v2n
3/28/22
Even if that is correct the question then is how many has Ukraine lost? War is a relative thing you know and even those of you that have taken the Ukraine bait, hook, line, and sinker have to realize that relative mass is a factor. Otherwise your deluding yourselves every bit as much as Napoleon and Hitler did.
“The first casualty of war is truth”
If Hilary didn’t actually coin this quote, she should be credited with it, because she certainly practised it with great enthusiasm.
Quite right rah, here’s a very interesting article which I think sums up the situation.
https://unherd.com/2022/07/is-russia-winning-the-war/
Thanks. That is one I had not seen.
By all objective measures, Ukraine has lost this war. It would take a miracle for them to win it and I don’t think their winning it is in the script, nor do I think that was ever the goal of the West and the US.
Hitler said Germans in western Czechoslovakia were being mistreated…..exactly the excuse Putey used….. and Putey has made a huge miscalculation. Putey should follow Hitler’s lead and put a little piece of lead in his head – problem solved – Putey is the problem – not Ukraine.
Both governments were the problem. Both were and are corrupt and it is their peoples that suffer the consequences. But you completely dodged the point I made about mass. You obviously take view points that oppose yours on this subject personally. That is because your emotions are overriding your ability to objectively judge the military realities and the lessons of history.
I and the others that have held a different view point than yours on the subject of Ukraine are not your enemies. I am abhorred by what has happened and is happening. And I admire the fight the Ukrainians have been making and their sacrifices for their cause.
But from the beginning I have thought that their cause was lost due to those realities that history have taught a student of war and war history. And when I have said so you and a couple have vented your emotions.
This conflict goes a long way back in history. Even in more recent times during WW II a significant number of Ukrainians fought with the Germans against the Russians. Ukrainians murdered Russian partisans in hordes committing all kinds of atrocities and served as guards at their death camps. So there is no surprise to the student of history that there is a significant faction of neo-Nazis among them.
How would the US react if a minority of citizens with Mexican ancestry started to rebel, demanding that the Southwest be returned to Mexico?
Some of them have been for sometime. I am not sure how DC would react or those in S. California anymore. But I know for sure how Texans would react.
Why do you object when the Ukranians do the same thing that we would do?
Mr. W: Well, the Brandon admin. would tell us to fly the flag of Mexico, and the NYT, WaPo and CNN would jump on board. I’m just guessin’, of course.
what do you call a Ruzzian tank?
A well know nickname is: Jack-in-the-box
Simon comes on here telling Trump whoppers…that poor lad ate a lot of paint chips as a youth.
“It is all hands on deck to get Trump right now for the leftist propogandists.”
Why would 2022 be different than 2021, 2020, 2019,
2018, 2017, 2016 and 2015?
Can you recall a committee going after a FORMER president like the J6 is? Can you recall the press, at any time in the past, focusing on a FORMER president like they have Trump, day in and day out? I can’t.
Even allowing for the fact that Trump is also a potential candidate for POTUS again, I can recall no time in history any man, not even Jackson, has been so demonized from the very first before they have even announced their candidacy.
Can you recall any FORMER POTUS having so many from his past administration and supporters being harassed under the auspices of law? I can’t.
It is all banana republic stuff.
This is how I ended up becoming a daily reader of WUWT. When Obama told the world that 97% of scientists agree that climate change is happening, man made, and dangerous, I wanted to know how many scientists that was in actual numbers. The answer was well hidden by the MSM. It still goes unreported by the MSM. It took an extraordinary amount of digging on the internet to find the answer which gave me a whole new perspective on both climate change and the desire of the media to manipulate public opinion.
To know who to trust, you first have to discover who has been lying to you.
There is a book or use this:
Publications – The 97% ‘Consensus’ And Its Critics | Heartland Institute
I think it distilled down to about 7 in the end.
But I may have made that number up, like John Cook et al did with theirs.
Al Gore and the rest of the AGW pushers find skeptic climate scientists and other related expert speakers, e.g. Anthony Watts, to be very irritating, but that’s not who Gore et al. fear the most. The people they fear the most is the greater public, when increasing numbers of them, just like you, start asking really tough questions. Want to know (if you don’t already) just how little the MSM tells the public about the AGW issue? I’ve quantified that at my blog, regarding one specific news outlet: “NewsHour Global Warming Bias Tally, Updated 7/6/22: 99 to 0“
Mr. Cook: Thanks for that. If your counter could go to three digits, the 99 might be higher- the zero would still be zero.
I am stunned when I look back more than fifty years. I was then able then to see how the public was being mislead by newspapers and radio. Has education been so dumbed down that despite the explosion of knowledge and easy accessibility via the internet that students have not been given a good grounding in reasoning and logic? I fear this is the case. I do not put all the blame on governments and educational institutions. Parents and especially broken homes have contributed to the problem. In my own home I encouraged my children to ask questions and make an effort to find answers. Even parents with the least education can encourage their children to ask questions and find the answers by careful reading.
I hate to say it, but the sorry state of public education is driving parents who love and care about their children toward home-schooling. Both of my daughters and my daughter-in-law-law have all chosen to home school our grandchildren, and two have already graduated high school by that route. Only a few decades ago, a student could go through school, primary through secondary, and receive a good fundamental education with very little indoctrination. Math textbooks were about MATH, and didn’t weigh five pounds because they were not filled with pretty pictures and virtue signaling. When we reared our three children, home schooling was just re-emerging (that’s the way it used to be long ago) and seemed a little bit weird. It is mainstream today, and I fully support educational choices besides government schools.
I was just speaking to a younger colleague this past weak who has one school-age child and one who recently graduated in our local public schools. Our community and schools are considered among the best in the state and in a top-tier university town. She lamented her disappointment and even fear for her children at what they face(d) daily, from teachers spewing propaganda, to regular gang fights, weapons offenses, and regular offers of street drugs. She would love to take her child out and home school, but that is not an economic option for she and her husband.
The woke left have targeted K-12 education and are actively infiltrating curriculum development as well as teacher education at the universities. It is part of the bigger plan. Parents are waking up, but it goes much farther and deeper than gender identity training of primary school children.
Just on the point of how basic arithmetic and math is being taught at primary schools these days, I couldn’t get my head around how / why my grandkids were required to “deconstruct / parse” basic times-table foundations like 6 x 8 = 48.
Later on, with more complex math exercises to solve, we grandparents all noticed the kids getting bogged down on these elementary steps that we had learned by rote by grade 2 or 3.
Pflash ==> All of my children were home-schooled for part of their education — my youngest almost entirely. Very dependent on where we were living…..
In Germany, home schooling is illegal. All teaching must be done by state certified “teachers”. Disagree, and your children will be taken away from you.
The NEA is trying to get similar laws passed in the US.
Will the first lesson every day for all class levels be –
“Indoctrination Fast Tracked”?
John Dewey began shaping our education system into the garbage it’s become > 100ya. On a trip
to the Soviet Union in 1928, Stalin duped the arrogant twit into praising their educational system by
using Dewey’s textbook in the classrooms he visited. By the 1930s, many US universities were
already introducing similar dogma so what was happening in the 50s & 60s was fruit from those
early seeds that had been planted.
Q15. What do you think is the MOST important problem facing the country today?
1 The economy (including jobs, stock market) 20%
2 Inflation and the cost of living 15%
3 The state of Democracy/Political division 11%
4 Gun policies 10%
5 Abortion/Women’s Rights 5%
····
6 Climate Change 1%
7 Supreme Court 1%
8 Coronavirus 0%
_________________________________________
After adding the numbers, There is an obvious disconnect between the number one concern, the economy, and the increasing cause of economic problems, Climate Change policy way down the list.
Climate Change and Climate Change Policy are two different things. The negative effects of Climate Change due to CO2, CH4 and now N2O, are pretty much non existent, but Climate Change Policies are increasingly causing economic damage.
1 The economy (including jobs, stock market) 20%
2 Inflation and the cost of living 15%
It’s time to bring back Reagan’s 1980 Misery Index- inflation + unemployment- for the mid-terms.
“Most of regional climate related changes since 40 years are less extreme weather events and a greening planet with a decrease in desertic regions including the sub Saharan region
The only actual climate related threat to humanity are all those complete idiotic climate change policies the consequences of which are mainly ecological disasters and global impoverishment.”
There is also the lightweight nature of the media coverage with its obsession with personalities as opposed to facts. If you are looking for an update on the progress of the Russian liberation of Donbas then don’t bother with the Daily Mail – or any UK paper no doubt – as all they will have is some human sob story free of any detail. At least the space they waste on this is down to just one page but of course they are falling over themselves to cover the election of our new Prime Minister even though it does not involve the population as we don’t get a vote. The lack of a democratic mandate for this totally escapes them.
The Mail relies for funding on people clicking on its online site…
(Most of its online readership is in the USA, so it prints temperatures in Fahrenheit)
It has cut its ‘journalists’ and a lot of the content is ‘copied’ from other papers or ‘borrowed’ from the internet by interns.
It recently copied a story about a fat Russian general Pavel… it turns out the accompanying photo is actually a retired border guard – Pavel is fictitious.
As for the Daily Express …
Griff ==> You describe fake “copy-and-paste” pseudo-journalism. Very common — they use English majors.
Yes, that or, worse, they use Journalism majors.
“As for the Daily Express …”
It’s owned by the left wing Mirror group…
Griff, you said something sensible! Congratulations! For your own sake, I hope that this signals a change in your perspective. Despite our barbs and reactions to your comments, we all really do want the best for you. As Kip said herein, we all have to crack open our minds and critically question all that we read or hear. Humility is a virtue, and that starts with admitting that we ourselves might be wrong about some things, but that must be accompanied by wise discernment. This website is one where people express their views, often supported by careful analysis. We sometimes get a bit carried away, and some posters persist in repeating blunders or misunderstandings. Not perfect, but also open and free exchange of ideas and debate, unlike most climate or other social agenda sites today.
Besides the Bible, WUWT is my only daily read, and I am a masters level geoscientist (meteorology and soil science) with >40 years in the field of environmental management and energy consulting and in leadership of higher education for a major university system.
Thanks for your insightful contributions here Pflash, but hard-earned expertise and critical analysis don’t count for much these days –
It’s how you FEEL about things, and how VIRTUOUS your statements can sound that really count in the public view.
(And you can keep driving those 6 V8 Hummers to your absolute private beach-front mansions every weekend)
For “Mail” and “Express” read all daily papers. The beginning of the rot was documented by Nick Davies in *Flat Earth News* back in 2009, and there has been over a decade of corruption to compound it since.
I fear it has existed far longer than that, it’s just become far more widespread and acceptable to lie and mislead. Consider Cronkite during the Vietnam War and what now appears to be his shameless false reporting. Whether, as some say, it led to our and So. Vietnam’s loss to the North, I don’t know but it appears to have been a major factor.
If anyone wants to correct me, feel free. I’ve been on a long journey to check my beliefs against facts and have been finding many of them to be quite wrong.
George Orwell: ‘History Stopped in 1936, Everything Since is Just Propaganda’
Prophetical author discussing manipulation of historical events
https://bit.ly/3MRj1Bt
Aside from 1984, George Orwell sounded the warning bell of modern man’s mainstream media enslavement, decades ago, when he said, “History stopped in 1936.”
According to IT, the source of this intriguing observation is not Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, but his 1943 essay “Looking back on the Spanish War.”
It was written as a reflection on Orwell’s participation in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), in which he fought for the Republican side against the Franco-led fascists…
Gerry ==> Unfortunately, that is what they are now teaching in journalism classes — it is called “narrative journalism” — telling emotive stories to push some agenda instead of reporting the news.
Journalists are now activists.
What they like to report as a neutral mainstream viewpoint is in fact the peddling of green lefty political dogma, spoon fed to them by think tanks created for the purpose.
Any criticism, no matter how reasonable, is deemed extreme and conspirational.
The irony is of course, it is they that are the extremists.
“Journalists are now activists”
NOW? Why did Walter Cronkite start putting the Vietnam casualty count up every CBS Nightly News? Just look at his later life “views”, far left.
Why Al Gore ran against W, all he had to do was call one of the “journalists” he went to school with the get his spin published in the MSM.
Dan Rather and the Texas National Guard BS provided by a Gore for President committee member from Texas.
Rather calling Florida for Gore before all the polls closed in Florida.
The list goes on forever, they have been activists forever. It is just, at one time, many of them thought about whether what they were writing might cause death and destruction.
BUT, under Kennedy, ALL the Washington press core knew he was screwing around, but kept it quiet. You know it was Camelot, the rebirth of liberalism after 8 years of Eisenhower.
I have been in-country for two attempts to overthrow a national government….
____________________________________________
Wow, do you have links more details?
Steve ==> If it is important to you, email me at my first name at i4.net. Reluctant to post details here.
Now, why would anyone think that?
Turn off your TV set and the world suddenly gets better. Go outside and smell the flowers instead. Try it and see.
Going outside is very good advice. See what is actually going on.
Wheat harvests were down the past two years here and all the papers were writing about how climate change and high temps were ruining the wheat. Of course now we find out that the real reason was because a lot of farms switched to planting corn and soybeans last year and didn’t replant the fields to wheat in order to let them lie fallow for a while. Fewer acres planted means smaller harvests. This year the harvest has been very good even despite a slight lowering of rain during the spring and early summer. Harvest is, once again, going up, averaging around 40 bushels per acre.
You’ll *never* get the straight scoop on this from the newspapers. They have an agenda to push – climate change. You have to search out industry reports in order to find the truth and it *is* a search because you’ll never see it in the newspapers.
All we get today are agenda-reports from urban reporters who have no experience in what they are reporting. That’s why they get *everything* wrong, from the causes of urban crime to climate change causing wildfires to to climate change causing the earth to turn into a cinder.
“Wheat harvests were down the past two years here . . .”
here? But not here. Or there. See the problem?
Reminds me of a certain poster, who freely switches from talking about regional changes to talking about global changes. Based solely on which perspective better sells the narrative he’s pushing.
There is no problem with the word “here”.
The problem is with the word “global”. “Global warming” is *NOT* global. It is regional and/or local.
Worse yet it is *not* high temps causing the global average temps to go up but MINIMUM temps that are warming most places.
If CO2 is well-mixed in the atmosphere, and water vapor is well mixed in the atmosphere, and these two things are the main thermostat for global temps, then *everywhere* should be seeing global warming and its effects.
But not everywhere is seeing max temps go up to catastrophic levels.
So using the term “here” is most appropriate. For if we aren’t seeing catastrophic global warming *here*, then someplace else, a different “here”, must be seeing twice the global warming that is normally expected in order for the catastrophic predictions to be true.
Tim ==> Yes and yes. Editorial Narratives and journalists personal agendas are what appears in print.
Doonman ==> You are spot on…..My wife and I have not watched TV or Cable News for almost 50 years — we read, widely, critically.
I quit watching the 3 networks in the US during Reagan’s presidency, I couldn’t take the continued trashing of a President that won the Electoral College by 489 to 49 (#9 all time) in 1980 and 525 to 13 (#5 all time) in 1984. In 1984, only DC and Minnesota, his home state, voted for Mondale.
BTW, Washington as tied for # 1 with NO opposing electoral votes in his 2 elections, and James Monroe was #3 with only 1 vote against, and that vote was cast by an elector who did so because he thought only Washington deserved a unanimous vote.
Too busy reading The New York Times and The Washington Post?
The anti-TV mentality is a personal choice but misguided, IMHO.
There are lots of great old movies on Turner Classic Movies with no commercials (mainly 1930s to 1960s). And there are funny shows like The Honeymooners, King of Queens and Seinfeld.
You don’t have to watch any news on TV – I don’t.
And we like the Leave It to Beaver show too!
You act like reading critically is easy — it’s not.
You have to start with the attitude that half of what you read and hear from the media is biased, misleading, or a lie. The difficult part is determining which half. One tip is to assume all leftist sources are biased — that makes the job easier but it’s still not easy.
I read at least several dozen articles every morning and post the best ones on three different blogs to share them with hundreds of readers.
It’s not always easy to be sure an author knows what he is talking about. I get the articles mainly from conservative websites which I find a lot more trustworthy than leftist websites.
There are certain authors I trust because they are consistently good. You are one of them. Also Willie E, Eric Worrall and Andy May. But knowing which authors make sense is not easy. I’ve been blogging since 2008 so I’ve had enough practice selecting good articles, but there’s a lot of BS out there, and data-free personal opinions presented as proven facts.
Richard ==> Yes, that’s why we have WUWT and dozens of blogs written by Thinking People.
I have to say one thing about the Trump presidency. Somewhere down the timeline it will become clear to rational people that whatever trump was, he certainly was a catalyst for change. That change is going to be hard labor but it believe we will be better for it. Up until the media got plastered with their failure to predict the outcome of the 2016 election, they could apply their “nudges” to public opinion with a little bit of integrity. That misstep caught them out and their reaction put their bias in a spotlight. Keen observers like Rush Limbaugh understood their tactics for decades but the general public didn’t really see the “thumb-on-the-scale”. Now it has become obvious, and anger is building. The heavy-handed propaganda is wearing thin. That’s not to say it isn’t still working in some quarters. I have both a neighbor and family member who absolutely believe DT led an armed revolt on Jan. 6. Do I fault them? Yes. But greater forces were in play and the media perpetrators are the criminal element in our society.
The nightly TV “News” has been running an anti Trump story nearly every night for the last six years. If that doesn’t resonate with people that they are being subjected to one sided reporting, then nothing will convince them.
I was following Scott Adams during the run up to the 2016 election. He was saying that “Trump would change the world”. I thought that was hyperbole but I was wrong. Trump did change the world if only by exposing the deep corruption in our societal institutions.
Even Alan Simpson’s interview in the news yesterday, indicated that he believed Trump tried to physically hijack his limo and go to the Capitol to join the fun! Where did he get that idea? From the MSM who is *still* trumpeting it as the truth.
The Secret Service said this report was wrong. But, of course, they got no playtime or airtime in the MSM! So the propaganda lives on!
… and of course
“A lie is halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on.’
“”Unfortunately, the NYT/Sienna poll shows that propaganda-by-repetition works in the real world – see the portion of their report on the Jan 6 riot, which reports that “By Small Margins: Capitol Riots were Attempt to Overthrow Govt. & Trump Committed Serious Crimes”.
Tucker Carlson destroys the NYT- Ray Epps is the real perp who hasn’t been charged. Why’s that?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylYF6-sZkgM
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2022/07/15/tucker_carlson_the_curious_case_of_ray_epps_and_the_january_6_committee.html
The reason nobody trusts the media in the US is that conspiracy theorists and the right continually undermine it…
They continually undermine themselves. From Russia-gate to Trump hijacking his limo on Jan 6 to the Dobbs decision banning *all* abortions – all you get from the MSM is lies.
Where is the MSM on reporting the facts about the crime surge in urban Dem cities? It isn’t guns causing it. It is far-left prosecutors and the erosion of the black family, primarily the disappearance of the black father in the family.
There’s also the lie that the public supports more gun control.
When you ask what kind of gun laws the public would like to see enacted, you find that almost all of the laws that people “want” are already in place.
If you listen to the media, you would think that we are still back in the 1950’s when you could buy a gun through the mail and kids were allowed to carry guns to school.
Unlike conservative conspiracy theories, yours will still be just that 1,000 yrs from now!
F.e. all “conspiracy theories” about Cov-19 vacces became true facts 😀
Absolutely!
And instead of the msm rushing to seek a full accounting from Fauci, Biden, et al about their assertions that the “approved” COVID “vaccines” would prevent contraction and transmission (which the developers NEVER claimed), what we’ve had from the msm is CRICKETS.
There are members of the media who are still trying to convince people that the entire Hunter Biden laptop story is just conservative mis-information.
🤣🤣🤣 ☠trolleee, troll, troll☠ 🤣🤣🤣
And you trust the BBC and The Grauniad – implicitly
That’s a real leap of faith
You would have to be a naive idiot to think the powerful DON’T conspire in ways to maintain and increase their power. The brainwashed have been conditioned to reject obvious conspiracies because of conspiracy wacko/nut case media propaganda. The brain dead eagerly provide cover for the massive corruption happening in plain sight by falling for the manipulations.
One of the ever more obvious hallmarks of the far-left is how they psychologically project what they are onto conservatives as accusations of what we are. Look in the mirror, ol’ Griff, one of the biggest unproven conspiracy theories out there is the one your side religiously believes in, namely the one about ‘Big Coal & Oil paying skeptic climate scientists to knowingly spread disinformation.’
The left really does get their panties in a wad anytime their lies are exposed.
Griff, I’m so sorry to see your recidivism. In one post, you rightly observe media bias and suggest that you might be skeptical, but then … BOOM! You are right back to your old ways. Anyone with life experience and even a whit of discernment and open mindedness smells political, media and cultural bias and decay. It doesn’t take a conspiracy theorist to convince them.
But now that you mention it, what we are witnessing and experiencing is not a theory, it is a real conspiracy, a clash of world views, a culture war getting very close to open warfare that has marked much of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Past great civilizations, empires and nations have fallen into decay and eventual destruction through rot from within and, I believe, the judgment of God (yes, I hear some of you derisively laughing). Nations rise, peak and fall in cycles, usually as they get fat and self-satisfied and fall away from their fundamental roots. For those familiar with the pages of Scripture, Israel is chronicled to have cycled like this a number of times. I am not in the least concerned about weather and climate. We are likely to fall much sooner from our current forms of internal rot, being intentionally forced upon us by powers and their willing minions who seek to destroy. Media is just one weapon in their arsenal of death.
You mean the right forced the media to push the phony Russian collusion narrative for 4 years? Really? How?
4 years?
Some of them are still pushing it.
Democrat’s cling to media lies to preserve cognitive dissonance. I suggest shaming for being so naive as a strategy to wake them out of the ignorance they are embracing.
The tide is turning.
The Yellow Stream Media
“Yellow journalism” described the lurid & sensational NY papers run by the prestigeous Pulitzer &
Hearst (Citizen Kane). 😮
Old Man ==> Ah — yes, it has been even worse in the past…..then better….and now worse again.
Yellow streams should be limited to the bathroom.
Kip, it is comforting to know that that Lincoln’s words on fooling people is correct. I suspected to a degree what the polling showed. I asked myself the question: “If the views I hold are those of a small knuckle dragging minority, why do do MSM and a huge majority agonize so much about bringing me into the fold? They could just ignore me and steamroll over me without a thought.
Gary ==> And who is it that tells the world that only the ultra-right and ultra-left wackos don’t trust the MSM? The MSM itself….
I don’t know where the pollsters get their numbers but, I believe their methodology is flawed.
I have not participated in a poll for about 40 years. I recognized the bias in the questioning back then and I don’t think time has improved the situation.
No one that I know admits to participating in a poll either.
My WAG is that the only people that actually submit to polls are people that have nothing else better to do and are urged to support an agenda. They could even be compensated in some way like points for future savings coupons or even cash.
I don’t believe the pollsters results, even if they coincide with my own opinions. The data is not reliable or reproduceable. It might as well be a computer simulation written by a “climate scientist”.
Not only are the questions themselves important but also the people doing the questioning and how they pose the questions. Just how unbiased are they? Changing the intonation and phrasing can easily lead people into picking the answer you want them to pick.
In addition, you need to know their breakdown of who they talked to. Asking 700 Dems, 200 Independents, and 100 GOP people are going to get totally skewed results. Saying you don’t ask their political leanings isn’t an excuse, far more GOP voters tend to avoid the pollsters than do Dems. Same for independents. So even if you don’t ask you are liable to get skewed results. It’s not obvious that pollsters today even understand their own dynamics – that’s why they get such bad poll predictions just before elections!
Tim, follow Rasmussen for poling of likely voters. He often explains the techniques for conducting the polls and the specific questions asked. He was the only pollster that got the 2016 Presidential Election right.
Readers ==> The link for Rasmussen is:
https://www.rasmussenreports.com/
Tim ==> Always (as in every time) do a deep dive into any poll before even vaguely accepting its results……
In higher education, polling is considered human research and is subject to review and approval by the entity’s Institutional Review Board (IRB). Unfortunately, due to the dominantly left-leaning faculties and staffs in today’s universities, even that is an ineffective means to root out bias.
I regularly witness a barrage of “approved” surveys and departmental actions allegedly representing the institution, especially the “sustainability” offices, that are extremely biased and willfully ignorant.
Over sampling of Democrats in political polls has been a feature of most MSM polls going back decades. In most years, the closer the election gets, the greater the level of oversampling gets.
IMO all these polls do is measure the success or failure of the propaganda machine. Nothing to do with what people think —: that being sorted out by the questions.
Polls pushed by the YSM are designed and used to shape opinion, not reflect opinion. Full stop.
Brad-DXT ==> You should not bet your life savings (or your life) on some single random poll — that is absolutely true.
There is something to be gained from polls, but you have to dig in to the methodology, the exact questions, the exact answer choices and the details of the analyzed totals. an then, compare two contemporary polls on the same topics.
For instance, Gallup polled on “trusted institutions” in July
https://news.gallup.com/poll/394283/confidence-institutions-down-average-new-low.aspx
and has similar results on MSM
And alternate media is mainly “echo chamber” reporting in which copy from other sites is repeated endlessly as they cannibalize each other.
Yep just like the mainstream media. CNN is on life support and without government money they would be dead.
Plebney ==> There are a lot of web sites that are only a pretense of being news — only copy-and-pasting quips fro other sites that do the same — none of them have actual journalists collecting and writing news stories. It is the Chinese Whispers game and and far worse than even the MSM.
It seems most stories worldwide start life from the ticker tape of AP or reuters.
Signal diversity to improve performance of separating the wheat from the chaff.
That said, a religion (i.e. voluntary behavioral protocol) for men and women capable of self-moderation. Competing interests to mitigate the progress of others.
Nothing will change, because nothing has changed.
Nothing will change until it does.
You know what we are seeing now is the result of a massive failure. The propogandists, the government, academia, and oligarchs, after decades of promoting and hyping human caused climate change and the disasters to come have failed to convince even a plurality of the people that what they have been selling has value. It has been a disaster for them.
So now their only options are unpopular administrative moves and trying by brute partisan political force to gain a Coup de Main. And that is failing also. The original package cut down to 1/4 of the amount they originally went for is still delayed! I hope dead but doubt that.
But the bottom line their massive investment in time, money, and effort has failed to do what they intended. Everyone from Mann, Dessler, Hayhoe and so many others along with the press, and the government powers that be have failed miserably to do what they set out to do.
“Mann, Dessler, Hayhoe “
These sorts are the foot-soldiers, not the folks behind the curtain.
I think we need a “Wall of Shame” for the main characters. Gore, Kerry, and Attenborough come to mind, but even they are public actors. M. Strong and G. Soros are names that are not well known but two that should be on that wall.
Our small-town newspaper in Washington State – once local & 6 days a week – is now a 4 day a week offering, and owned by Adams Publishing Group of Coon Rapids, Minn. The Company controls 127 newspapers.
I think there is one local reporter. Most articles are taken from the MSM feeds. Grocery store circulars and obituaries are the main reasons for having a subscription.
John ==> Small town weeklies are terrific for local news, local ads, local event notices and absolutely worthless for news….
Most “journalists” in the MSM do not believe both sides of a story deserve equal coverage. Which is indicative of their belief that they should form public opinion, rather than just report the facts and let the public form their own opinion.
Science ==> And you have that right — that is the way they TEACH journalism at, say, Columbia School of Journalism, home of the propaganda machine, Covering Climate Now.
Mark Hertsgaard is a full-blown climate nutjob. His father was a news anchor at a Baltimore television station in the late ’60s and early ’70s and was generally thought to be a bit weird.
In Mark’s case, the “apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
Polls are invariably self-selected and should be suspect for that reason alone. My feeling is that conservatives are much more likely to shun being polled than liberals.
Tom.1 ==> (Is there a .2 version of Tom?)
Sienna and Gallup usually have detailed breakouts of their polls, by party and often liberal conservative….but you have to dig pretty deep to find the all-the-details reports.
No, I just started that because for a while some other person was using that handle and I want to avoid any confusion. I think people here have gotten to know what to expect from Tom.1.
Tom.1 ==> Well, if you every need to reinvent yourself, you can call it an “upgrade” to Tom.2 !
After the members of the media practically crowed about being able to drag Joe Biden over the finish line, I’m surprised that there is anyone out there who believes that the media reports anything accurately.
I”m willing to bet that the 6% who have a great deal of confidence in the media are those who believe that all truth is relative, so as long as the media is reporting what they believe, it must be the truth.
Media is nowdays totally unreliable.
Another thing about polls, which this post brings to focus is poll reporting bias. Who knows how many poll results just go into the dumpster because they don’t show what the pollsters were looking for.
“While half of voters over 65 have confidence in mainstream media’s ability to report the news, only 22% of those under 30 have confidence.”
This may not read the way you think it does.
More likely than not, it means that these youthful receivers of news only trust their peer group, who may have some of the wackiest ideas on the planet.
Neo ==> I second that!
You really need to watch a 1940 movie, “His Girl Friday” starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell.
Reporting upon a convicted murderer is anything but straightforward and factual.
Even Rosalind’s alleged writing as read during the movie, while vividly explanatory, is not factual.
To the movie’s credit, depicted bureaucrats, unelected and elected officials are not one bit more truthful.