In the runup to the recent Presidential election, I was astonished by how blatant, how uncaring the bias of the news media had become. They no longer even bothered to hide it. That’s continued since the election. It’s as if the journalists and editors concerned have decided that facts and truth are no longer important – only the ‘spin’ they put upon reality has any meaning.
Two recent articles reinforced this impression. First, late last month, Rolling Stone ran an anti-gun hit piece titled ‘All-American Killer: How the AR-15 Became Mass Shooters’ Weapon of Choice‘. The fact is, however, that the AR-15 is not a weapon of choice in almost all mass shootings. Most involve handguns; some involve other long guns; but seldom is an AR-15 involved. Rolling Stone cites only four recent shootings where it was used. The headline takes isolated incidents and fabricates a narrative around them. In other words, it’s a deliberate, eye-catching lie.
Next, last weekend the Guardian ran a so-called exposé of Gab, a new social media platform (of which I’m a member). Its headline: ‘Inside the hate-filled echo chamber of racism and conspiracy theories‘. I’m on Gab literally every day. I have yet to see more than a couple of isolated posts by members with ‘racist’ or ‘conspiracy theory’ attitudes, compared to thousands by others who are as normal as you or I. I’m sure there are more of them, and that they gravitate to each other’s home pages on Gab, or friend each other, or follow each other’s posts: but if you choose to avoid such nonsense, you don’t even notice it. Gab is no better or worse than Twitter or any other social media host platform in that regard. By taking the nastiness of such individuals and seeking to paint the entire platform in such hues, the headline is yet another deliberate lie.
I must confess, I truly don’t understand such behavior. In normal life, I seldom run across people who are determined to warp and twist anything into lies and negativity. It’s as if these journalists, editors and outlets live with malice aforethought towards everything and everybody. In my training (which has been extensive), I was taught to regard such attitudes and conduct as psychopathic . . . but I’m sure the people involved in such ‘journalism’ would reject that label indignantly. So what is it? What makes otherwise ‘normal’ people into willing liars, looking for the worst in everything and everyone and fabricating it when they can’t find enough to satisfy them?
I do have an answer from my faith, of course. We call that ‘evil’. Perhaps C. S. Lewis had it right in The Screwtape Letters:
We must picture hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives with the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment.
That probably describes the reports above, and those who wrote them, I suspect.
Peter
I suspect it will get even worse as they "circle the drain" good and proper and the desperation increases logarithmicly. The mainstream media are already working with reduced staff and still aren't viable. Paywalls have a 98% failure rate. Then there is the minor issue of them no longer being required anyway as Trump etc can get more info out to the masses in one Tweet. They simply aren't needed any more. Cue the biggest leftie hissy-fit in history, bigger than the one after the election.
Peter:
As frontpagemag's David Horowitz once observed, they're MISSIONARIES.
When you are absolutely, positively, and utterly convinced not ONLY of the fact that your cause is righteous and blessed, but that your opponents are not just people of different experiences and thoughts leading to different opinions, but just shy of minions from Hell itself for not agreeing with you… then ANYTHING is permissible.
Lying? No problem. Accosting a woman traveling on a plane with her family? All in a day's work. Threatening to kill your opponents, rioting, shutting down traffic blocking critical services? Hey, we're fighting PURE EVIL, DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND YOU H8R????!?!?!?!???!!
I've seen it personally. Back in the days when I debated in the on-line comments section of the local paper (then they switched to a facebook system, and I'm not on FB) I couldn't post a comment when ONE of them wouldn't be answering me, countering me, attacking me within minutes. And it'd be a swarm attack, with the next comment showing up soon after the first, and then a third… and so on. Either they literally haunt the pages and updated every so often to make sure no counter-opinion went unanswered.
They even kept dossiers. For example, I made a comment. One of them, literally within minutes, not only posted a reply, but had pulled a direct quote from a post I'd made OVER A YEAR PRIOR, and provided the link.
As a friend of mine observed, Conservatives have lives. Yes, we go through the elections and are active, but then we go back to reality. For them, the struggle to perfect society IS their reality.
At the risk of going on overly, this is the issue. They see themselves as purifiers, devoted to hammering out what they see as the dross keeping humanity back from a one-world, Socialist utopia. They literally LIVE for this. It IS their life. Reality, history, facts, and logic don't matter. They have A VISION, and will work towards it regardless of anything.
Peter,
That CS Lewis quote describes every university in the U.S. at this time and is expanding, as you show, to the whole of the country. So we believers will surely be in heaven at the moment of our passing because we are currently living in hell.
Houston
I wonder if "journalists" have their own chapter in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).
I have no doubt the overwhelming majority of media suffer from psychopathy, and leftists in general exhibit, in varying degrees, similar affliction. Until recently this was partially obscured by a very thin veneer of social accommodation; Donald Trump's election has stripped away all of that veneer, fully exposing the scope of mental and emotional disorders lefties suffer.
Up to a point, one is entitled to occupy one's own version of reality; when, however, the artificiality expands to a degree which threatens the rational behavior necessary to be a functional and productive member of society it enters the realm of a psychiatric disorder requiring treatment.
It looks like we're there as far as the organized left is concerned, and the mass of supporting members are rather close behind. At this point everyone not drinking their kool-aid is viewing the situation with amusement and some concern, because severe mental and emotional irrationality frequently leads to becoming manifested through physical means. Ivanka Trump experienced just that this week, we'll all get our turn soon.
The next threshold will be the dangerous one, when having reached the inescapable conclusion that there is nothing on the left that can be trusted, especially in the area of information, new sources will be created that trade in absolute truth and accuracy, causing the near instantaneous collapse of the existing leftist structure, and not just the "journalist" portion – all the left's depravities will be exposed. Today's it's a slowly accelerating decline, but preference cascades have a way of suddenly going exponential.
The problem is that this election shows that they've lost their ability to move the needle.
Or more precisely, they still can move the needle some, but not enough. And that's going to get worse as they get increasingly deranged and Trump appears increasingly Presidential.
Hillary has a long history of breaking disloyal media people, and now prominent fundraisers are openly asking what they got for their money. She's not an quitter. These conspiracy stories are loyalty oaths. Hillary, this is Paul Krugman, don't break me, I'm on your side. Hillary, this is Olberman, don't break me, I'm loyal to you.
Hillary needs another office to keep suborning bribery. With half a billion, she might get the UN or the Senate. If she keeps her media in line. Sane corruption and fear, not psychosis.
"In normal life, I seldom run across people who are determined to warp and twist anything into lies and negativity. It's as if these journalists, editors and outlets live with malice aforethought towards everything and everybody."
You've never had to deal with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
Brian Lilley and Ezra Levant can tell a good tale about such horrors as "the fifth estate", CBC's now departed "investigative journalism" show where the CBC's operatives would conduct public outings and push hit pieces on various people they decided to victimise. If you want to see what it'd be like to have the mainstream media empowered with billions of dollars of taxpayer money, especially when it comes to eventual massive settlements for outright lying, look no farther than the CBC.
If you'd like an operating model for what these American media people would be like if they had access to huge amounts of cash and government protection, pay close attention to affairs to America's north.
These pricks don't apologise even when the courts tell them they're wrong with a multi-million dollar judgement and a stern rebuke — they are the Great White North's version of the SJW as described by Vox Day, and their entitlement knows very few limits.
As you just said, Peter, phycopathic behavior. I have believed for years that Progressive Liberalism is a mental disorder, and they've been proving my theory in spades since Nov. 8th….
I am honestly, serious not conspiracy minded. Oswald shot JFK, we did land on the moon, etc…
But the pattern has been so consistent it is hard not to think this:it is information warfare.
The media has lost their grip on the narrative. Voices that don't stick to the script have become very popular on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. I personally credit this alternative media with being decisive in Trump's victory.
The response has been suppression. This has come in the form of hate speech codes and "fake news" filtering. Decertify the trouble makers, and demonetize their content. Terminate accounts if they can get away with it.
So people facing this have fled to Gab, and other upstart fora. Solution? Delegitimze them, create the perception that they are wretched hives of scum and vilainy, a place no decent person would go.
Whether this is coordinated and planned, or just spontaneously done out of tribal antipathy, you be the judge. But it's being done just the same.