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  • davelAEnglish
    517·
    9 months ago

    But muh Media Bias/Fact Check says it checks out!

    https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/contact/

    Dave M. Van Zandt obtained a Communications Degree before pursuing a higher degree in the sciences. Dave currently works full time in the health care industry. Dave has spent more than 20 years as an arm chair researcher on media bias and its role in political influence.

    Van Zandt is some hobbyist who was in the right place at the right time: the “post-truth” moment of Clinton’s loss to Trump and the string of Russiagate conspiracy theories and Kellyanne Conway’s alternative facts and the Cambridge Analytica hysteria.

    The whole concept of the “left” or ”right“ “bias” being inversely correlated with factualness is garbage. These kinds of graphs, which try to convince us that centrism equals factualness, are garbage:

    The core bias of corporate media is the bias of the capitalist class, but people like Van Zandt don’t seem to understand this.

    The inner workings of corporate media were explained about forty years ago in Inventing Reality and Manufacturing Consent.
    A five minute introduction: Noam Chomsky - The 5 Filters of the Mass Media Machine

  • davelAEnglish
    181·
    10 months ago

    Citations Needed podcast: Whataboutism - The Media’s Favorite Rhetorical Shield Against Criticism of US Policy

    Since the beginning of what’s generally called ‘RussiaGate’ three years ago, pundits, media outlets, even comedians have all become insta-experts on supposed Russian propaganda techniques. The most cunning of these tricks, we are told, is that of “whataboutism” – a devious Soviet tactic of deflecting criticism by pointing out the accusers’ hypocrisy and inconsistencies. The tu quoque - or, “you, also” - fallacy, but with a unique Slavic flavor of nihilism, used by Trump and leftists alike in an effort to change the subject and focus on the faults of the United States rather than the crimes of Official State Enemies.

    But what if “whataboutism” isn’t describing a propaganda technique, but in fact is one itself: a zombie phrase that’s seeped into everyday liberal discourse that – while perhaps useful in the abstract - has manifestly turned any appeal to moral consistency into a cunning Russian psyop. From its origins in the Cold War as a means of deflecting and apologizing for Jim Crow to its braindead contemporary usage as a way of not engaging any criticism of the United States as the supposed arbiter of human rights, the term “whataboutism” has become a term that - 100 percent of the time - is simply used to defend and legitimizing American empire’s moral narratives.

    Ben Burgis @ Current Affairs: Is “Whataboutism” Always a Bad Thing?

    Discussing the crimes of our own country as well as the crimes of others is not always an effort to downplay other countries’ crimes—it can be a test of whether we are serious about our principles.

  • davelAEnglish
    3218·
    1 month ago

    It is not currently such a place. I’ve yet to hear a Lemmy admin say otherwise.

    Edit to add: Russiagate conspiracy theorists want it to be true so they can simply dismiss voices that contradict their beliefs.

  • davelAEnglish
    2717·
    10 months ago

    The Dems and Dem-aligned corporate media have spent the last eight years pushing Russiagate conspiracy theories, and now they’re expanding BlueAnon to include China because the US is itching to ramp up Cold War II.

  • davelAEnglish
    10·
    21 days ago

    If they’re clawing each other’s eyes out, that’s actually an improvement, because for the last eight years they’ve blamed anyone but themselves/each other. They scapegoated deplorables and Bernie bros and Assange and Russiagate conspiracy theories and on and on, anyone but the party itself.

  • davelAEnglish
    9·
    1 year ago

    The Latte Left AKA virtually all of my professional-managerial class peers, including almost all of the ones who joined the DSA. It seems they’ll never get the several Russiagates out of their heads, despite all of them having been debunked. Fuck you, Rachel Maddow.

  • davelAEnglish
    9·
    9 months ago

    If that’s what you think then I suggest picking up Inventing Reality or Manufacturing Consent.
    Noam Chomsky - The 5 Filters of the Mass Media Machine

    Citations Needed: Whataboutism - The Media’s Favorite Rhetorical Shield Against Criticism of US Policy

    Since the beginning of what’s generally called ‘RussiaGate’ three years ago, pundits, media outlets, even comedians have all become insta-experts on supposed Russian propaganda techniques. The most cunning of these tricks, we are told, is that of “whataboutism” – a devious Soviet tactic of deflecting criticism by pointing out the accusers’ hypocrisy and inconsistencies. The tu quoque - or, “you, also” - fallacy, but with a unique Slavic flavor of nihilism, used by Trump and leftists alike in an effort to change the subject and focus on the faults of the United States rather than the crimes of Official State Enemies.

    But what if “whataboutism” isn’t describing a propaganda technique, but in fact is one itself: a zombie phrase that’s seeped into everyday liberal discourse that – while perhaps useful in the abstract - has manifestly turned any appeal to moral consistency into a cunning Russian psyop. From its origins in the Cold War as a means of deflecting and apologizing for Jim Crow to its braindead contemporary usage as a way of not engaging any criticism of the United States as the supposed arbiter of human rights, the term “whataboutism” has become a term that - 100 percent of the time - is simply used to defend and legitimizing American empire’s moral narratives.

    We are joined by Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of The Intercept.