"FACTS ARE STUPID THINGS" -Media Shill Says- "Not My Job To Correct RepubliKlan LIES

[muckraker10021]

Corporate Media Shill, NBC's Chuck Todd Says:
It's Not Media's Job To Correct RepubliKlan's Obamacare LIES

<img src="http://a1.img.talkingpointsmemo.com/image/upload/c_fill,fl_keep_iptc,g_faces,h_365,w_652/uhbnxjulkk5ranq3wxep.jpg" width="400">
Corporate Media Shill NBC's Chuck Todd


September 18, 2013

MSNBC host Chuck Todd said Wednesday that when it comes to misinformation about the new federal health care law, don't expect members of the media to correct the record.

During a segment on "Morning Joe," former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) speculated that most opponents of the Affordable Care Act have been fed erroneous information about the law. Todd said that Republicans "have successfully messaged against it" but he disagrees with those who argue that the media should educate the public on the law. According to Todd, that's President Barack Obama's job.

"But more importantly, it would be stuff that Republicans have successfully messaged against it," Todd told Rendell. "They don't repeat the other stuff because they haven't even heard the Democratic message. What I always love is people say, 'Well, it's you folks' fault in the media.' No, it's the President of the United States' fault for not selling it."

It's apparently only the media's job to give a bully pulpit to Republican lies, which is why when Todd's employer poll people on Obamacare, they get answers like this:

The misinformation led some of those polled to say things such as, “There are death panels in there, and they’re going to decide whether people get treatment or not,” as one Republican-leaning woman told NBC News.

But, hey, that's not Chuck's fault. It's not his job to, you know, report on things and explain them and clear up misinformation. Because that means research, sifting through facts, figuring out which ones are real and which ones are made up. You know, work.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/...dd-Pointing-out-Republican-lies-isn-t-his-job

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The post below originally posted on
February 26, 2013 by muckraker10021

<div align="left"><!-- MSTableType="layout" --><br><img src="http://sg.wsj.net/public/resources/images/Reagan_Ronald-GC57101112004202930.gif" align="left">"Facts Are Stupid Things"
Ronald Reagan -1988</div>


Reagan got it right in 1988 when he said "Facts Are Stupid Things". Little did he know that by the 21st century smart individuals, people who have degrees from prestigious universities affixed to their walls would collectively ignore irrefutable facts and instead promulgate demonstrable falsehoods as reality. This virus has infected most of the sources of credible information that 30 years ago would never engage in fudging truth so obviously. I'm not talking about the unashamed out-in-the-open obvious liars like <s>FOX</s> FAKE News. I'm talking about the so-called mainstream media, print & television with the anchors & reporters who earn millions of dollars a year.


They have been instructed by their paymasters to treat facts as stupid things and in order to preserve their jobs sublimate their intelligence and become pathological morons. This is the sandbox of false equivalency; all the columnists and talking heads on the television suddenly have lost all of their superior cognitive reasoning skills and critical thinking that they learned at NYU, Duke, Harvard, Stanford, Tulane, Columbia, etc. - and none of them can write a column or produce a newscast that factually tells people what the truth is. Such just-the-facts reporting has been pushed from the "mainstream" onto blogs, public broadcasting, & high price subscription electronic newsletters. You watch an hour of Meet the Press or Face the Nation or with some exceptions, read the famous columnists and news reporters at the major media and you would get the impression that the nations problems are unsolvable and that all parties share blame equally; which is total bullshit.

Imagine a mediator telling two parties in a dispute that they should name their proposed solution, and then he’ll take the midpoint between them. This is the position that our facile mainstream media screams at its viewers and readers daily about the RepubliKlans vs. the Democrats

Actual mediators never do this, for reasons which will soon become apparent. This bogus technique makes the parties’ proposals more extreme, as compromise only makes the outcome worse for you.

If the outcome of the process is going to be (X + Y) / 2, that is, then one party has incentives to make X as small as possible, the other wants Y to be as big as possible, and so on as the parties’ bargaining positions spin further and further away from each other.

Well, this is exactly what a “centrist” media does–by saying in advance that they’ll represent the parties’ positions as equally valid, and that the best policy is a compromise between what the parties are asking for, they not only mislead the public, they actually create incentives for the parties to take more radical positions. They manufacture extremism by preaching centrism.

The answer is to transition away from an innumerate lunatic media which runs on “compromise” as a cognitive tic, to one that can actually do the math, analyze policy and tell the public which ideas are good for the country and which aren’t. Hence Nate Silver and Ezra Klein and Paul Krugman and David Stockman and Bruce Bartlett and others who simply say to the parties, show me your plan, including all the research, all the math, all the footnotes & spreadsheets and let's factually and scientifically see if what you are proposing can withstand scrutiny in the "reality based world". Please don't hand me a folder full of bumper stickers and if your plan like Paul Ryan's "Path To Prosperity" doesn't add up, and actually turns out to be mathematical bullshit - Were going to go on television and write newspaper articles telling people that your math and your plan is full of shit. This is why the pathological morons at the 'major media' who refuse to do what the people I named are doing react to them as a vampires to garlic.

Now the truth about how the "Health Care Mafia" operates in the U.S. was covered on June 2011 HERE
"Obamacare" despite all the republiklan attempts to destroy it has begun to change how the industry operates and is slowly being implemented since the SCOTUS upheld its legality last summer. The 'cost curve' of healthcare which has been spiraling out of control, representing 18% of the U.S. GDP has slowed. This is nothing to scoff at when you consider the exorbitant increases that exceeded the rate of inflation that occurred during the BuShit years. Also BuShits ridiculous Medicare part D which pays the pharmaceutical companies $1.50 for a pill the the Veterans Hospitals are paying 3 cents for the same pill. Former Federal Reserve Board member Alan Blinder has the details HERE in the Feb. 24, 2013 Wall Street Journal. As "Obamacare" is implemented over the next few years, we will see how much the 'cost curve' can continue to be brought into some proximity with the other industrialized nations. Our current 200%+ health care cost over other nations is not sustainable.



FEDERAL RESERVE CHARTS

you can get all the statistics unfiltered by any pathological morons at the Federal Reserve Site
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/

We’re beginning to see some encouraging trends. Two charts from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis suggest that Medicare spending is beginning to flatten after years of steady growth. The first chart, the annual rates of change in Medicare spending since 1970, shows an unmistakable downward trend int he rate of growth over the past five years.

Even more promisingly, the second graph charts Medicare spending as a percentage of GDP, again showing a relative flattening after three decades of steady growth.



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<font face="arial black" color="#d90000" size="4">Lying RepubliKlan Scum Quotes</font>

Q: Will the IRS hire 16,500 new agents to enforce the health care law?
A: No. The law requires the IRS mostly to hand out tax credits, not collect penalties.
The claim of 16,500 new agents stems from a partisan analysis based on guesswork
and false assumptions, and compounded by outright misrepresentation.
--FactCheck.org, calling Gingrich a bald-faced, lying bastard,<a href="http://factcheck.org/2010/03/irs-expansion/"> Link</a>

<br>&quot;This wildly inaccurate claim started as an inflated, partisan assertion that 16,500 new
IRS employees might be required to administer Obamacare. That devolved quickly into
a Rethug claim that 16,500 IRS &quot;agents&quot; would be required. Ron Paul even claimed
that all 16,500 would be carrying guns. None of those claims is true.&quot;
----FactCheck.org, calling Ron Paul a bald-faced, lying bastard,<a href="http://factcheck.org/2010/03/irs-expansion/"> Link</a></font>

 

[QueEx]

Re: "FACTS ARE STUPID THINGS" -Media Shill Says- "Not My Job To Correct RepubliKlan L

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<A HREF="http://www.factcheck.org/2013/09/obamacare-myths/">link</A>

</IFRAME>

 

[Mrfreddygoodbud]

Re: "FACTS ARE STUPID THINGS" -Media Shill Says- "Not My Job To Correct RepubliKlan L

yall not getting that statement..

these parasitic elitist fuckboy cacs and their pawn sheeple whores are telling you, they rule on LIES.. facts and truth will destroy
their illusion of power and control..

For instance if people just realize the fuckin u.s dollar is just a piece of fuckin paper not worth more than the shit you took last night..

that would be a fact and it would be stupid for him to dwell on FACTS

when the parasitic elite, pay folks like him and raygun to keep the illusion going...

as if reporters dont read from scripts, and presidents dont report to higher authorities..

see those are facts that have to be stupid if this illusion is to continue..

 

[Greed]

Everyone knows politicians lie. Why don’t reporters say so?

Everyone knows politicians lie. Why don’t reporters say so?
By Olivier Knox, Yahoo News | Yahoo! News
Mon, Aug 19, 2013

It was Aug. 6, 2007, and President George W. Bush hadn’t told the truth.

He had claimed, during a press conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, that Iran “has proclaimed its desire to build a nuclear weapon.”

While the United States and its allies have long accused Tehran of trying to build an atomic arsenal, Iran has never openly declared that it wants nuclear weapons. The president had said something false. What was a reporter to do?

The headline on my story called Bush’s claim “dubious.” The piece said he had delivered “an inaccurate accusation at a time of sharp tensions between Washington and Tehran.”

I didn’t call it a lie (I still wouldn’t). A National Security Council official telephoned to say “good catch” and assure me the claim was a mistake and would not be repeated. It wasn’t.

The current controversy around the National Security Agency surveillance programs has — once again — raised questions about the credibility of senior government officials.

President Barack Obama assured Jay Leno that “there is no spying on Americans.” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said he gave the “least untruthful” testimony he could when he told Congress that the NSA doesn’t collect information on millions of Americans.

The leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden paint a very different picture.

But you probably won’t see a lot of “liar” labels from the mainstream media. (One exception: PolitiFact’s “Pants on Fire” rating, but even there the “liar, liar” is implicit.)

Why not? And does it matter?

Part of the answer is that we don’t necessarily know when someone is lying — meaning when they knowingly pass along something that isn’t true with the intent to deceive.

One official told me Clapper’s assertion that the NSA doesn’t collect information about millions of Americans was technically true because the intelligence community definition of “collect” means that an analyst has reviewed the information. So the NSA could scoop up millions of phone records and that wouldn’t technically count as “collection.”

More broadly, there is the thinking that if someone believes their statement to be technically true, it doesn't meet the definition of lying — at least for reporting purposes. On Main Street, it can be a different story.

“I do think the blogosphere is too quick to say ‘You guys are pansies 'cause you won’t say lie,’” Ron Fournier, the National Journal writer who worked for years at The Associated Press, told Yahoo News.

“We should save the liar label for when we have goods — when not only is the information wrong, it’s knowingly wrong,” said Fournier.

But Ron disagreed that the “technically true” standard applied to Clapper.

“When Director Clapper admits to Congress that he told a partial truth, or an untruth, and then justifies it — whether you think it’s credible or not, because it’s national security — he’s given us the goods to say ‘That’s a lie.’”

There’s another aspect to the “knowingly untrue” standard.

For years, I’ve (mentally) plotted sources on a graph where one axis is “honesty” and the other is “knowledge.”

Some sources know a lot but aren’t totally honest; others are totally honest but don’t know a lot. (And then there are those officials I trust so little that if they told me “good morning,” I would need a second source to confirm it.) A source could be 100 percent forthcoming — but the information could still be misleading because they don't have the full picture.

What happens when an official is given bad information — and repeats it? That can put the institution on the hook (“The Pentagon lied…”) but the individual could have acted in good faith.

“We’re told untruths and half truths and partial truths every day, and we should call them out,” Fournier said. “‘I am not a crook’? Richard Nixon lied. ‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman…’? Bill Clinton lied.”

(Cue 15-year-old debate over whether the dictionary definition of “sexual relations” includes Clinton’s behavior with Monica Lewinsky. Some Democrats argued it technically did not.)

Because lying involves an intent to deceive, there’s another hurdle. Let’s call it the “misspeak” hurdle.

Shockingly, government officials sometimes just get stuff wrong. They’re sure that something is true. It isn’t.

It’s not reassuring to hear a plea of incompetence (“The congressman misspoke”), and sometimes it’s laughably incredible. But it happens.

Does it matter whether reporters use the word "lie"?

Independent national security reporter Marcy Wheeler, who doesn’t hesitate to use the word, says it does — especially in the ongoing debate about government surveillance.

When it comes to officials who make “demonstrably false” claims, “they should not be trusted in the debate, because they violated our trust,” she told Yahoo News.

This is especially true in the NSA debate because government officials benefit from “information asymmetry” — they have access to the nation’s secrets, and the public ordinarily doesn’t have the information necessary to judge their statements.

In effect, the public is trusting them to provide an incomplete but accurate description of what the government is doing in order to have an honest debate.

“Once somebody has made one of these outrageous comments, then I just think they’re not entitled to credibility,” Wheeler told Yahoo News. “It’s sorta my job to point that out.”

So why don’t mainstream media reporters use the word? For fear of alienating officials who might provide the, uhhh, raw material for their next story.

“There’s a sense that you don’t want to call them liars, even while acknowledging that they misled, because you won’t be entitled to those droppings in the future,” she said.

But calling an official’s comments “false” or “inaccurate” or putting their quote next to facts that flatly contradict it can serve the same purpose as calling out a “lie” — and doesn’t require assessing someone’s understanding of the facts, or motives.

“The president said the government doesn’t spy on us. Whether or not that’s a lie, or we call it a lie, is not that important. The information was wrong. We do know that the government is spying on us,” according to Fournier.

“His credibility is hurt. You don’t have to slap the lie label on that for his credibility to be hurt,” he said.

And it's not a particularly awesome time for the government — or the media — to lose more credibility.

Then again, the most famous story about the honest nature of a (future) politician — Washington and the cherry tree — is a lie. Probably.

http://news.yahoo.com/everyone-knows-politicians-lie--why-don’t-reporters-say-so--194213534.html

 

[thoughtone]

Re: "FACTS ARE STUPID THINGS" -Media Shill Says- "Not My Job To Correct RepubliKlan L

source: Project Censored

The Media Can Legally Lie



In February 2003, a Florida Court of Appeals unanimously agreed with an assertion by FOX News that there is no rule against distorting or falsifying the news in the United States.

Back in December of 1996, Jane Akre and her husband, Steve Wilson, were hired by FOX as a part of the Fox “Investigators” team at WTVT in Tampa Bay, Florida. In 1997 the team began work on a story about bovine growth hormone (BGH), a controversial substance manufactured by Monsanto Corporation. The couple produced a four-part series revealing that there were many health risks related to BGH and that Florida supermarket chains did little to avoid selling milk from cows treated with the hormone, despite assuring customers otherwise.

According to Akre and Wilson, the station was initially very excited about the series. But within a week, Fox executives and their attorneys wanted the reporters to use statements from Monsanto representatives that the reporters knew were false and to make other revisions to the story that were in direct conflict with the facts. Fox editors then tried to force Akre and Wilson to continue to produce the distorted story. When they refused and threatened to report Fox’s actions to the FCC, they were both fired.(Project Censored #12 1997)

Akre and Wilson sued the Fox station and on August 18, 2000, a Florida jury unanimously decided that Akre was wrongfully fired by Fox Television when she refused to broadcast (in the jury’s words) “a false, distorted or slanted story” about the widespread use of BGH in dairy cows. They further maintained that she deserved protection under Florida’s whistle blower law. Akre was awarded a $425,000 settlement. Inexplicably, however, the court decided that Steve Wilson, her partner in the case, was ruled not wronged by the same actions taken by FOX.

FOX appealed the case, and on February 14, 2003 the Florida Second District Court of Appeals unanimously overturned the settlement awarded to Akre. The Court held that Akre’s threat to report the station’s actions to the FCC did not deserve protection under Florida’s whistle blower statute, because Florida’s whistle blower law states that an employer must violate an adopted “law, rule, or regulation.” In a stunningly narrow interpretation of FCC rules, the Florida Appeals court claimed that the FCC policy against falsification of the news does not rise to the level of a “law, rule, or regulation,” it was simply a “policy.” Therefore, it is up to the station whether or not it wants to report honestly.

During their appeal, FOX asserted that there are no written rules against distorting news in the media. They argued that, under the First Amendment, broadcasters have the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on public airwaves. Fox attorneys did not dispute Akre’s claim that they pressured her to broadcast a false story, they simply maintained that it was their right to do so. After the appeal verdict WTVT general manager Bob Linger commented, “It’s vindication for WTVT, and we’re very pleased… It’s the case we’ve been making for two years. She never had a legal claim.”

UPDATE BY LIANE CASTEN: If we needed any more proof that we now live in an upside down world, the saga of Jane Akre, along with her husband, Steve Wilson, could not be more compelling.

Akre and Wilson won the first legal round. Akre was awarded $425,000 in a jury trial with well-crafted arguments for their wrongful termination as whistleblowers. And in the process, they also won the prestigious “Goldman Environmental” prize for their outstanding efforts. However, FOX turned around and appealed the verdict. This time, FOX won; the original verdict was overturned in the Appellate Court of Florida’s Second District. The court implied there was no restriction against distorting the truth. Technically, there was no violation of the news distortion because the FCC’s policy of news distortion does not have the weight of the law. Thus, said the court, Akre-Wilson never qualified as whistleblowers.

What is more appalling are the five major media outlets that filed briefs of Amici Curiae- or friend of FOX – to support FOX’s position: Belo Corporation, Cox Television, Inc., Gannett Co., Inc., Media General Operations, Inc., and Post-Newsweek Stations, Inc. These are major media players! Their statement, “The station argued that it simply wanted to ensure that a news story about a scientific controversy regarding a commercial product was present with fairness and balance, and to ensure that it had a sound defense to any potential defamation claim.”

“Fairness and balance?” Monsanto hardly demonstrated “fairness and balance” when it threatened a lawsuit and demanded the elimination of important, verifiable information!

The Amici position was “If upheld by this court, the decision would convert personnel actions arising from disagreements over editorial policy into litigation battles in which state courts would interpret and apply federal policies that raise significant and delicate constitutional and statutory issues.” After all, Amici argued, 40 states now have Whistleblower laws, imagine what would happen if employees in those 40 states followed the same course of action?

The position implies that First Amendment rights belong to the employers – in this case the five power media groups. And when convenient, the First Amendment becomes a broad shield to hide behind. Let’s not forget, however; the airwaves belong to the people. Is there no public interest left-while these media giants make their private fortunes using the public airwaves? Can corporations have the power to influence the media reporting, even at the expense of the truth? Apparently so.

In addition, the five “friends” referred to FCC policies. The five admit they are “vitally interested in the outcome of this appeal, which will determine the extent to which state whistleblower laws may incorporate federal policies that touch on sensitive questions of editorial judgment.”

Anyone concerned with media must hear the alarm bells. The Bush FCC, under Michael Powell’s leadership, has shown repeatedly that greater media consolidation is encouraged, that liars like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are perfectly acceptable, that to refer to the FCC interpretation of “editorial judgment” is to potentially throw out any pretense at editorial accuracy if the “accuracy” harms a large corporation and its bottom line. This is our “Brave New Media”, the corporate media that protects its friends and now lies, unchallenged if need be.

The next assault: the Fox station then filed a series of motions in a Tampa Circuit Court seeking more than $1.7 million in trial fees and costs from both Akre and Wilson. The motions were filed on March 30 and April 16 by Fox attorney, William McDaniels-who bills his client at $525 to $550 an hour. The costs are to cover legal fees and trial costs incurred by FOX in defending itself at the first trial. The issue may be heard by the original trial judge, Ralph Steinberg-a logical step in the whole process. However, Judge Steinberg must come out of retirement if he is to hear this, so the hearing, set for June 1, may go to a new judge, Judge Maye.

Akre and her husband feel the stress. “There is no justification for the five stations not to support us,” she said. “Attaching legal fees to whistleblowers is unprecedented, absurd. The ‘business’ of broadcasting trumps it all. These news organizations must ensure they are worthy of the public trust while they use OUR airwaves, free of charge. Public trust is alarmingly absent here.”

Indeed. This is what our corporate media, led by such as Rupert Murdoch, have come to. How low we have fallen.