[h=1]Journalism 101: Ask Questions, But Let Answers Speak for Themselves[/h]
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/a...let_answers_speak_for_themselves__139493.html
I was struck by the confluence of two stories last week that reflected either directly or indirectly on how people in my profession -- journalism -- do their jobs.
One piece was an op-ed by David Harsanyi at The Federalist titled "Political Journalists Are Trying To Gaslight America." The second was an interview at Spiegel Online with President Obama’s former adviser Ben Rhodes (pictured).
The premise of Harsanyi's piece is that "In the past week, I’ve noticed a number of Democrats and liberal journalists refusing to concede inconvenient facts." Don't let the rhetorical device bother you. I'm pretty sure that Harsanyi didn't really just discover that liberal journalists refuse to concede "inconvenient facts." But he did find a plethora of examples in the news right now that showed stunning duplicity by journalists in covering up for left-wing politicians.
Gaslighting, in case you don't know, is the name given to the process of convincing an innocent person to disbelieve the truth (and doubt their own sanity) by promoting a lie through deception, manipulation and false claims of authority. It comes from the name of a 1944 movie about a woman being manipulated by her husband into thinking she is going insane, but it has seen a resurgence in use since the mass media have become such obvious tools of propaganda and social manipulation.
Harsanyi cites several examples of journalists covering up the truth in the current topics of late-term abortion and the Green New Deal, showing in both cases how the president’s blunt but accurate words in his El Paso speech were turned into apparent falsehoods by reporters misstating the facts (and they don’t even have the benefit of Charles Boyer’s soothing voice).
“No matter how many times ... you quote the plain language of the Virginia or New York abortion bills, they [Democrats and liberal journalists] won’t acknowledge that both legalize the procedure until the moment of birth for virtually any reason,” Harsanyi writes, and then gives examples.
Regarding the Green New Deal, Harsanyi again provides plain evidence that reporters were bending over backwards to cover up for the disastrous rollout of the revolutionary legislation on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s website. The contention that the FAQ document published by Ocasio-Cortez was simply an errant draft that was mistakenly posted online is met with appropriate ridicule by Harsanyi:
“Supposedly, her chief of staff accidentally create[d] a PDF of a draft and then accidentally posted it and then accidentally left it up for hours and hours while critics were dissecting it and forgot to mention it was only a draft. Why someone would want to eliminate cars, planes, and beef in any draft of a policy proposal is still a mystery. In any event, Ocasio-Cortez also accidentally sent the very same FAQ to NPR, and then accidentally her staff interviewed for a piece that was built around the accidentally posted FAQ. No adult, much less a skeptical journalist, would believe such a ridiculous story.”
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/a...let_answers_speak_for_themselves__139493.html
I was struck by the confluence of two stories last week that reflected either directly or indirectly on how people in my profession -- journalism -- do their jobs.
One piece was an op-ed by David Harsanyi at The Federalist titled "Political Journalists Are Trying To Gaslight America." The second was an interview at Spiegel Online with President Obama’s former adviser Ben Rhodes (pictured).
The premise of Harsanyi's piece is that "In the past week, I’ve noticed a number of Democrats and liberal journalists refusing to concede inconvenient facts." Don't let the rhetorical device bother you. I'm pretty sure that Harsanyi didn't really just discover that liberal journalists refuse to concede "inconvenient facts." But he did find a plethora of examples in the news right now that showed stunning duplicity by journalists in covering up for left-wing politicians.
Gaslighting, in case you don't know, is the name given to the process of convincing an innocent person to disbelieve the truth (and doubt their own sanity) by promoting a lie through deception, manipulation and false claims of authority. It comes from the name of a 1944 movie about a woman being manipulated by her husband into thinking she is going insane, but it has seen a resurgence in use since the mass media have become such obvious tools of propaganda and social manipulation.
Harsanyi cites several examples of journalists covering up the truth in the current topics of late-term abortion and the Green New Deal, showing in both cases how the president’s blunt but accurate words in his El Paso speech were turned into apparent falsehoods by reporters misstating the facts (and they don’t even have the benefit of Charles Boyer’s soothing voice).
“No matter how many times ... you quote the plain language of the Virginia or New York abortion bills, they [Democrats and liberal journalists] won’t acknowledge that both legalize the procedure until the moment of birth for virtually any reason,” Harsanyi writes, and then gives examples.
Regarding the Green New Deal, Harsanyi again provides plain evidence that reporters were bending over backwards to cover up for the disastrous rollout of the revolutionary legislation on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s website. The contention that the FAQ document published by Ocasio-Cortez was simply an errant draft that was mistakenly posted online is met with appropriate ridicule by Harsanyi:
“Supposedly, her chief of staff accidentally create[d] a PDF of a draft and then accidentally posted it and then accidentally left it up for hours and hours while critics were dissecting it and forgot to mention it was only a draft. Why someone would want to eliminate cars, planes, and beef in any draft of a policy proposal is still a mystery. In any event, Ocasio-Cortez also accidentally sent the very same FAQ to NPR, and then accidentally her staff interviewed for a piece that was built around the accidentally posted FAQ. No adult, much less a skeptical journalist, would believe such a ridiculous story.”