After Donald Trump Kills CNN Reporter with Death-Ray, Media Debates Use of Top-Secret Military Weapons Against Civilians
Posted: January 12, 2017 Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere, Politics, White House | Tags: -elect, Barack Obama, Central Intelligence Agency, Death Ray, Democratic National Committee, Democratic Party (United States), Donald Trump, Elizabeth Warren, Fact checker, Hillary Clinton, John Podesta, Mike Pence, New York Post, Parody, RUSSIA, satire, The New York Times, The Washington Post Leave a comment
Michael Goodwin writes: An old proverb sums up how Donald Trump handled the last two days: “The dogs bark but the caravan moves on.”
The dogs of the Democratic media were absolutely howling yesterday over sordid, unverified allegations involving Russia, but the president-elect and his team put on a master class in self-defense. They hit back forcefully, with press secretary Sean Spicer calling publication of the allegations “disgraceful” and Vice President-elect Mike Pence calling it a case of “fake news” that aims to “delegitimize the president-elect.”
It was a strong warm-up, and Trump then took the stage to completely deny the charges, and repeated the denials in response to numerous questions. By the end of the press conference, he had managed to turn the spotlight away from himself and on to the lack of integrity in both the media and government intelligence agencies — where it also belongs.
That was no mean feat, and his performance was a reminder that Trump is not and never will be a pushover. He fights fire with fire and is getting increasingly more disciplined in making his case.
[Read the full story here, at New York Post]
Pulling it off was not as easy as he made it look. The run-up to his first press conference since winning the election had the air of crisis that was routine in the long campaign. Then, every week or two, many geniuses predicted that something Trump had said or done would be the final straw and he would have to drop out.
Similarly, the salacious allegations he faced yesterday packed a potential to seriously wound him before he takes office. Anything less than complete denial would have created a firestorm, but after his no-wiggle-room statements, the allegations withered, at least for now. That had to disappoint the dead-enders who hoped they had finally found the kill shot.
Instead, Trump emerged intact and even stronger as he made news on two other fronts: He released extensive plans on how he is severing himself from his company and nominated a new secretary of the troubled Department of Veterans’ Affairs. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] ‘You Are Fake News!’ Trump Confronts CNN’s Jim Acosta
Posted: January 11, 2017 Filed under: Mediasphere, White House | Tags: CNN, Donald Trump, Fact checker, Hillary Clinton, Jim Acosta, John Hegeman, media, New York City, news, Pew Research Center, Press Conference, Vladimir Putin, White House Presser Leave a commentGame Change: After 8 years of Obama, the press is so used to passive-aggressive, they forgot what aggressive looks like.
With Trump looking to call on other reporters, Jim Acosta yelled out, “Since you are attacking us, can you give us a question?”
“Not you,” Trump said. “Your organization is terrible!”
Acosta pressed on, “You are attacking our news organization, can you give us a chance to ask a question, sir?” Trump countered by telling him “don’t be rude.”
“I’m not going to give you a question,” Trump responded. “I’m not going to give you a question. You are fake news!” Read the rest of this entry »
Congratulations #NBC News: The Stupidest Tweet in Media History
Posted: October 10, 2016 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Chris Wallace, Commission on Presidential Debates, Donald Trump, Fact checker, Fox News Channel, Hillary Clinton, Iraq War, Jim Lehrer, Matt Lauer, NBC Leave a comment
This morning in The Federalist:
…That brings me to the broader issue of this alleged “fact-checking” the media feels impelled to engage in during debates. Most of the pushback from moderators last night was arguable assertions or half-truths, and Trump was often debating 3-on-1, as he correctly asserted.
MOLLIE: Oh man, speaking of “fact checkers” you have got to see this.
It’s real, not a parody of fact checking. Totally real. Not photoshpped.
DAVID: Seriously, they’ve lost their minds. There are exceptions, yet so many journalists have been consumed by anti-Trump sentiment that they’ve lost any sense of professionalism — or, more precisely, Trump has given them an excuse to stop
pretending. The moderators were hardly any better.
[Read the full story here, at thefederalist.com]
MOLLIE: They were both disasters. Cooper started poorly, visibly displaying anger, constantly interrupting Trump. He kept saying, in playground style, “Please let her talk. She let you talk.” Or something like that. This is just a strategically unwise move, as it seems petty and juvenile.
Raddatz started fine, because she was mostly silent, and got off a few good questions to each candidate, but then she just lost it. A common criticism of moderators is that they think they’re debating the candidates. But in last night’s debate, Raddatz seemed to forget that she wasn’t a candidate herself. The moment where she began debating Trump on foreign policy was epicly awful. Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s How ‘Serious’ Journalists Tried to Smear the Koch Brothers Seminar
Posted: August 6, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Bias, Charles G. Koch, Civil rights movement, Fact checker, media, news, The Washington Post, Time Magazine, United States, Women's suffrage Leave a comment
The Washington Post’s blunder is not as bad as that of TIME. The magazine published an article with the hysterical headline ‘Charles Koch says U.S. can bomb its way to $100K salaries’. They later changed the headline.
Casey Given writes: Last weekend, the Koch Brothers opened up their exclusive fundraising seminars to the media for the very first time. After years of speculating about what goes on behind the closed doors of the Kochs’ extensive political network, the press could finally see for themselves.
One would think that a decent journalist would repay this tremendous sign of good will with fair reporting on the Kochs’ words and intentions, but good journalism apparently doesn’t sell anymore. While it’s no surprise that the liberal blogosphere and Twitterverse erupted in outrage about the Koch seminars (as they always do), what’s shocking is how prestigious news outlets covered the event.
First, the Washington Post published an article with the headline “Charles Koch compares the work of his network to the civil right movement” — the perfect fodder to get the far left outraged at the supposedly out-of-touch “conservative” billionaire. But what did Koch actually say? From the article’s body:
“History demonstrates that when the American people get motivated by an issue of justice that they believe is just, extraordinary things can be accomplished,” Koch told 450 wealthy conservatives assembled in the ballroom of a lavish oceanfront resort here.
“Look at the American revolution, the anti-slavery movement, the women’s suffrage movement, the civil rights movement,” he said. “All of these struck a moral chord with the American people. They all sought to overcome an injustice. And we, too, are seeking to right injustices that are holding our country back.”
Koch made no such comment comparing the magnitude of his political agenda to the civil rights movement. Rather, he simply cited the civil rights movement (among others) as an inspiration to fight injustice. Considering their work promoting school choice for poor minority children and criminal justice reform for prisoners convicted of nonviolent crimes, the Kochs are clearly fighting injustice. But Koch would have to be an egomaniac to claim that his politics are more important than the American Revolution — which is why he said no such thing. Read the rest of this entry »
UPDATE: Important Headline Correction!
Posted: June 30, 2015 Filed under: Entertainment, Mediasphere, Politics, White House | Tags: 2016 Presidential Campaign, Editorial Error, Fact checker, Flames, Hillary Clinton, News Update, The Clinton Foundation, The Pantsuit Report, Weeping Leave a comment
In our previous news story, the headline said “Girl Bursts into Flames After Hillary Touches Her’. The headline should be “Girl Bursts into Tears After Hillary Touches Her’. Our team of fact checkers and lawyers overlooked this understandable error. Fortunately, we discovered it. There is no independent verification of a girl bursting into flames at a Hillary Clinton event. We reviewed the video, and confirmed that. We regret our mistake.
Thank you for reading punditfromanotherplanet.com.
Study Finds Fact Checkers Biased…
Posted: May 29, 2013 Filed under: Mediasphere | Tags: Barack Obama, Benghazi, Democratic Party (United States), Fact checker, Obama, United States, Washington, YouTube Leave a comment…Against Republicans. Who Knew?
…The fact that, as the Lichter study shows, “A majority of Democratic statements (54 percent) were rated as mostly or entirely true, compared to only 18 percent of Republican statements,” probably has more to do with how the statements were picked and the subjective bias of the fact checker involved than anything remotely empirical. Likewise, the fact that “a majority of Republican statements (52 percent) were rated as mostly or entirely false, compared to only 24 percent of Democratic statements” probably has more to do with spinning stories than it does with evaluating statements.
There is a “truth gap” in Washington, but it doesn’t exist along the lines the fact checkers would have you think. It was Obama who said you could keep the health care you had if you liked it, even if Obamacare became law. It was Obama who said the Citizens United decision would open the floodgates of foreign money into U.S. campaigns. It was Obama who said Benghazi happened because of a YouTube video. It was Obama’s IRS that denied conservative political groups had been singled out for special scrutiny. And it was Obama who promised that taxes would not go up for any American making less than $250,000 per year.
All of these statements and plenty more are demonstrably false, though some people still pretend there is truth in them. As the Lichter study demonstrates, it’s not so much fact checkers that are needed as it is fact checkers to check the facts being checked.
