321–330 of 656 posts
Is it a fair accusation that the "NYTimes is lying"? That seems to imply they are complicit in a propaganda campaign with the government, which seems unlikely.
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That's the figure that has been cherry picked and everyone has run with to dismiss the announcement yes. While it probably was included to sensationalize, I fail to see how that is some kind of smoking gun that somehow falsifies all the rest of it. Everyone buying into this is showing their bias
It's the most obvious example, it's not the sole piece of evidence. Let's pick through the official statement. "In addition to carrying out anonymous telephonic threats, these devices could be used to conduct a wide range of telecommunications attacks. This includes disabling cell phone towers, enabling denial of services attacks and facilitating anonymous, encrypted communication between potential threat actors and…
Once a Chinese grad student explained to me a difference he noted between Chinese and American citizens. He said in China no really reads or watches 24/7 major news outlets in China. They are fully aware that all of it is propaganda and just go about their life. He said Americans seem to get really emotional over content in the press and seem to really struggle with the idea of propaganda / journalism in the news. I…
Americans have PTSD, and paranoia.
Before Nixon, Americans had an idylic belief in "America" as some bastion of exceptionalism, independence, idealism. We're the best, and we can do anything. We never got attacked, we had the most money, power, etc. Everything's good and we're the best.
But since Nixon, they learned their most-venerated politicians lie to them. But not only politicians; the news lies, corporations lie, scientists lie, their neighbors lie. And when 9/11 happened, suddenly the facade of invulnerability fell (because it was a foreign terrorist, rather than domestic, like Oklahoma City). Year after year, the media bombards Americans with terrifying stories of somebody lying to them, secretly hurting them. They're all out to get you. And polls show year after year that Americans are less trusting of their institutions.
To function in a society, you have to trust somebody. So they still watch the news, listen to politicians. They hide in some in-group, like a political party or ideology, or even just a Facebook group. But they are hyper-aware that anybody could be lying to them at any time. That some commonly-held truth is actually a weapon used to hurt them.
They have been bombarded with fear for decades by the media and politicians. Every single day they are told that "the enemy" is working to destroy everything they love. This isn't an exaggeration, this is literally the line given by politicians, and then parroted by their favorite media source. This is why Americans both obsessively watch media, and are really emotional about everything they hear in the media. It's why so many Americans latch onto conspiracy theories now (they didn't used to). We are all afraid because our system has made us afraid, and we don't know who to trust.
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Except people are often being fired for quoting Charlie Kirk verbatim . The First Amendment doesn't apply to only citizens.
Please cite a single example of someone being fired for quoting Charlie Kirk verbatim without any celebratory tone.
The post is reproduced in the article, in its apparent entirety. Zero celebration I can detect.
Now what?
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I would expect to see conflicting narratives in any country with free press. Why would we expect different outlets with different biases to run consistent narratives?
I agree it’s healthy for Americans to be more skeptical of journalism, especially the sources they think they trust. But a key difference between NYT and Xinhua in China is that NYT explicitly doesn’t want to be duped. Sure reporters are lazy and will run an article quickly about a breaking story they get from a government tip. But if they find out it was wrong the editors will be pissed and likely print an update or…
The only way to create a true counter weight is the amount of time encompassing the false hood should be the same amount of time given to the retraction. 1 day of false hood should equal 1 day of retraction.
Will this mode of operation exist, most likely not. The closest the USA had to such would be the Fairness Doctrine. [0]
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This reminded me of a YouTube clip I watched years ago. It was basically a retired KGB agent explaining how the media purposely puts out conflicting stories. This breaks the brain of the citizens, and they're unable to know what is true. We indeed see this here in the US. I can't tell you what is true or false (in media) objectively. I can choose what I want to believe is true, though.
I would expect to see conflicting narratives in any country with free press. Why would we expect different outlets with different biases to run consistent narratives?
There is a lawyer (Alec Karakatsanis) who has been writing about police driven propaganda for years. His recent book "Copaganda" is fantastic. He carefully breaks down how major papers (NYT is chief among them) create stories that fit a narrative by using very one-sided sources. Like an article on crime written in bad faith where the only people quotes are police, police consultants, and ex-police. It's a really good…
Didn't read the book but I think it's more insidious than what you wrote. The journalists don't think they're writing these stories to amplify the police narrative (they think they're unbiased). They just don't have the judgement (or will?) to look beyond the initial narrative which is police-driven. In the end if a journalist can get their story out faster by leaning on a few 'trusted sources' and then move onto the…
No, they know what they are doing and you can tell they know what they are doing by the careful way language is used differently for similar facts when the police or other favored entities are involved vs. other entities in similar factual circumstances (particularly, the use of constructions which separates responsibility for an adverse result from the actor, which is overwhelmingly used in US media when police are the actors—and also, when organs of the Israeli state are—but not for most other violent actors.) This is frequently described as “the exonerative mood” (or, sometimes, “the exonerative tense”, though it is not really a verb tense.)
Carefully calibrated, highly-selective use of (often, quite awkward) linguistic constructs does not happen unconsciously, it is a deliberate, knowing choice.
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For example, Stalin probably killed a lot more communists.
That's preposterous. Hitler intentionally created extermination camps, which targeted "Bolsheviks" above all. He then forced his armies on a bloody rampage into Russia, where he overextended and was defeated, after violently murdering millions. There is a dominant thread of anti-intellectualism that lumps virtually all WW2 deaths as "victims of communism". This is total nonsense, obviously, promoted by neo-Nazi and N…
> There is a dominant thread of anti-intellectualism that lumps virtually all WW2 deaths as "victims of communism". This is total nonsense, obviously, promoted by neo-Nazi and Nazi sympathizer groups.
That's not what I'm doing and I'd advise you to review the HN guidelines, particularly the one that reads, "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
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Everything is relative. I'm an immigrant from a post-USSR country and the US is still orders of magnitude more democratic and free
Doubt. What are post-USSR countries (except for Ukraine) where government detains lots of people who hasn't committed any crimes? How many people get wrongfully killed by cops in post-USSR countries? In U.S. that's like a sport for cops to find an excuse to unalive someone. And what is democratic about the fact that majority of people votes for candidate A, yet candidate B becomes the president because... because it'…
It really seemed bogus to me, but also assumed that the Secret Service had evidence of criminal behavior that wasn’t publicized which this essentially confirms.