@SnappleBC I recently looked at a video of Mueller testifying about Iraq before Congress in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq. It was full of statements that are misleading rather than outright lies. For example (not verbatim, I don't have time or the inclination to view the sickening spectacle again): Q: "Do you believe that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction?" A: "Secretary Powell has told us in his speech at the UN that (you can fill in the rest of the drivel)." My point is that answering in this way, demonstrates beyond doubt that he knew that there was no real evidence that Iraq had consequential WMD. If he had been misled by the the evidence presented to him, he would have said something like "Our best evidence indicates that Iraq has significant WMD." One could then give him the benefit of doubt and dismiss him as a fool rather than a murderous apparatchik. Instead, it is clear that he chose to avoid perjury while misleading a credulous and cowardly congress (who were more than happy to be misled). ...and thereby contributing to the deaths of half a million people.

For my money, I'm uninterested in how, exactly, someone chooses to mislead me. They might lie outright. They might omit facts. They might frame the conversation. In the end, the effect is entirely the same. They have knowingly presented a false story with the intent to deceive.

It's all lies in my book and it all counts as fake news. If you don't agree, I have a bridge in Venezuela to sell you *grin*

@HenryAWallace
than others, but the difference is minuscule. For example:

CNN accused of stacking audience vs. Bernie Sanders in town hall event

CNN admitted fault on Wednesday after being accused of failing to disclose Democratic Party ties of several attendees who were able to ask 2020 presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders questions during the network’s town hall on Monday.

*

The CNN event followed other recent town halls featuring Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif; Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn; and potential independent candidate, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. But unlike those town halls, many participants who posed policy questions to Sanders appear to have political ties, which was first reported by Paste Magazine.

*

Paste Magazine pointed out that at least four attendees have deep roots in the Democratic Party and the D.C. lobby, and alleged the way CNN described the participants either downplayed their background or did not disclose such ties at all.

Tara Ebersole, who asked about Sanders’ plan for universal health care, was introduced by CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer as a “former biology professor,” but her reported LinkedIn page claims her current job is chair of the Baltimore County Democratic Party.

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/cnn-accused-of-failing-to-disclose...

If anyone would have told me I’d be using Fox as a link 3 or 4 years ago, I’d have laughed out loud. This poor country has been flipped upside down. Both ‘sides’ PTB suck, but it’s been the damn ‘Left’ that took over the Bush/Cheney playbook and ran with it, i.e. Patriot Act (new and improved); NSA spying, more ‘wars’ that aren’t ‘wars’ and that involve the slaughter of innocent people.

And now Fox (or Faux as I used to say) is more reliable than the ‘msm’, whatever that is nowadays. Right wing Judicial Watch has revealed serious hidden crimes, and the ‘New’ Left has turned what once was considered a CT into a freaking reality show of corrupt public officials, here in the US and Great Britain, and an attempt at overthrowing the menace that honestly won the election.

It’s very disorienting.

I've been railing against our crappy msm for about ten years. And I ain't retracting a thing.

I think we've all seen examples of fake news, even if there is retraction or implicit backpedaling later. How many times have you seen or heard political commentators state or write that Clinton was impeached for a (pick one: affair, getting a blow job), with no mention of the perjury count or any other count? (Of course, neither affairs or blow jobs were even among the impeachment counts.)

Here's another: Hillary is so far ahead that Bernie cannot possibly catch up to Hillary's lead--if that claim is based on including her contingent super delegate votes with her locked in delegate votes. Hayes and Kornacki and the rest of the msm thugs knew damn well that super delegate endorsements are not even super delegate votes; and super delegate endoresements can flip, as had many of Hillary's super delegate endorsements in 2008. Not to mention that Hayes and his ilk should have been explaining that super delegates should not get any vote, period, much less votes with the weight that the Democratic Party gives them. Of course, to the best of my knowledge, a truthful explanation of super delegate votes was no part of msm's coverage of the primary.

Anyway, Saying the super delegates were unlikely to change their minds this time would have been accurate, but stating that Bernie could not possibly win the primary based on super delegate votes was an outright lie. Worse, it was a lie intended to deceive voters before they went to the polls to choose one of two Presidential nominees who had any realistic chance of becoming POTUS.

We've also all seen headlines that even the story beneath them proves are false. Also retractions and corrections of fake/false/inaccurate "news" reports. I very much doubt that all of them were innocent mistakes.

Studies have shown that many readers do not read past a headline. So a hyperbolic, misleading headline is unlikely to be a inadvertent error that doesn't matter because the story beneath it is accurate. "In related news," studies have also shown that the first version of a story, which is indeed often the false headline, sticks in a reader or listener's head. Not only that, but get this one: Studies have shown that a later retraction or "correction" serves to reinforce the original story in the reader or listener's mind.

After these studies, should decent, honest journalists and "commentators" have taken care to at least get the headline right? You're damn skippy, they should. Instead, incorrect headlines began proliferating. (Government used those studies, too: do you remember how many times in 2009 the unemployment figures were given, then were "corrected" (always upward) a few days later? I was aware of the studies then, so I noticed.)

As far as headlines: I used to do layout and write headlines for my union local's little newspaper. The copy itself was never done on time; and I was a volunteer, meaning I did those things late at night, tired after having put in at least an eight-hour day and then cooled my heels at the union office waiting for the copy. I was probably good and hungry, too, but I don't have a specific recollection of that. Based upon that little bit of experience, I can tell you, writing an accurate headline probably is both easier and faster than writing a false or misleading one.

To write a false headline, you have to do the same things as you would to write an accurate headline, namely, read the lede, whether or not the lede is the first paragraph, and skim the rest of the story to ensure you understood the lede. If you want to write a false headline, you also need to think about your objective in falsifying. Next, you need to make sure that the headline you write is close enough to the truth to pass for an honest mistake, but still damaging to whatever or whomever you want to damage (and the reverse, when you want to help). By that time, I could probably have written ten accurate headlines. (Incidentally, the headline also has to be short or long enough to fit the layout, but that is so with both true headlines and false ones.)

The very term "commentators" has all but replaced "journalist," as though "a rose by any other name" is not subject to journalistic ethics. Love, if you sit there all day commenting on news stories that are "politically-tinged" and speak as though you are spouting fact, not just your opinion, you just might be a political journalist. In my book, Only a scoundrel pretends his or her obligations change if he or she simply re-names his or her occupation.

Besides, even the scoundrels did not claim that "commentators" have no obligation to be ethical or accurate. They claimed only that commentators were not obliged to be objective; they are free to express opinions.

There are miles between an honest, ethical opinion based upon fact and misleading the public by appearing to state a fact while saying something that is untrue. Listen to Lawrence O'Donnell some night and see how many things he says are based on indisputable fact. Or, should I say, how few. He's damn good at deceiving people that they are hearing nothing but accurate facts. IMO, he's even better at it than Maddow. But, not only are both deceptive, though; they work very hard at being successfully deceptive.

KINDA SORTA ETHICAL OPINION:
"I don't believe that Clinton was really impeached for the things that the bill of impeachment stated. I believe he was actually impeached for having an extra marital affair."

OUTRIGHT LIE:
"Bill Clinton was impeached for a blow job."

Second, the object or intent of "merely" slanting, framing, selective omission, etc. is deceiving the reading or listening public. I don't think it is a great leap from intentional deception to "fake news." "Fake news" is a term that is obviously not intended to be seen as a technical term of journalistic art; and I doubt anyone takes it that way.

I think everyone understands that, by "fake news," Trump means that the msm is deceptive and intentionally so. Which is what I believe with all my heart. And he should know, having been both the beneficiary and the victim of the Pied Piper Strategy--the beneficiary until he had locked in the nom, which he did well before the end of primary voting; and the victim between that point and election day, 2016.

@HenryAWallace

Many statements have had to be redacted after people have been caught fudging the facts or saying something that isn't true. The biggest lie during this farce is that "all 17 intelligence agencies agree that Russia interfered with the election."

This has been repudiated numerous times. Only 3 agencies have agreed on that and it's not the full agency, but just the 3 heads of them. Brennan, Clapper and the DNI dude. I always forget his name.

Then there's Rachel... she distorts if not outright lies to her followers and that's why so many people are convinced that Vlad meddled in the election. Nothing anyone says will make people look at this fraud from a different perspective.

I've been railing against our crappy msm for about ten years. And I ain't retracting a thing.

I think we've all seen examples of fake news, even if there is retraction or implicit backpedaling later. How many times have you seen or heard political commentators state or write that Clinton was impeached for a (pick one: affair, getting a blow job), with no mention of the perjury count or any other count? (Of course, neither affairs or blow jobs were even among the impeachment counts.)

Here's another: Hillary is so far ahead that Bernie cannot possibly catch up to Hillary's lead--if that claim is based on including her contingent super delegate votes with her locked in delegate votes. Hayes and Kornacki and the rest of the msm thugs knew damn well that super delegate endorsements are not even super delegate votes; and super delegate endoresements can flip, as had many of Hillary's super delegate endorsements in 2008. Not to mention that Hayes and his ilk should have been explaining that super delegates should not get any vote, period, much less votes with the weight that the Democratic Party gives them. Of course, to the best of my knowledge, a truthful explanation of super delegate votes was no part of msm's coverage of the primary.

Anyway, Saying the super delegates were unlikely to change their minds this time would have been accurate, but stating that Bernie could not possibly win the primary based on super delegate votes was an outright lie. Worse, it was a lie intended to deceive voters before they went to the polls to choose one of two Presidential nominees who had any realistic chance of becoming POTUS.

We've also all seen headlines that even the story beneath them proves are false. Also retractions and corrections of fake/false/inaccurate "news" reports. I very much doubt that all of them were innocent mistakes.

Studies have shown that many readers do not read past a headline. So a hyperbolic, misleading headline is unlikely to be a inadvertent error that doesn't matter because the story beneath it is accurate. "In related news," studies have also shown that the first version of a story, which is indeed often the false headline, sticks in a reader or listener's head. Not only that, but get this one: Studies have shown that a later retraction or "correction" serves to reinforce the original story in the reader or listener's mind.

After these studies, should decent, honest journalists and "commentators" have taken care to at least get the headline right? You're damn skippy, they should. Instead, incorrect headlines began proliferating. (Government used those studies, too: do you remember how many times in 2009 the unemployment figures were given, then were "corrected" (always upward) a few days later? I was aware of the studies then, so I noticed.)

As far as headlines: I used to do layout and write headlines for my union local's little newspaper. The copy itself was never done on time; and I was a volunteer, meaning I did those things late at night, tired after having put in at least an eight-hour day and then cooled my heels at the union office waiting for the copy. I was probably good and hungry, too, but I don't have a specific recollection of that. Based upon that little bit of experience, I can tell you, writing an accurate headline probably is both easier and faster than writing a false or misleading one.

To write a false headline, you have to do the same things as you would to write an accurate headline, namely, read the lede, whether or not the lede is the first paragraph, and skim the rest of the story to ensure you understood the lede. If you want to write a false headline, you also need to think about your objective in falsifying. Next, you need to make sure that the headline you write is close enough to the truth to pass for an honest mistake, but still damaging to whatever or whomever you want to damage (and the reverse, when you want to help). By that time, I could probably have written ten accurate headlines. (Incidentally, the headline also has to be short or long enough to fit the layout, but that is so with both true headlines and false ones.)

The very term "commentators" has all but replaced "journalist," as though "a rose by any other name" is not subject to journalistic ethics. Love, if you sit there all day commenting on news stories that are "politically-tinged" and speak as though you are spouting fact, not just your opinion, you just might be a political journalist. In my book, Only a scoundrel pretends his or her obligations change if he or she simply re-names his or her occupation.

Besides, even the scoundrels did not claim that "commentators" have no obligation to be ethical or accurate. They claimed only that commentators were not obliged to be objective; they are free to express opinions.

There are miles between an honest, ethical opinion based upon fact and misleading the public by appearing to state a fact while saying something that is untrue. Listen to Lawrence O'Donnell some night and see how many things he says are based on indisputable fact. Or, should I say, how few. He's damn good at deceiving people that they are hearing nothing but accurate facts. IMO, he's even better at it than Maddow. But, not only are both deceptive, though; they work very hard at being successfully deceptive.

KINDA SORTA ETHICAL OPINION:
"I don't believe that Clinton was really impeached for the things that the bill of impeachment stated. I believe he was actually impeached for having an extra marital affair."

OUTRIGHT LIE:
"Bill Clinton was impeached for a blow job."

Second, the object or intent of "merely" slanting, framing, selective omission, etc. is deceiving the reading or listening public. I don't think it is a great leap from intentional deception to "fake news." "Fake news" is a term that is obviously not intended to be seen as a technical term of journalistic art; and I doubt anyone takes it that way.

I think everyone understands that, by "fake news," Trump means that the msm is deceptive and intentionally so. Which is what I believe with all my heart. And he should know, having been both the beneficiary and the victim of the Pied Piper Strategy--the beneficiary until he had locked in the nom, which he did well before the end of primary voting; and the victim between that point and election day, 2016.

@HenryAWallace

Studies have shown that a later retraction or "correction" serves to reinforce the original story in the reader or listener's mind.

What studies have shown is that there is a statistically significant trend within a test sample population for a later retraction to reinforce the original story in the reader or listener's mind.

Every time you see reports of ANY study claiming a psychological result it is important to realize that although the distilled/digested result is typically reported in absolute or binary terms ("serves to reinforce the original story in the reader or listener's mind"), what the study almost certainly -- like, with 99.9%+ certainty -- found was that the reported result was "observed" (whatever that might be) in a greater fraction of the test subjects "exposed" to the "treatment" than of the control subjects "exposed" to something else. Thus, the use of the definite article is almost never warranted when referring to such studies. Perhaps "some readers' minds". Maybe even only, "the minds of a small but statistically significant fraction of readers."

10% of the population are literally not smart enough to understand, well, almost anything, so it's hardly surprising that psychological experiments find that some fraction of subjects are affected in depressingly irrational and ridiculous ways by any attempt to communicate with them. That doesn't necessarily mean that all, or even most, or even much public discourse should be aimed at the limitations of the cognitively incapable.

I've been railing against our crappy msm for about ten years. And I ain't retracting a thing.

I think we've all seen examples of fake news, even if there is retraction or implicit backpedaling later. How many times have you seen or heard political commentators state or write that Clinton was impeached for a (pick one: affair, getting a blow job), with no mention of the perjury count or any other count? (Of course, neither affairs or blow jobs were even among the impeachment counts.)

Here's another: Hillary is so far ahead that Bernie cannot possibly catch up to Hillary's lead--if that claim is based on including her contingent super delegate votes with her locked in delegate votes. Hayes and Kornacki and the rest of the msm thugs knew damn well that super delegate endorsements are not even super delegate votes; and super delegate endoresements can flip, as had many of Hillary's super delegate endorsements in 2008. Not to mention that Hayes and his ilk should have been explaining that super delegates should not get any vote, period, much less votes with the weight that the Democratic Party gives them. Of course, to the best of my knowledge, a truthful explanation of super delegate votes was no part of msm's coverage of the primary.

Anyway, Saying the super delegates were unlikely to change their minds this time would have been accurate, but stating that Bernie could not possibly win the primary based on super delegate votes was an outright lie. Worse, it was a lie intended to deceive voters before they went to the polls to choose one of two Presidential nominees who had any realistic chance of becoming POTUS.

We've also all seen headlines that even the story beneath them proves are false. Also retractions and corrections of fake/false/inaccurate "news" reports. I very much doubt that all of them were innocent mistakes.

Studies have shown that many readers do not read past a headline. So a hyperbolic, misleading headline is unlikely to be a inadvertent error that doesn't matter because the story beneath it is accurate. "In related news," studies have also shown that the first version of a story, which is indeed often the false headline, sticks in a reader or listener's head. Not only that, but get this one: Studies have shown that a later retraction or "correction" serves to reinforce the original story in the reader or listener's mind.

After these studies, should decent, honest journalists and "commentators" have taken care to at least get the headline right? You're damn skippy, they should. Instead, incorrect headlines began proliferating. (Government used those studies, too: do you remember how many times in 2009 the unemployment figures were given, then were "corrected" (always upward) a few days later? I was aware of the studies then, so I noticed.)

As far as headlines: I used to do layout and write headlines for my union local's little newspaper. The copy itself was never done on time; and I was a volunteer, meaning I did those things late at night, tired after having put in at least an eight-hour day and then cooled my heels at the union office waiting for the copy. I was probably good and hungry, too, but I don't have a specific recollection of that. Based upon that little bit of experience, I can tell you, writing an accurate headline probably is both easier and faster than writing a false or misleading one.

To write a false headline, you have to do the same things as you would to write an accurate headline, namely, read the lede, whether or not the lede is the first paragraph, and skim the rest of the story to ensure you understood the lede. If you want to write a false headline, you also need to think about your objective in falsifying. Next, you need to make sure that the headline you write is close enough to the truth to pass for an honest mistake, but still damaging to whatever or whomever you want to damage (and the reverse, when you want to help). By that time, I could probably have written ten accurate headlines. (Incidentally, the headline also has to be short or long enough to fit the layout, but that is so with both true headlines and false ones.)

The very term "commentators" has all but replaced "journalist," as though "a rose by any other name" is not subject to journalistic ethics. Love, if you sit there all day commenting on news stories that are "politically-tinged" and speak as though you are spouting fact, not just your opinion, you just might be a political journalist. In my book, Only a scoundrel pretends his or her obligations change if he or she simply re-names his or her occupation.

Besides, even the scoundrels did not claim that "commentators" have no obligation to be ethical or accurate. They claimed only that commentators were not obliged to be objective; they are free to express opinions.

There are miles between an honest, ethical opinion based upon fact and misleading the public by appearing to state a fact while saying something that is untrue. Listen to Lawrence O'Donnell some night and see how many things he says are based on indisputable fact. Or, should I say, how few. He's damn good at deceiving people that they are hearing nothing but accurate facts. IMO, he's even better at it than Maddow. But, not only are both deceptive, though; they work very hard at being successfully deceptive.

KINDA SORTA ETHICAL OPINION:
"I don't believe that Clinton was really impeached for the things that the bill of impeachment stated. I believe he was actually impeached for having an extra marital affair."

OUTRIGHT LIE:
"Bill Clinton was impeached for a blow job."

Second, the object or intent of "merely" slanting, framing, selective omission, etc. is deceiving the reading or listening public. I don't think it is a great leap from intentional deception to "fake news." "Fake news" is a term that is obviously not intended to be seen as a technical term of journalistic art; and I doubt anyone takes it that way.

I think everyone understands that, by "fake news," Trump means that the msm is deceptive and intentionally so. Which is what I believe with all my heart. And he should know, having been both the beneficiary and the victim of the Pied Piper Strategy--the beneficiary until he had locked in the nom, which he did well before the end of primary voting; and the victim between that point and election day, 2016.

@bobswern

as I can manage within the bounds of human limitations" and "I strive to deceive and people and manipulate their minds and votes while remaining in the realm of plausible deniability." Even at that, there have been "commentators" or "feature writers" or "columnists" who have totally fabricated stories because it was easier than doing the ground work.

The Boston Globe, once considered the New York Times of New England, when both were better papers, caught one of them at it and demanded his resignation (when he should have been fired overtly as, odds are, that was not his first fabrication.

For his punishment, he later got a much easier and higher-paying job as a regular bloviator on Morning Joe, pretending to represent the leftist viewpoint on the panel when Joe was still overtly, proudly, defiantly rightist. That would be Mike Barnicle, who was basically a "reformed" working person's populist turned rightist.

The New York Times caught and fired another who had fabricated a number of columns from whole cloth.

Finally, the fact that someone phrases something in a memorable and absolute way does mean it is true. I believe that most to all journalists are biased, and not only as to politics. However, a well-trained, ethical biased journalist can write an unbiased news story. I don't believe that a well-trained, ethical journalist will say otherwise.

Objective hard news stories (as opposed to features, columns and editorials} are not only possible, but once appeared in once respectable papers daily. However megacorporatons began gobbling up broadcast and print media until only five megacorps controlled most broadcast and print media.

During that time, the demand of respectable new outlets for unbiased news stories and ethical journalists writing objectively dwindled as the demand for deceptive propaganda rose. In fact, as my first post on this thread stated, the very term "journalism" has become a misnomer and a word to be avoided.

"

Well, by definition, there's no such thing as unbiased news...

I don't understand that comment. First, which definition, from which source? Hunter Thompson stated his personal opinion. Otherwise, I'd call his statement false. As it is, I will say only that I beg to differ.

Relatively definitive definitions, definitive in that they are carefully researched and widely-accepted as definitions, are the definitions found in dictionaries. I don't know if dictionaries include a definition of "unbiased news," but here is wikipedia's article on objective journalism. While longer than a dictionary definition, it may be helpful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalistic_objectivity

Sure, every journalist who even gives a crap about objective reporting has to guard against allowing his or her personal bias to seep into hard news stories. However, it is not impossible, requiring training, practice and self-discipline. Again, the problem today is that megacorps are paying their "commentators" to "cloud men's minds" and manipulate, not to provide us with objective information from which we can make up our minds.

...as any well-educated journalist (and/or student of the industry) will likely tell you. It's just that some news is (far) more biased than others.

Or, as Hunter S. Thompson--one of my true heroes--is often quoted:

“There is no such thing as Objective Journalism.
The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms.”

The CJR piece/report, by the way, is truly outstanding. I've bookmarked and copied it, as much as I could, for further (ongoing) reference. Thank you very much for that!

@ggersh
how Carol Burnett got so dark skinned over the last 45 years.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVdPFqYQn7A]