@CB
I tried to ignore this, but just couldn't.

Do you know how many times I was told by you and others over the last couple of years on those Dose columns that The Guardian was not to be trust in anything related to Covid? Especially if I used it to back the science on vaccines. Those articles also were "extensively backed up".

NOW The Guardian can be trusted because you used it? They are apparently BAD on Covid, but GOOD on Ukraine?

Funny how this all works.

by extensive documentation. It was more than an "opinion piece".
Take note of highlighted links: It's not Russia that's pushed Ukraine to the brink of war

Manufacturing Consent - A Propaganda Model
by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky

The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace. It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfill this role requires systematic propaganda.

In countries where the levers of power are in the hands of a state bureaucracy, the monopolistic control over the media, often supplemented by official censorship, makes it clear that the media serve the ends of a dominant elite. It is much more difficult to see a propaganda system at work where the media are private and formal censorship is absent. This is especially true where the media actively compete, periodically attack and expose corporate and governmental malfeasance, and aggressively portray themselves as spokesmen for free speech and the general community interest. What is not evident (and remains undiscussed in the media) is the limited nature of such critiques, as well as the huge inequality in command of resources, and its effect both on access to a private media system and on its behavior and performance.
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SIZE, OWNERSHIP, AND PROFIT ORIENTATION OF THE MASS MEDIA: THE FIRST FILTER

... the twenty-four media giants (or their controlling parent companies) that make up the top tier of media companies in the United States. This compilation includes: (I) the three television networks: ABC (through its parent, Capital Cities), CBS, and NBC (through its ultimate parent, General Electric [GE]); (2) the leading newspaper empires: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times (Times-Mirror), Wall Street Journal (Dow Jones), Knight-Ridder, Gannett, Hearst, Scripps-Howard, Newhouse (Advance Publications), and the Tribune Company; (3) the major news and general-interest magazines: Time, Newsweek (subsumed under Washington Post), Reader's Digest, TV Guide (Triangle), and U.S. News ~ World Report; (4) a major book publisher (McGraw-Hill); and (5) other cable-TV systems of large and growing importance: those of Murdoch, Turner, Cox, General Corp., Taft, Storer, and Group W (Westinghouse). Many of these systems are prominent in more than one field and are only arbitrarily placed in a particular category (Time, Inc., is very important in cable as well as magazines; McGraw-Hill is a major publisher of magazines; the Tribune Company has become a large force in television as well as newspapers; Hearst is important in magazines as well as newspapers; and Murdoch has significant newspaper interests as well as television and movie holdings).

These twenty-four companies are large, profit-seeking corporations, owned and controlled by quite wealthy people. It can be seen in table I-I that all but one of the top companies for whom data are available have assets in excess of $I billion, and the median size (middle item by size) is $z.6 billion. It can also be seen in the table that approximately three-quarters of these media giants had after-tax profits in excess of $100 million, with the median at $I83 million.

Many of the large media companies are fully integrated into the market, and for the others, too, the pressures of stockholders, directors, and bankers to focus on the bottom line are powerful. These pressures have intensified in recent years as media stocks have become market favorites, and actual or prospective owners of newspapers and television properties have found it possible to capitalize increased audience size and advertising revenues into multiplied values of the media franchises-and great wealth...

Media Bias/Fact Check - Frequently Asked Questions
...
Who owns and runs Media Bias/Fact Check?

Media Bias Fact Check, LLC is a Limited Liability Company owned solely by Dave Van Zandt. He also makes all final editing and publishing decisions.
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How do you determine the bias of a source?

Please see our comprehensive Methodology page. Keep in mind this is not a scientifically proven methodology. It is a simple tool that provides a general rating of bias. Results may vary based on the person performing the evaluation. However, our field tests show a close correlation in ratings regardless of political bias.
...
Why do you use Wikipedia on some reviews?

The short answer is it saves time when locating the background of a source. For example, where they are located, when they were established and who owns it, etc?. It also is a stepping stone to credible links that may help with the research. Wikipedia is not used in any way to determine a source’s rating. Ratings are determined by reading articles and calculating a score using our methodology. Further, we also use Politifact, Fact Check, Snopes, and other credible fact-checking sites to help determine factual reporting.
...
You are biased!

Yes, we are human just like you and we like some things and dislike others. Like you, we want the things we think we see and the easy solutions to be true. Sometimes they are not. In order to prevent bias, MBFC relies 100% on consensus science. In other words, there may be outlying studies that prove differently than the consensus, but we have to abide by the consensus until the consensus changes....

You consider VOA an unbiased source?

https://www.usagm.gov/who-we-are/oversight/legislation/standards-princip...
Broadcasting Standards

• Be consistent with the broad foreign policy objectives of the United States

@JtC
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That image recalls my very favorite visual rendition of violence in a Western. The pissed off Duke Wayne picks up Strother Martin and throws him out of the saloon. The screen tracks Strother as he flies on an upward trajectory toward the Shinbone Street. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. John Ford's movie about John Ford movies.

Perfect imagery for today, even on your board.

c99 has had several users that take advantage of our open discussion format and push the limits to see what they can get away with. Some are clever, some not so much. Some are glowies, some are true believers, some are just malcontents that love to disrupt. The common denominator is disruption of the essay flow and commentary, meant to side track discussions.

They are allowed to post here and are generally given the benefit of the doubt, up to a certain point. Once management deems it obvious that the user is here only to disrupt the community, then said user will be shown the door. Think of the old westerns where the bad actor is thrown out through the swinging saloon doors landing face first into the mud, blood and beer. Kind of like that.

@JtC

You been watching Gunsmoke again haven’t you? How are you and Miss Kitty getting along?

c99 has had several users that take advantage of our open discussion format and push the limits to see what they can get away with. Some are clever, some not so much. Some are glowies, some are true believers, some are just malcontents that love to disrupt. The common denominator is disruption of the essay flow and commentary, meant to side track discussions.

They are allowed to post here and are generally given the benefit of the doubt, up to a certain point. Once management deems it obvious that the user is here only to disrupt the community, then said user will be shown the door. Think of the old westerns where the bad actor is thrown out through the swinging saloon doors landing face first into the mud, blood and beer. Kind of like that.

@gjohnsit Everything I read, or watch, or listen to that bills itself as news makes an image in my mind. That image is a 8 1/2" x 11" typewritten page full of blacked out redaction's. News is just another thing subject to doubt, like just about everything we experience today. It divides us and saps our thinking and energy almost minute by minute. Someone benefits. I'm starting to believe there really was a Tower of Babble, and the politicians got us to build it ourselves.

with accuracy.
In fact, in my experience, the absolute worst sources for accuracy usually comes from the center of the left-right spectrum.

For domestic policy this mostly falls into the category of "what isn't being said".
For instance, the "left", center, and the right in our media agree on several items that I would call The Big Lies. Namely, that we can't do anything about mass shootings, homelessness, destruction of the environment, our health care system, and that there's nothing wrong with spending $1 Trillion a year on war.

When it comes to foreign policy, this becomes even more important.
I almost never like to use American sources when the subject of "America's enemies" are discussed. They are so full of biases and disinformation that they are generally useless.
For the present, that means Putin. I don't like Putin. But I don't like him for reasons that the news media and politicians never talk about (i.e. Chechnya). The reasons that they don't like him I generally think comes from propaganda and lies.

@Mickt @Mickt everywhere I have ever traveled, except the US and England. Eastern and Western Europe, Central and South America, Asia, Middle East, Africa, and Russia.
I gave up radio in the 80s, tv mid-90s, wish I could go back to my youth when my family and environment was much like I experienced abroad as an adult.
We were lied to decades ago, but not all day, every day, by everybody.
Seems the CIIA gives an assist to tv scriptwriters, and to movie productions and screenwriters.
I won't fall for it, good to see you won't, either.

I was blessed by spending over a decade living overseas. Traveling around many countries and seeing how people live really changes how you think about things. Case in point, I missed the entire '80s TV programs. Never watched a Friends episode.

But let me digress. When I was young, I believed that our society was built t people with integrity. I delivered newspapers as a kid and thought this was an important job. I would deliver the papers in snow 2 feet deep in winter. That was my job. Northern Illinois winters can be either be mild or a pain. My early pre-teen years they were a pain. But I delivered the papers. I did my job.

So then I spent the '80s overseas. Ate real bread. Real vegetables. Fresh food that tasted out of this world. And I could do it without driving. My bakery was across the street. A Teverna was just down the street. And when we ate dinner...it was an event. We would sit down and have appitizers for hours. Then eat a small meal. No rush.

I paid no attention to the news at this time. Why would I?

So I come back to the States. All of the things I loved are gone. If you go out to dinner you are rushed. Money is made by how quickly they feed you, then get you out to feed someone else. I never go out to eat anymore. I learned to cook foods from all over the world. That is when I noticed that most of things that are supposedly there to make your life better aren't really to make your life better, but just give enough pleasure that you don't complain. While they make money. Two exceptions: High end places that I can't afford. Dives that I love. But in general, the American dining experience is both unhealthy and not that great.

Not unlike our media. Which is the topic of this discussion. In the early 2000's, I was able to see first hand the difference between a real media organization and what we call the media in the US. Picture this: A US helicopter goes down near Kabul circa 2002. The Pentagon spokesman says we are looking into the cause (like Blinken...which I'll get to later). Meanwhile, Al Jazeera Arabic has video of the missile launch, explosion, and the helicopter going down. The entire Western media quotes the Pentagon. Then. days later. when they finally admit it was shot down, the news is buried. Did they lie? Nope. Did this meet western journalist standards? Yes. Did people get a real time assessment of what was really going on in Afghanstian? Not on your life. Western media in a nutshell.

Maqr Al Dhib. This was quite gross. There was a wedding in the mid 2000's in Iraq along the Syrian/Iraqi border. As is typical of Americans whenever they hear 'Marriage' they know something bad is going on. They sent in C-130 gunship and commandos and took out the 'wedding'. They killed the wedding singer in the bathroom. 40 dead. Western media all puppetted the Pentagon and refused to believe the basic facts staring them in the eyes that we killed an innocent wedding party.

But before this was the whole Iraq debacle. Remember when Clear Channel banned the Dixie Chicks? Anyone that doubted the Iraq war was fired. This media is to be defended? It is all rot. We were led to believe that a museum piece of an airplane, an L-29, was a threat to the U.S. by our 'journalists'. Seriously. I had to turn CNN off over that.

So an IDF soldier shot an American citizen. Sec of State Blinken, knowing full well an IDF soldier shot an American citizen because every investigation points to that, stated "we must wait for a full investigation."

That is totally acceptable in every Western media. That is why your media scale is laughable.