The Big Picture –
By Glynn Wilson –
So much for hope that the mainstream media and the Democrats are going to save us from Trump.
They have been Zucked again.
As I was working on my weekly column on Super Bowl Sunday, I knew something was not quite right with the world.
It’s a good thing I fell asleep after cooking Sunday breakfast and barely paid attention to the Super Bowl, just to keep CBS on the TV in case of a major terrorist attack on Atlanta. The Times-Picayune in New Orleans ran a blank, white front page in its newspaper with only the words “What Super Bowl?” in protest of the bad call that got the LA Rams into the Super Bowl against the New England Patriots.
I knew something was not right when the New York Times and the Washington Post (which spent $10 million on a Super Bowl ad claiming it’s the answer to saving us from Democracy Dying in Darkness) ran banner headline front page stories quoting numerous Democrats demanding that Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, resign because of an old medical school yearbook photo allegedly showing him either in black face or a KKK white robe and hood. None of the stories said which one he was supposed to be, but the implication was, whichever it was he was clearly a racist and should resign as governor.
So much for accurate, fair and balanced, objective journalism. This had signs of being fake news, sensational clickbait to me, so I didn’t share any of the links about it on Facebook or Twitter.
Northam has now denied that it was him in the photo and has so far refused to step aside.
But it’s too late, because the story and photo, reported by every news outfit in the land, has now been shared by millions of people all over Facebook and Twitter, including millions of Democrats. Even they jumped to the conclusion that Northam must be a racist and has to go.
But in the Monday morning weekly news summary on the Columbia Journalism Review website, we find out that it was not a hot news tip that led to a substantive investigative report by a real news outlet that broke the story on Northam. It wasn’t the crack investigative #MeToo team from the Washington Post.
The fake news, sensational clickbait story was pushed out by a right-wing, conservative, Republican Breitbat News clone called “Big League Politics,” co-owned by Noel Fritsch, a Republican consultant who worked for the campaign of Corey A. Stewart, who you may recall is a neo-Confederate sympathizer who unsuccessfully challenged Virginia Democrat Tim Kaine for his seat in the U.S. Senate last year, and Reilly O’Neal, another consultant who worked for Ten Commandments Judge Roy Moore of Alabama, the Senate candidate who lost to Senator Doug Jones in 2017 after being accused of making unwanted sexual advances toward teenage girls when he was in his 30s.
The clickbait story was written by none other than Patrick Howley, who was suspended by Breitbart in March 2016 for tweeting his support of Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski after he mistreated a female reporter. Howley left Breitbart to start Big League Politics.
What are his credentials as a so-called journalist? He was hired in 2015 by Breitbart executive chairman Steve Bannon, who said Howley “is the type of reporter we have built the company around — smart, tough and aggressive. We are ecstatic about getting him immediately fully deployed.”
Bannon, of course, later became Trump’s campaign chairman and a White House strategist before being fired — after his campaign to get Judge Roy Moore elected in Alabama failed.
In its short existence, Big League Politics has boosted Trump, attacked Democrats and liberal figures and written many articles promoting discredited conspiracy theories. But that did not stop the story from dominating the news cycle over the weekend, even though new developments were thin on the ground, according to CJR.
“Northam’s resignation may, indeed, be imminent. But if he chooses to stick it out, it will become harder for the media to keep the spotlight on the story, as previous scandals involving, for example, Greg Gianforte, (Steve) King, and, of course, Donald Trump have proven,” media reporter Jon Allsop writes. “Our present, polarized moment may have boosted accountability journalism, but it’s hard to escape the feeling that it’s diminished actual accountability. Pro-Trump websites that muddy the truth for partisan ends have played their part in that.”
No shit Sherlock.
Where are the banner headlines calling for Trump to resign from the White House?
If I was on the jury, my vote would already be guilty on the charges of obstruction of justice, even treason for his obvious collusion with Russia. Not because Trump is a Republican and I am a liberal Democrat journalist. But because the SOB is clearly guilty and the most corrupt president I have ever seen in my lifetime at least, if not our entire history as a country. I mean how much evidence do we need to get him removed from office?
Zucked Again
Then in other enlightening news on Monday morning, on CBS, one of Facebook’s early investors, Roger McNamee, was pushing his new book urging Facebook users to wake up to what he calls the “dark side of social media.” The longtime tech investor advised Mark Zuckerberg in the early years of the company. Now he’s the author of Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe.
One of Facebook's early investors is urging users to wake up to what he calls the dark side of social media. Longtime tech investor @Moonalice advised Mark Zuckerberg in the early years of the company. Now he’s the author of "Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe." pic.twitter.com/lvwSM1msUc
— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) February 4, 2019
The New York Times had already reviewed the book under the headline: An Anti-Facebook Manifesto, by an Early Facebook Investor.
We put up the red flag last year, running a column from McNamee under the headline: Dealing With the Nefarious Manipulation of the Facebook, Google Monopolies.
Did enough people listen? Or did everybody just keep on keeping on doing what they do on Facebook, relying on the clickbait from the MSM, waiting on Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the Democrats in Congress to rescue us from Trump?
Face the Nation Interviews Trump
The other thing that struck me as weird on Sunday was the little CBS story promoting the incredibly weak, softball Super Bowl Sunday interview with Trump, from new moderator Margaret Brennan, whose own background smacks of CIA connections.
“”President Trump will watch the Super Bowl kickoff from the respite of his Mar-a-Lago resort this Sunday, escaping Washington, D.C., after weeks hunkered down for the government shutdown,” the new, young CBS News team reported. “But before leaving the nation’s capital, he sat down with ‘Face the Nation’ moderator Margaret Brennan for a wide-ranging interview on football, race, foreign policy, special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, and the 2020 Democratic field.”
The Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post put up a quick summary story of the interview.
Trump refuses to comment on whether Mueller report should be made public
But apparently the young, inexperienced reporters at the Post didn’t seem to notice that Trump appeared to have advance notice of what will be in the Mueller report. After being asked if he would agree to make the report public once it does come out, look at what Trump actually said.
The Post ran a short video clip from the interview to back up its lede and use of this quote.
“President Trump declined to say Sunday whether he wants the findings of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation made public, instead promising to defer to the Justice Department.”
“That’s up to the attorney general,” Trump said. “I don’t know. It depends. I have no idea what it’s going to say.”
But that was before Trump said this first.
“Even the Mueller report said it had nothing to do with the campaign,” Trump said.
Wait. Is this just Trump being Trump, dissembling as usual? Or could it be a Freudien slip? Has he seen the report already? He is, after all, the president, and he could make such a demand since he is the boss of the Department of Justice in his executive branch.
It’s about 23 minutes into the interview. See and judge for yourself.
Now do you think saving democracy depends on saving traditional newspapers and television news? Or do we need something better on the web?
No, I don’t mean Breitbart News or Big League Politics. Here’s what I mean, the New American Journal, where we tell it like it is on the big stories of the day and do not have to fill the space around the ads with fish wrapping garbage or sensational clickbait on deadline. We are willing to wait a day if need be to find out the facts.
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It is incredible how the GOP can master the art of misdirection and, from what I heard, the mass media’s new mantra that now, at this point in time DJT, was “evolving” into being ‘non-partisan’ in spite of the ‘fact’ that the DEMS were/are “obstructionist.” Have these people been living on the same planet and forget what the GOP did to Obama? Also, the argument that if super rich Americans would be ‘forced’ to pay taxes (health care for all) that, somehow, would destroy America? I knew “we” were willfully ignorant, but it is much worse that I could have ever realized!