Suppose you’re being fed a line of bullshit. How would you know? An easy start would be to:
- See if they contradict themselves.
- See if they contradict what you see in the real world.
Ace of Spades just posted an example of CNN contradicting themselves:
It goes from “baseless claim” and “flat out lie“, to “the government really did wiretap the campaign“. You can’t get more internally inconsistent. This is not a multi-year evolution of opinion as careful thinkers muddle through difficult concepts; it’s an 180 degree u-turn between “flat out lie” and “exclusive report” in 13 days.
If what CNN said on one day is called bullshit by CNN itself 13 days later, what it’s saying today may be called bullshit by CNN itself in a couple of weeks. They’re demonstrably untrustworthy. Regardless of your political affiliation, CNN doesn’t even agree with itself.
I’m too lazy to make screenshots of headlines. I prefer an old fashioned “reality check”.
In 2016 the press insisted all sentient beings would vote for Hillary. Reticent people like me were called rare, stupid, misinformed, racist, sexist, troglodyte, rubes. (Usually several times a day.) We ought to be either re-educated or lined up against the wall. (If the loathing wasn’t quite so explicit it wasn’t far below the surface.)
Was I really part of a teeny weeny tiny insignificant group of morons? As a reality check I started counting campaign signs:
In October 2016 I counted Hillary and Trump road signs along a 400 mile blue state road trip. Total count for Hillary? 3. Total count for Trump? Many dozens (I lost count). I posted that “Trump signs are outnumbering Hillary maybe 40 or 50 to 1”.
In November (just before the election) I tried it again. Total count for a 550 mile road trip in two “very blue” states was 27 Trump signs, 5 Hillary signs.
Of course this wasn’t a scientific survey, but I had an inkling that the press did not. What’s amazing is that a nitwit blogger who looks out of the dash of his Dodge at reality saw something totally invisible to what once were called journalists:
It didn’t have to be like that. If “journalists” had gotten in a minivan, drove beyond their neighborhood, counted signs, and maybe even talked to people… they might have had a warning. They didn’t (or wouldn’t). That mistake led to what has become almost a full year of painful cognitive dissonance.
Of course, nothing is new under the sun:
I just drove 3 hours to spend 2 hours at the range sighting in 3 of 4 rifles (one bad scope) and what was the first non-gun thing I did upon arriving home? Yup, I read your fake news post. There must be some deep connection somewhere…
Thanks. Hmm. That reminds me that I never did get the new air rifle scope I need.
The media distortion field at work is all I can say. I was at a restaurant about an hour ago that had CNN on the tube, muted thankfully. The Wolf Blitzed show was on, he was off tonight, even better. The scroll at the bottom was death tolls in Mexico City and the Dominican and other ‘lessor’ topics; the entire show was headlines of Kim Jung Un commenting of Trump the ‘thug and gangster’, Trump the ‘mentally disturbed’, how he was going to make Trump pay for his remarks at the UN. All the talking heads sitting around nodding their heads in apparent agreement.
Really?!? Fat boy is going to do all that? In a few hours virtually all the northern Korean peninsula will be dark because there is no electricity to spare for lighting except for the capital and larger centers. He can’t even light his whole country and he is going to lecture the US and Trump on policy.
https://goo.gl/images/8UPJML
The thing that flummoxes me is the “Presidential Approval Rating”s we are supposed to take seriously.
Uh, guys? Aren’t you the same Bozos who predicted that Shrillary would win in a walk? So, how have you changed your methodology, that we should take you seriously now?
“Total count for Hillary? 3”
That what I thought in my neck of the woods as well. Until I looked closely and two out of the three actually read, “Hillary for Prison”
Ha ha ha.
It’s more than simply not realizing what is going on (counting signs), and therefore getting it wrong. They were & are part of the the Democrat party, and were heavily invested in seeing Hillary win by any means necessary (passing debate questions, etc). I just didn’t realize how much they were also a part of the ruling class, but this article laid out what is really happening
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…
Once Obama and his allies launched their domestic surveillance operation, they crossed the Rubicon. And there was no way back. They had to destroy President Trump or risk going to jail.
The more crimes they committed by spying on the opposition, the more urgently they needed to bring down Trump. The consequences of each crime that they had committed spurred them on to commit worse crimes to save themselves from going to jail. It’s the same old story when it comes to criminals
…
If you want to understand why Samantha Power was unmasking names, that’s why. The hysterical obsession with destroying Trump comes from the top down. It’s not just ideology. It’s wealthy and powerful men and women who ran the country and are terrified that their crimes will be exposed.
It’s why the media increasingly sounds like the propaganda organs of a Communist country. Why there are street riots and why the internet is being censored by Google and Facebook’s “fact checking” allies.
It’s not just ideology. It’s raw fear.
The left is sitting on the biggest crime committed by a sitting president. The only way to cover it up is to destroy his Republican successor.
A turning point in history is here.
If Obama goes down, the left will go down with him. If his coup succeeds, then America ends.
http://dailytimewaster.blogspot.com/2017/09/this-explains-whole-lot.html
The first rule of Dunning-Kruger Club is you don’t know you’re in Dunning-Kruger Club.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Ever read an article on some topic you know about, and notice that 90% of it was not only wrong but that it would have taken some effort to be that incorrect? Then you go on to the next article and accept what is written as truth, completely forgetting that a minute ago you had proof that journalists are really just english majors with short attention spans and shorter deadlines?
I truly think blogs and talk radio are a better source of news and facts than newspapers and any television news. In the case of blogs, people tend to comment upon what they know, and if they’re guessing they make it clear. In the case of talk radio, the listeners call in and if you give an opinion you will have an hour in the segment to defend it against all callers. Cable news doesn’t use that format, and likely for good reason. If you pay Kimmel ten million bucks a year to voice his opinion, it simply wouldn’t do to have Cletus from Moose Spit, Mississippi take him to school.
March 5, 2017 to September 18, 2017 is more than 13 days but your point is still valid.
The second post was on September 5th. They went from “flat out lied” on September 5th to “wiretapped campaign chairman” on September 18th. That’s 13 days for the reversal.
The “baseless wiretap claim” at the top of the image only shows that CNN stayed on the narrative from March 5 to September 5 (three months) before totally reversing in less than two weeks. Three months with the same story including repeated assertions; 13 days later it’s down the memory hole.
Which reminds me, I haven’t heard Russia, Russia, Russia since roughly the time of the eclipse. It was the most epic important newsworthy thing in creation for about 6 months until it totally vanished. Hardly a peep in 6 weeks. It must be exhausting working for CNN; being utterly wrong much of the time and their only mass audience is people stuck in airport terminals.
Sorry. My bad
The Trump tweets were false, no Trump tower wiretapping happened (did you even read the tweets?). Details matter… Manafort was first wiretapped in 2014. ug thought you were better than this. Do a tiny bit of research before posting, there is enough crap out there already.
OK, you’ve got a point. I was interested in the broad framework of a source saying something on day A and saying something different and contradictory on day B. As with anything that involves politics in 2016-2017 the devil is in the details. Also Trump is the king of vagueness. You are correct that the Trump Towers were not “wiretapped” in that nobody was sitting in a van outside Trump Towers specifically intercepting every communication based on the man speaking and the location of the phone.
On the other hand, it is very likely that Trump spoke on the phone, with the manager of his campaign, while he was in Trump Towers, and a Federal entity really did listen to that communication. “Those bastards are spying on me” is one possible, if crude, way to describe it.
If I spoke on the phone, in my house, to a trusted business contact, and the Government really listened to that conversation I’d probably use “they wiretapped my house” to describe it. I suppose I could say “the government is monitoring my trusted business associate and heard the conversation that happened in my house and the conversation involved me and it involved important things I was doing but I’m super sure it was totally by accident and none of that information was leaked to anyone anywhere”. Most people (even sane non-Trump ones) simplify it down to shorthand… like “wiretap”.
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But I cop to a failing here. I wanted to talk about news sources being untrustworthy. I chose an example involving Trump because there was a sexy info-graphic to riff on. I should know better. Politics in 2016-2017 is radioactive and when I bump into Trump everyone already has an image in their head. Scott Adams says everyone sees their own movie of the events that happen before their eyes and two people witnessing the same thing can see two different movies. He’s got a point. I see someone in the Government hearing a conversation and I think “wiretap”. Other folks see the pros and cons of modern surveillance in the era of cell phones which is more shades of grey. It has a lot to do with Federal politics. If I cut contradictory clippings from a local paper’s reporting on the biggest pumpkin contest at the Wanker County Kumquat festival… I’d be less likely to bump into the “two movie” situation.
Please accept my apologies. I’ve been trying to avoid politics most of the last year (though failing regularly). I try that in part because we’re all (self included) prickly after what is probably the ugliest campaign I can remember since the one previous. Usually it’s fun to rant but the humor is gone lately. I didn’t want to contribute to the global index of bad feelings.
Did at least the Huffpo survey and the “Dewey Beats Truman” juxtaposition work? I knew nobody would care about Truman but the Huffpo survey might be too recent. Seems like older examples aren’t so divisive. What I’d really like is a pamphlet from September 27, 1066 that says “King Harold II is totally secure and William, duke of Normandy, is just a saber rattling piker from Normandy who’ll wimp out when shit gets real”.
Well damn. I did some more research. You are right. I am wrong. I suck. Mea culpa.
I should’ve know better than to touch politics this year. I’ll add a note to the post when I get to real wifi.
Well you are a bigger man than Trump to admit your mistake 🙂 Trump is exactly like the many blowhards in my dad’s retirement complex, all bluster and don’t care if they are wrong because most listening don’t care about the truth as long as it’s something they agree with. I can’t believe he is president…
Actually I was feeling guilty that I hadn’t added a mea culpa to the post yet. Thanks for the kind words. I got busy with squirrels and haven’t done it yet.
I am always glad to admit I’m wrong when I’m wrong. If you never admit you’re wrong you’ll never learn a goddamn thing.
I can believe Trump is president. Because he is. But it’s not easy. We could have done better with a labor pool of 300,000,000 to choose from but democratic republics are not designed for optimal choices… and perhaps no form of governance is.
As a counterpoint the Orange Menace, I can also believe Hillary is still out of jail. Because she is. And that’s not easy either. What a pair of twits 2016 unleashed on us.
Perhaps some day far in the future, we’ll all look back and laugh. “Man, shortly after the turn of the century we all lost our shit… glad that’s over, har har har.” After all, America has to lived through lots of crazy things that seem completely nuts in retrospect; prohibition, the AMC Gremlin, the Millerites predicted end of the world, disco, Y2K, the 55 MPH speed limit, etc…
Well I can hope can’t I?