Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) reports on the New York Times’ consistently biased reporting about Bernie Sanders.
it seems fair to say that the New York Times wants to knock Senator Sanders outif the Race.
Why?
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) reports on the New York Times’ consistently biased reporting about Bernie Sanders.
it seems fair to say that the New York Times wants to knock Senator Sanders outif the Race.
Why?
So does the Washington Post.
These are not newspapers as much as they are propaganda outlets.
Basically Fox News with a different slant.
And no I dont buy that one can separate the editorials from the news because the editors write the editorials AND are the ones who decide what to print (what NOT to print) and how to print it.
Reporting by NY Times and Washington Post leading up to the invasion of Iraq is all the proof one needs of this.
There was no distinction between the opinion and news because it was ALL opinion.
War is good for the profits of the few (less than 1 percent of the American people) but bad for the rest of us.
Even during the 2007-08 global financial crises, the private sector weapons industry was growing profits. There is only one other industry in the U.S. that did as well, pornography.
“Americans should be very concerned about Bernie Sanders’ record of opposing mass murder.” –Journalist Ryan Cooper (The Week, 5/29/19)
Quoted in the FAIR article
Thank you SomeDAM Poet for the accuracy of an opinion.
IMHO, all conscientious voters would have solid idea to eliminate quickly any democrat presidential candidates who are inexperienced plus being puppets for greedy corporate and for all majored medias that has foreigner spies in talking about American politics.
If voters are not conscientious enough to take care of their own affairs, please think carefully about your upcoming children and grandchildren. Most of all, please think about America’s economy for all citizens.
Please be back to the basics. Public Education, Agriculture, and Military arm force are very important to the life for each country regardless how big or how small the country is. Other matters are secondary in survival.
If we cannot protect our TRUE DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA, then good luck to all corporate, all Russian and Chinese aristocrats, all bad double spies (two faces!). What a life in a person who constant worries about their safety???
Are you thinking about going to other planet? Keep dreaming! Why do so many foreigners try to buy real estates in America , Canada and a few other countries? Respect humanity, free Public Education, and determination pitchfork in all citizens if necessary. Back2basic
Why?
The New York Times is a for-profit corporation in a country dominated by fat, vampire capitalists that want to turn the U.S. into a wild-west kleptocracy where the only rule is to make money anyway the 1-percent (or less than one percent) want to do it.
SomeDamPoet Are you a complete relativist? (there is no truth that can be had by anyone), or just totally pessimistic/nihilistic? (no one will every do anything that isn’t self-serving in the narrow sense and short run. CBK
Relativist?
Hardly.
SomeDAM Poet Okay–a pessimist. Publishers CAN publish truth; it’s just that, in this case, they haven’t and, based on their record, they probably won’t. (?) CBK
Go back and read the NY Times and Washington Post leading up to the invasion of Iraq and then tell me there is a difference in kind between the reporting of those two and the reporting by Fox News.
One thing I have learned from past reporting by the Times and Post is not to believe anything they say in the absence of the source documentation upon which a claim is based.
That does not mean one should automatically accept claims after such documentation is made available, just that if no such documentation is made available, belief in claims should be suspended and the Washington Post and NY Times should be treated precisely as one treats Fox News and the National Enquirer in the absence of evidence.
I subscribe to Carl Sagan’s philosophy: ordinary claims require evidence and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence (and “information” provided by anonymous sources does not count as evidence)
Where ” information” from anonymous sources refers to bald (essentially unverifiable) claims without any documentation
¡Sí señor!
Bigfoot to his wife: “I read today in the NY Times that Bigfoot is a hoax”
Bigfoot’s wife to Bigfoot: “just goes to show you you can’t believe everything you read in the NY Times”
Bigfoot to his wife:
I read today in the Washington Post that Bigfoot is developing FMD (Feet of Mass Destruction)
Bigfoot’s wife: Where have the Washington Post reporters been living? Under a log deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest? If they had interviewed me, I could have told them that long ago based on the smell alone.
Bigfoot to his wife:
Bernie Sanders is a Cuba-loving Sasquatch-damned socialist.
Bigfoot’s wife to Bigfoot:
Where’d you read that, the NY Times?
Bigfoot to his wife:
No the Washington Post
NY Times Reporter: An extremely reliable source has informed me that Iran is nearing completion of a nuclear device.
John Q. Public: who is your source?
NY times reporter: All I can say is he has unimpeachable credibility. He is an exiled Iranian nuclear scientist who now lives deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest and goes by the moniker “Magnapede”.
The powers that be are so terrified, TERRIFIED(!!!!!) of Bernie!!! Geezus, get a grip NYT and WaPo, Bernie is just for universal health care and taxing the rich at 1970s rates and other good stuff that is absolutely normal for a good chunk of western Europe. They either ignore Bernie, mock him or lambaste him with a 1,000 nit picking gotcha BS hyena manure on steroids fact-starved criticisms. Pretty much, they’re beating up on the race horse at the starting gate with steel truncheons so they can gloat when the crippled horse can’t win the race.
Bernie gets my vote. And if Bernie loses in the primary then I will vote for any D in the general election. Bernie will support that person as he supported Hillary in the general election, Bernie DID campaign for Hillary. Doesn’t make him a bad person or sell-out, not in the least.
Joe,
AGREE with, “The powers that be are so terrified, TERRIFIED (!!!!).”
Bernie gets my vote, too.
The New York Times Company makes so many billions of dollars on Wall Street it’s part of the S&P 400. That company is not exactly sustaining itself by growing its own organic vegetables on a collective farm. No, it’s a wealthy Wall Street corporation that supports the bipartisan, neoliberal status quo of the last forty years. The NYT don’t like public schools or public school teachers. They don’t like me; Bernie likes public schools and me. They don’t like Bernie; I like Bernie because they don’t.
The Times’ likes and dislikes
Don’t like teachers
Don’t like schools
Only leachers
And charter tools
Don’t like Sanders
And poorer classes
Pardon manners
But they are a**es
That is an “epic” poem for a newspaper that thinks it is the greatest paper in the greatest city in the world.
And I checked:
Top 10 Greatest Cities in the World lists London, England as #1 and New York as #2.
https://www.thetoptens.com/greatest-cities-world/
Does that make the London Times the greatest newspaper in the world?
I checked that too, and darn it isn’t the London Times. #1 is the Guardian, #2 is the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times landed third on this top ten list.
https://topyaps.com/top-10-newspapers-of-the-world/
Does that make New York City a second rate city with a third rate newspaper?
The Times likes dollars so it nickel and dimes us.
Maybe the NYT has a long history of mirroring the tastes of the financial and intellectual elite of the “greatest” city in the world.
ROFLMSAO. Maybe.
Put the Times to bed
They made their bed
And there they lie
The Times is dead
From sell and buy
As my grandmother used to say, “It’s a great newspaper for wrapping up fish.”
Uses of the NY Times
The Times is loyal
For wrapping fish
Or soaking oil
From greasy dish
Or shielding floor
From parrot poop
And many more
A useful scoop
Feel the Bern!
How about the questioning of Sanders during the debate? The Medicare for All question was first posed to him precisely as, say, Sean Hannity/Inanity would pose it. Do you really want to increase people’s taxes that much? And then, the follow-up: Are you really going to make people give up their health insurance? Ofc, the TRUTH is that Medicare for All would cost Americans MUCH LESS than they are now paying and would provide BETTER OUTCOMES, and EVERYONE would be insured:
Here are the facts:
All other countries in the OECD have universal coverage.
Heatlhcare systems by type, 2013, from World Health Organization
“Thirty-two of the thirty-three developed nations have universal health care, with the Untied States being the lone exception.”
–Praveen Ghanta, “List of Countries with Universal Healthcare.” True Cost: Analyzing Our Economy, Government Policy, and Society through the Lens of Cost-Benefit, 2013. https://truecostblog.com/2009/08/09/countries-with-universal-healthcare-by-date/. Accessed April 9, 2019.
The US has the highest healthcare costs in the OECD
Healthcare costs in the United States, from National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
$10,348 per capita (per person), 2016
Total expenditure, $3.3 trillion, 2016
Healthcare as percent of Gross Domestic Product: 17.9 %
–“Health Expenditures.” National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2016. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/health-expenditures.htm. Accessed April 9, 2019.
Costs for countries in the OECD is much lower on average:
Average healthcare cost per capita, 2018: $4,069 USD
Average cost of healthcare as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product in the OECD, 2018: 8.9 %
Highest percentages: US at 17.2 % of GDP, Switzerland at 12.3 % of GDP, France at 11.5 % of GDP (2018 figures)
–“Spending on Health: Latest Trends.” OECD, June 2018. http://www.oecd.org/health/health-systems/Health-Spending-Latest-Trends-Brief.pdf. Accessed April 9, 2019.
Despite this, our health outcomes are worse:
Comparing health outcomes, life expectancy
Life expectancy of the following OECD countries is higher than in the US:
Chile, Costa Rica, Portugal, Slovenia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Belgium, Denmark, France, Austria, Korea, United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Luxembourg, Australia, Iceland, Span, Sweden, Israel, Norway, Italy, Japan, Switzerland (2017 figures)
–“Life Expectancy at Birth.” OECD Data, 2017. https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-birth.htm#indicator-chart. Accessed April 9, 2019.
Comparing health outcomes, infant mortality
Infant morality rates in the following OECD countries are lower than in the US:
Iceland, Finland, japan, Slovenia, Norway, Estonia, Sweden, Spain, Czech Republic, Italy, Korea, Ireland, Australia, Austria, Demark, Israel, Belgium, Portugal, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, France, Latvia, Luxembourg, United Kingdom, Hungary, Poland, Greece, Lithuania, Canada, Slovak Republic, New Zealand (2017 figures)
–“Infant Mortality Rates.” OECD Data, 2017. https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/infant-mortality-rates.htm#indicator-chart. Accessed April 9, 2019.
“Are you really going to make people give up their health insurance?”
Oh FFS, is anyone actually clamoring for health insurance? “No, please don’t cover my health care costs! I’d much rather have a for-profit bean counter between me and my doctor deciding which treatments I’m allowed to have!”
Said no one ever.
I can’t remember where I read this (probably Current Affairs, but don’t quote me on that), but imagine if, instead of being able to buy groceries, you had to have a “grocery plan” provided by a for-profit company.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, your claim for cranberries has been denied. We don’t believe you need cranberries at this time.”
“Well, but Thanksgiving is coming up. We always have cranberries on Thanksgiving.”
“I am sorry, but cranberries are not nutritionally required. Your claim is denied. Please file form PDQ900.042 in triplicate to appeal this decision. We will review the decision within 6 months. In the meantime, your cranberry bill is outstanding and we will charge you a $500 late fee and send you to collections in three days if not paid in full. Have a good day, ma’am. Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving.”
ROFLMAO!!!! Exactly!!!
How I wish that Sanders had given precisely this answer, Dienne!!!
“No operation for you!”
— The HMO Nazi
Well-stated on-point zinger post, Diane. That cranberry analogy would be perfectly timed for Dem prez candidate’s October campaign speeches.
Love it SDP– the Seinfeld Health Plan [snicker]
dienne77
So almost 67% of the American people favor Medicare for all. That is until you tell them they have to pay for it. Then the number drops down to 40%
Most Americans like their Employer Sponsored Healthcare Insurance . Of course most Americans who have it, hardly use it. And the health insurance industry likeability is rated just below catching Ebola.
But if you think the oligarchy has stricken back in South America overturning the Pink Tide. You have seen nothing as compared to what will happen here when you shut down the health insurance industry.
You got my vote. it won’t be fun to watch. And like in Venezuela they own the media.
My family just spent yet another day dealing with an insurance company that goes back two or three years and takes BACK the money they paid to a doctor or hospital. We then have to argue with the insurance, and/or pay an enormous amount to a doctor or hospital. We are double covered, and shouldn’t have to pay a cent for medical coverage, but this sort of thing happens constantly to my family.
Everyone talks about loving their insurance. I would like to know what insurance they have, because the supposedly “wonderful” benefits that teachers and federal workers get (we have one of each in our house) are awful. We spend several thousands of dollars a year in co-pays, not to mention the premium. My insurance alone as a teacher is $600 a month.
Since when is private insurance such a great thing? I’d give it up in a minute. I expect that I would actually come out financially ahead with Medicare for all, what with the premiums and co-pays and all.
At the pace, the U.S. is letting its infrastructure rot while doing nothing logically constructive to deal with child poverty, and its lack of support for its public school systems, it isn’t going to be a developed nation much longer.
It’s going to be an undeveloping country that turns into a wild-west kleptocracy until it looks like a huge garbage dump except where the billionaires have their mansions and yachts.
In fact, for two years in a row, the average lifespan has declined for the United States.
To be expected. NBC is owned by Comcast with revenue of nearly a hundred billion dollars a year. Its CEO is paid over thirty million a year and donates large sums to centrist Democrats and also to Republicans. He doesn’t want to pay taxes. He wants us to vote for the shiniest, whitest teeth.
Once the field of candidates is winnowed down to just a few, media prejudice for everyone but Bernie will be more obvious to more people, people who pay less attention than we do. Bernie will be the obvious progressive option again, and will this time have laid the grassroots groundwork in all fifty states to capitalize (no pun intended) on that. Steady as she goes.
And it is the CEO of Comcast who through an event for Biden the night he declared his candidacy for Prez. Hope everyone reads the link explaining the history of the author of the article and her cohorts. Sydney Ember has quite a resume and relatives of uniquely huge wealth and power.
ooppss.. meant threw an event
Unfortunately Bob you don’t have to convince me. You have to convince the American people and that would have been a far easier task with out the ACA. I will explain in a bit.
Everyone of those points you raise have tremendous nuances. You can start with: when we talk about outcomes whose outcome. Averages don’t really tell the whole story. And if you have no concern for the outcome as it affects the lower middle class; those who do not qualify for medicaid but who either have no insurance or insurance that leaves them hesitant to seek care
( because of the co-pays and deductibles),then everything is fine.
So who would be some of the worst offenders? Those offenders would be workers who have Cadillac plans, like I did before Medicare. Most of these plans offered through collective bargaining agreements with low co-pays and in my case no deductibles. The co-pays mostly to steer members away from an emergency room. Or to an in network Doctor. So why would I want to give that up?(I do)
I paid nothing for that insurance. And from the Unions stand point it is a benefit
that makes it attractive to join a Union .
Then we can discus Doctor wages, Pharma patents, tech patents and over use of diagnostic testing…. Or the fact that all those systems vary.
Now why do I want to give ESI up. Well it is not quite true that I paid nothing for that insurance from my self insured Union plan. I paid $26,000 (definition of a Cadillac plan).a year less whatever deduction my employer had to his profits and less the tax implication of adding that much income to my wages. So in reality I am already paying a very high cost for excellent service. A cost in deferred wages to healthcare that would far out weigh the 3% or actually 6% Employee/ Employer payroll tax. . So the net benefit to wages after all tax implications would be substantial.
Of course this would mean a drop in the level of services. Why, if I decided I wanted to go to an orthopedist for the back problems, I have ignored for years. I might have to wait another 6 months for a new MRI to tell me I have the same disc problems I had before.
But you try to explain this to the members of Unions who are resistant to change. Try explaining it to workers who in spite of seeing Union decertification drives, plant closings and declining union market share, are oblivious to what is happening . Try explaining that as market share declines employers will demand more cost transfers to employees. More elimination of benefits and even decertification drives as happened to 1800 of the members in a division of my union, working at Spectrum. workers who walked out after 4 years with out a contract when Charter / Spectrum stopped paying into their health and pension benefit plan. They have been out 26 months and there was a decertification vote.
Try explaining to the leadership of Unions that if our benefits were an inspiration to organize and to join Unions, it has not seemed to work . Membership in private sector unions is below 6%. Try explaining it to Public sector workers in Blue states like NY; where teachers would probably be the first to tell you to go to hell. Doing so as soon as you tried explaining it to them.
Had ACA not been passed in 2010, forcing any employer with over 50 employees to at least offer a plan. Employers going through the Great Recession would have taken an ax to the employer provided healthcare system. They would have cut those benefits to the bone or eliminated them altogether. This would have added tens of millions of uninsured or under insured workers in the workforce. By 2016 we might have had Bernie’s revolution.
The average worker contribution to an insurance plan in 2018 was $5,547, up 5 percent from the year before., and 58 percent had deductibles of $1,000 or more. So, the cost to the employee of insurance through work is increasing, while the quality is decreasing.
Bob Shepherd Yes the costs are being transferred, “but there you go again” with averages . The average worker is not in a Union only 5.6 (?) percent are in private sector Unions and 10.5 % +- .total. Which is where you find the stiffest resistance. If you look at the decline in coverage from the decade before ACA, it painted a dismal future for ESI. ACA rescued ESI in a whole hoist of ways including improving the coverage.
Picture a situation where you are an employer and your competition has just cut out his healthcare coverage due to the recession. What are you likely to do. I suspect that the recession would have had a multiplier effect on the decline of insurance that was seen in the previous decade.
ACA’s mandates halted that. How likely are you to bring it back as the economy improves. Not very!
But hey Bob, I am on your team. I am uncertain that we can make any progress on many issues without a Black Swan moment. The recession in 08 should have provided such a moment. Obama managed it away unlike FDR who jumped on it.
Really great set of stats, Bob, thanks! I’m grabbing this for my “comments to articles” data bank.
Election Interference
“They always interfere
When voting time is near
Who, Putin and his crimes?
No, Post and NY Times
Well said, SomeDAM!
Seconded. That was spot on.
SDP: There are no words for your brilliance!
Ah yes the NY Times and the Washington Post . They truly are the problem with Americas democracy. I understand that their stories resonate through a lot of the mass media. But if that were the problem with America, I think we would be very fortunate. How many do you suspect read the NY Times or the Washington Post. How many even read more than a headline in the Newspapers that repeat the story line of the papers of record.
Yet some how most of us who comment on this blog can point to the numerous instances where the Times or WaPo has gotten it wrong. We can read an article and apply the filters necessary to see the motives behind a Publication.
Why is that? It is actually the subject material for a lot of Diane’s blog.
What are you doing Poet , or have you done that differs from the vast majority of Americans, that enables you to see the faults in a story line. While others are being programed.
“but if you read the New York Times or the Washington Post, or even if you watch television news, you get a certain range of opinion, not very broad???it goes from center to far-right, but at least there is some discussion, and occasionally you get a critical voice here and there.”
I suspect the answer to that question is, you hear those critical voices in the MSM, as well as a multitude of other voices from less mainstream publications.
Our problem is that the vast majority of Americans do not. And have no desire to.
And with out using google see if you can put an author on that very recent quote .
(without )
The great thing about poetry is that people can read anything they want into poems (and do): the NY Times and Washington Post truly are the problem with America’s democracy.
when ‘news’ is indoctrination
Why, indeed? They want the DNC/DLLC’s man, Biden. Good for Wall Street, but not for Main Street. (Main Streeters can’t afford to buy NYT~ $3 daily, $6.50 Sunday.)
$6.50 for a newspaper!!
Never mind a Bernie/Biden clash. Worry about Warren & Harris. Big winners in the debates, & let’s see what cooks on July 30th & 31st. Bernie will stick to message (which he should, but a little more fire, here, please) & Biden will…bumble, fumble & be eviscerated by either Harris or Warren or both (whoever he’s up against next round).
&–his answer to Harris RE: federal intervention in desegregation could not have been worse.
Also, funny to see him call his own “my time’s up-?!” when he couldn’t effectively answer a ?
& Chuck Todd & Chris Matthews should never be “moderators.” If anything, they’re as slanted & opinionated as Fox News…& they belong on Fox, not NBC or MSNBC.
I had a great omelette yesterday at a diner for basically the same price as the Sunday Times.
And I wasn’t full of crap afterward.
I want John Oliver to be the moderator.
Oh my Lord. I would pay good money to see that!!!
YES!!!
See also Rachel Maddow. All three of them are TERRIBLE questioners. I don’t want to hear from the moderators. I want to hear from the candidates. Chuck Todd spoke more in his one hour on Wednesday night than all but two candidates did in two hours. How does THAT made sense???
No longer progressive is it once was
Engages mainly its 1% wealthy advertisers
Wants to look as if its reporting is fair and balanced
Yanks at identity politics heartstrings
Objects to the labor and populist classes
Runs a racket with the real estate market
King of Neo-liberalism
Tries to dangle a carrot with a once-in-a-blue-moon article that is truly progressive
Involves very little blue collar voice and mindset
Mimics progressivism until you read more closely
Evades public accountability
Sickens those of us who want to push for redistribution of wealth and single payer
Nice poem!
That’s the NY Times for you . . . .
You pretty much nailed it, Robert
Ersatz reporting in terms of balanced interests . . . . .
Same goes for NPR . . . . . Two media outlets cut from the same calico cloth . . . Both are blue-tinted snotty elite Ivy League type institutions that turn swing wing voters off and motivate them to vote for Trump . . . . and both turn true labor progressives like myself away. Even Paul Krugman ended up being a sell-out. Nicolas Kristoff and Thomas Friedman are as Neo-liberal as they come. David Brooks is a philo-babbler who spits out more drivel than Pavlov’s dog.
I stick with The Guardian . . . .
What about the BBC and the Young Turks?
Young Turks is awesome!
“blue-tinted snotty elite Ivy League type institutions that turn swing wing voters off and motivate them to vote for Trump ”
The condescension from the clowns at NPR is actually very funny.
It’s a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
They are so stupid that they actually believe they are superior to everyone else.
Robert Rendo, Private Citizen
Those voters who voted for Trump were not “motivated by some narrow Marxian determinism “(Lofgren) . They were not forced away by the “effete intellectual snobs ” of the educated coastal metropolitan centers. They were there for decades. And I assure you I am a member of the “labor populist class “.
40% of UAW members in Michigan in 1968 were backing Wallace. Only Curtis LeMay changed that story. Trump only out preformed Romney by a few percentage points in those Midwest States.
The difference between the two paled in comparison to the Black vote that did not show up. The myth of the Obama to Trump voter is exposed by the fact that more people tell you they voted for Obama than Obama received votes. And that equaled much of the margin between Clinton and Trump.
People are reluctant to tell you they voted for the buffoon because they loved him. What I find when talking to Trump supporters is; after you have gone through every reason that Trump is not doing good for their economic futures. They resort to telling you that there are more important things than their economic future, like American Values.
These are the same voters who would have voted for Wallace in 68 till LeMay told them radiation would be good for their children. They were there all along, They stormed out of the World Trade Center under construction in 70 to beat on anti war protesters. They voted for Nixon in 72 , vote for Reagan and his Welfare Queens; not only in 80 but in 84 after an orgy of anti Union anti worker actions. They have been the Republican base for decades in Trump they finally found someone to motivate them.
This election was lost by those who stayed home on the Democratic side. Not because of the NYT and Washington posts drove voters to Trump.
Ask that Trump supporter what he means by American values. I assure you I have gotten far more honest yet disturbing answers than you.
Joel,
The NY Times did not cause Trump to be elected; they contributed to it.
Noam Chomsky wrote a book (Manufacturing Consent) about the phenomenon over 30 years ago. Things have just gotten worse since.
As Chomsky has pointed out, when it comes to interference in our elections, the Russians are pikers in comparison to ultra wealthy individuals and corporations, who are regularly, willingly aided and abetted by mainstream media organizations like the NY Times (sometimes for dollars but sometimes — as in the case of all the coverage given Trump during the last Republican primary –for free)
SomeDAM Poet
Dear Poet,
The quote I gave you someplace on this page was Chomsky on a recent Democracy Now interview, about manufacturing consent. Notice that he mentions that even in the NYT and WaPo and broadcast journalism occasionally non conforming voices can be found.
When WaPo printed those 21 negative articles about Sanders in one day. Did it go without notice. Was it a surprise.. Similarly when they attacked left wing media were they not exposed.
Few read the papers of record. They may set the stage for transmitting a narrative as their reports and conclusions get repeated . But if they were so successful why isn’t Hillary President. Certainly her views would have been more aligned with the NYTimes.
In fact they are in part responsible for electing Trump by keeping emails in the headline all summer and to the election. I doubt that was their intention.
The filters are there, the people don’t get past a headline .
Joel Herman writes: “The quote I gave you someplace on this page was Chomsky on a recent Democracy Now interview, about manufacturing consent. Notice that he mentions that even in the NYT and WaPo and broadcast journalism occasionally non conforming voices can be found.”
Chomsky knows how to “give devils their due,” a much more effective way to make a case and to inspire others to hear the truth you speak–instead of just brushing everything with the broad brush of one’s own extremism. CBK
Chomsky also notes that the things the Post and NY Times report on accurately tend to be less important matters.
In other words, they throw the public a bone on the small relative unimportant things while screwing them on the things that really matter.
Here is how I view the role of organizations like the NY Times.
They basically define the limits of what is acceptable within their sphere of influence, the Democratic party.
several polls taken during the last election cycle had Sanders beating Trump in a head to head match.
While I would be the first to caution against putting much trust in polls, I would point out that it is at least possible that by influencing who becomes the Democratic nominee, an organization like the Times can have an outsized influence over the final election result.
SomeDAM Poet
And I don’t necessarily disagree with the assessment. Certainly they do attempt
to influence the outcomes. And certainly this is directed passively or actively by the editorials boards who in turn are managed by the Publishers. It is just not clear how effective that is in Presidential politics.
Now I do believe the polls. They actually were pretty accurate even in 16. Nationally and by State. So before the Comey memo even Clinton was 10 points ahead of the Grand Buffoon. The National polls all dropped to about 2-3 points and most of those swing state polls dropped into the margin of error.
But I was a Bernie supporter living in NY and my daughter who had moved to Brooklyn was one of those who was ineligible to vote because the 5 months before the Primary that she registered did not qualify her to vote. But incidents like that did not cost Bernie the election in NY nor the nomination.
Sanders lost the nomination in the Black and minority communities especially in the South. The communities least likely to be influenced by the NY Times. Most likely to be influenced by the Local Pastor. Making them in many ways similar to the religious right.
But the same minority vote who gave Clinton the nomination denied her the Presidency. When 7% fewer showed in 16 than did in 12. More than enough votes to change the vote in the Midwest. We have noway of knowing what would have happened had Bernie won the nomination. But that same 7% drop in the Black vote, the drop Republicans strategists had been counting on since they lost in 12 . The reason they made no effort to become a more inclusive party. That drop in voter participation would certainly have affected Sanders.
To make up for that loss Sanders would have to look elsewhere and that would be the youth vote and I felt he would have won.
Where I see manufactured consent working more effectively is in the group think generated by the media that surrounds many of our views. Lets take the issue of Education for example, “our schools are failing ” “we have a skills shortage” “There are 7 million open Jobs going vacant for lack of skills”
Which then leads to calls for Testing , Charters , Teacher accountability….
The average citizen who is not paying attention can hardly imagine it any different. Few if any will pull out the JOLTS report out of BLS to see that a third of those Job openings are for Housemaids and waitresses….
You can apply the same to many other areas of the economy. Whether it is the affects of trade or immigration, on both sides of those issues.
In the aggregate both immigration and trade are good for the economy. People are not aggregates and if you were a manufacturing worker who lost his job to China or a Construction worker in NYC watching undocumented labor being used by nonunion contractors, causing double digit unemployment in a construction boom ,you would not think so either.
So as with Education the root problems of how we decide who gets what share of the economy are never addressed. We pick winners and losers and the media plays a role in making sure their masters are the winners.
Joel,
Thank you for this thoughtful assessment. I agree with everything you wrote here.
The African-American vote was not just suppressed by a many years long effort to disenfranchise historically Democratic voters who aren’t white, especially in those midwestern states with Republican governors in 2016. It was also suppressed by a targeted campaign by Russian propaganda, most likely with all kinds of information from Facebook and all the voter rolls that somehow Cambridge Analytica and Russia seemed to have.
I would have been very happy if Bernie was nominee in 2016 or is the nominee in 2020. But there are people on here who are so convinced that the perfect and godlike Bernie could withstand the kind of attack that HRC received and would win against Trump handily. That belief is entirely based on wishful thinking and not fact. Supposedly because some white working class voters claim they “would have” voted for Bernie but voted for Trump, it is true. What the NY Times does to Bernie (which the NYTimes also did to HRC and John Kerry and Dukakis and…..) is nothing like the targeted character assassination that was waiting for him if he had won.
It doesn’t matter whether Bernie or Biden wins if we ignore the corruption of our democracy and pretend that the democratic candidates that we don’t like “deserve” the character assassinations that they receive — and we help promote them — while we insist our own favored candidate would have won the general election even if he couldn’t muster enough votes to even win the primary.
I don’t believe Biden would handily beat Trump just like I don’t believe Bernie would handily beat Trump. I don’t believe ANY candidate will beat Trump if we allow the propaganda and voter suppression voices to win.
But if we all work our hardest for the primary candidate of our choice and respect the ultimate choice of the voters — and that doesn’t just mean white voters but African-American voters too — whoever wins the Democratic primary will win.
I don’t think it is entirely wishful thinking. Democrats outnumber Repugnicans, but a lot of them don’t make it to the polls. Obama galvanized reluctant and first-time voters–many young people and many people of color who are so disaffected and angry that they’ve given up on the political process. The question for political science to answer is whether that galvanizing of the left effect can be larger than the bringing in the moderate independents effect. I think that it can be.
First and foremost, he is a carpetbagger! He is NOT a Democrat!!!
Still mad about the Reconstruction, huh, calling Bernie a carpetbagger? Now that’s whistling Dixie. Look away, look away, look away Dixieland.
I thought be was a Capitalist bagger.
And not being a Democrat is certainly in his favor.
Right on!!!! The Democrats – most of them – suck. The GOP are equally bad.
Are the Times-a-Changing?
According to this piece at FiveThirtyEight, the number of Progressive Democats has increased dramatically since 2010.
“Put another way, in 2010, there were about 1.5 progressives for every Blue Dog in the House. In 2019, progressives will have a 4-to-1 advantage. This is the biggest the Progressive Caucus has ever been, according to a spokesperson for the group.” …
“So now is the time for the Progressive Caucus to start pushing the Democrats to adopt more left-leaning ideas. And they are already starting to do that — even before the new Congress starts.”
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-houses-progressive-caucus-will-be-bigger-than-ever-in-2019/
Blue Dogs are the most conservative Democrats.
Ha, ha, SDP–you have the best way with words!
What special thing did you do to become a Democrat, if you are one? I registered as one. So did he. That makes him a Democrat. What are his issues in your mind make him something other than a Democrat? Elizabeth Warren is a Democrat. She seems to embrace the same issues as Bernie. Is she a Democrat?
I say forget about labels and look at rhetoric, political orientation, and governance. Look at substance and dispose with labels. What do Democrat and GOP mean anyway? Same indifference to the labor class and different styles of expressing that indifference.
Like I have said for years, at least the GOP are honest about how disgusting they really are. I can’t say the same for the Democrats.
Robert Rendo, Private Citizen writes: “Like I have said for years, at least the GOP are honest about how disgusting they really are. I can’t say the same for the Democrats.”
Well, now, THERE’S something we can wrap in Old Glory. CBK
KS, And what is a Democrat?
Bernies NOT a Democrat
We can thank the Lord for that
Doesn’t beat around the Bush
Voting for his wars and such
Doesn’t claim to fight for us
While he throws us under bus
Doesn’t talk with fork-ed tongue
Spewing forth a pile of dung
Doesn’t change his point of view
For the crowd he’s speaking to
Doesn’t change his coat and hat
Bernie’s NOT a Democrat
The NYT has always been a liberal paper but it seems to deeply resent Bernie being a democratic socialist in the Scandinavian social democratic mould. They seem to hear from Bernie “you are not progressive enough” . The paper cannot bring itself to move left of Warren.
I have a simple idea that the Times and other media should treat all candidates fairly and report their views accurately.
Exactly right, Diane.
dianeravitch What a concept. (Is it my imagination, or have things gone off the rails here?) CBK
Doug, the NYT has always, in the last 35 years, been a socially liberal paper and a fiscally conservative, classist paper. Please note the difference.
The Times blew with the Neo-liberal wind and still does. Its reporting on shrinking unions, public education, and distribution of wealth to pay for the public commons has been extremely, deliberately weak and ineffective in being fair and balanced, and its trend for more than 20 years has been to give a progressive topic an article worth 2 or three brief paragraphs just to say, “Look we ARE reporting on this!” . . .
No, the NY Times is not so liberal, and they established their new headquarters using eminent domain to forcibly evict 55 businesses–including a trade school, a student housing unit, a Donna Karan outlet, and several mom-and-pop stores – against their will, under the legal cover of erasing “blight,” in order to clear ground for a 52-story skyscraper. They appear to play up real-estate to help rig the market and have very little journalism written on all the displaced people and employees who suffer as a result of developers and luxury gentrification.
The recent reform in tenant laws are a perfect example where the Times reported that landlords would be facing a game changing paradigm in favor of tenants. What the Times barely mentioned is the the actual rent. Rent costs themselves still remain largely unregulated and mainly uncontained. What is the point of saying that sweeping laws will now protect tenants when the amount of rent you pay still goes up exorbitantly and you can’t afford to live in the city you work in?
No, the Times is fair and balanced, and it’s not so comprehensively liberal.
Correction:
“No, the Times is NOT fair and balanced, and it’s not so comprehensively liberal”
Wow, BIG correction, Robert, w/the deletion of just one word. Thanx!
(BTW–anyone else notice what poor editing occurs in newspapers these days? Not just being nit-picky {when I whine to my husband while we’re reading the many papers we get/are catching up on about the continual use of the word “but”}, but the poor spelling & blatant grammatical errors.)
Because with IT, we are expected to read and put out print far faster than the print appears. We humans are inferior to the technology in that regard. Yet we created the technology. It’s cognitively and intellectually self destructive.
Sorry for the typo! I shall take me time the next time.
Thank you, Diane! This article confirms and documents the bias of The NY Times as I have observed it since the 2016 presidential race. Proof positive that the corporate titans are shaking in their boots. Their power is pervasive and nothing will change unless, as Bernie says, we have the guts to take them on.
Exactly
Jack-booted Times
Shaking in their jack-boots:
Titan owning Times
Print whatever fact suits
Public fleecing crimes
“Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best”
― Otto von Bismarck
If the dems truly wish to win the presidency in 2020, they will have to go with a more centrist candidate, who can assemble an electoral college majority.
I am certainly no fan of the WashPost nor of the NYTimes. But I can definitely see their point.
If the dems collectively lose their mind, and nominate that septuagenarian socialist, Pres Trump will beat him so bad, that there will be nothing left of Sanders, but a greasy spot on the carpet.
“The important thing is to win”
-Richard Nixon
Charles, we know how much you want Democrats to win.
Politics is the art of the con” — Otto con Bismarck
“The important thing is to resign” — Richard Nixon
If the Democrats want to win in 2020, they have to a) galvanize their base, b) educate voters on how the Republicans are screwing them. Obama won because he brought out reluctant voters.From Lorraine Minnite of Project Vote:
“First-time voters may have determined the outcome of the 2008 presidential election. According to the 2008 National Election Day Exit Poll, of the 131,406,895 ballots counted in the 2008 election, approximately 15,112,000 ballots were cast by first-time voters.1 As a percentage of total votes cast for the two major presidential candidates, first-time voters heavily weighted their support to Barack Obama, comprising nearly 15.2 percent of all votes cast for him, compared to 7.5 percent of all votes cast for Obama’s opponent, John McCain.2 Exit polls find that 68.7 percent or approximately 10,382,000 first-time voters cast their ballots for Obama, quite possibly exceeding his margin of victory over McCain by as many as one million votes.”
Trump is PRAYING to his God Mammon that he will have Biden to run against. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he talked to Putin about helping the Biden campaign during the primaries.
Amen to your last paragraph, Bob. Biden couldn’t effectively answer Harris, called his own “time’s up,” meekly “raised” his hand (& w/a crooked finger, yet) &–at times–made no sense whatever, aside from a Cheshire-cat like grin at the candidate who reminded him that he’d made the speech about “passing the torch” when Joe, himself, was a young whippersnapper.
IQ45 would have an absolute field day on a Biden-shared stage.
Just substitute Joe! for Jeb!
To paraphrase the inaccurate Charles (you picked the wrong septuagenarian, Charles), “If the Dems collectively lose their mind & nominate that septuagenarian”…”Pres. Trump would beat him so bad that there will be nothing left of” Biden “but a…spot” on the” stage.
Imagine a debate between Trump and Harris or Trump and Buttigeig. IQ45 wouldn’t know what hit him. It would be like watching Tom Cruise debate mathematics with John von Neumann. Imagine Trump pulling his creeper thing with Senator Harris. LOL. Now THAT would be entertainment.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the DNC talked to Putin about helping the Biden campaign during the general election.
I think you are right considering how many moldy bones Trump has tossed to Biden signaling that Biden is the guy he wants to run against in 2020.
I think Trump is terrified of Kamala Harris. Imagine Trump trying to stalk her like a sexual predator and serial killer during the 2020 presidential debates like Trump did to Hillary in 2016.
Oh, no, please not Joe.
Tell me that it isn’t so.
We’ve seen this show
Too many times,
Too many times befo’.
Tell me Biden’s not the one
Tell me it is “Just in fun”
Tell me Biden’s not our pol
Else we’ve dug our final hole
OK, once again, the Red Cloak goes to SomeDAM, Chief Bard of the Resistance!
Tell me Biden’s “Just in jest”
Tell me he is NOT the best
Tell me stories such as this
Say it’s Bernie, Pete or Liz
Tell me, tell me, tell me please!
‘fore I wail and moan and wheeze
Tell me Biden WILL drop out
Say “He will, without a doubt”
Well, I won’t tell you Biden will drop out because there is no way to know, but I will say this if he runs against Trump in 2020, will Biden be Trump’s second Hillary Clinton?
Will Trump slither around the stage sniffling (Was he snorting Cocaine in 2016 before the debate?) during the 2020 presidential debates stalking Biden like he psycho-stalked Hillary?
Maybe before a presidential debate, the candidates should take a “surprise” urine test to see if they are using dope. If that happened, any bets that Trump will refuse like he refused everything else that would reveal what a lying fraud he is.
Imagine that, dope for the dope. I’m talking about Trump, of course.
SomeDAM channels the great Dr. Seuss. Successfully, I might add.
Bob
I am both humbled and flattered.
Dr Seuss was the master of goofy poetry to which I can only aspire.
The master of goofy cartoon characters too.
Self Stalking
Biden stalks himself
Trump is not required
Doesn’t need his help
Biden is inspired!
OK. That one is inspired. May I post this elsewhere? With credit?
Shirley.
You may credit Shirley.
Titanic Candidates
Biden is Titanic
Bound to hit the berg
Democrats won’t panic
As you might have heard
The NYT, Tom Daschle and CAP are one and the same with the oligarchy. They wear
cat-phishing name tags that say, “HELLO, I’m a liberal”, to hide the fact. They serve one master above all others- money. Daschle’s lobby shop delivers “bi-partisan” legislation for wealthy clients. And, as board chair of CAP, he gets to position for media, the billionaire-funded organization as the voice from the left. In other words, the three together vitiate the true voice of democracy.
It’s not a coincidence that a source cited by Sydney Ember was an advisor to Clinton’s campaign, as were the top leaders of CAP, who are intertwined with the NYT staff.
The voice of the left is Bernie’s Our Revolution. The nation is indebted to Sanders. The public should figuratively stone the “liberal” imposters.
Sanders is pretty much responsible for resuscitating the Democratic party from life support.
And now Party “leaders” (aided and abetted by NY Times and Washington Post) not only want to kill the body but bring back the zombies.
Night of the Living Dems
The Night of Living Dead’s
Got nothing on the Dems
The zombies minus heads
Who “think” with naked stems
You speak truth through poetry- what an admirable gift to share.
Sanders is pretty much responsible for resuscitating the Democratic party from life support.
Exactly
Bernie May be playing the role of Norman Thomas, giving ideas and policies to an intellectually moribund party.
When asked about the busing issue that came up in the debate between Biden and Harris, Trump responded, “It has been something that they’ve done for a long period of time. There aren’t that many ways of getting people to schools.”
Our very stable genius president thought that “busing,” in this context, referred, literally, to school buses.
He’s a blubbering idiot. He’s profoundly ignorant. He never reads. He completely lacks any intellectual curiosity, and he is, of course, completely amoral. It has been astonishing to me that there are literally millions of Americans who can’t see this. That fact, that there are that many among us who are that idiotic, continues to astonish men, to blow me away because in Trump, these characteristics are so freaking obvious. I knew that there were lots of Americans who weren’t very bright, but I didn’t think, even after Bush, Jr., that so many were that brain dead.
It makes me wonder whether there isn’t lead in the water in large swaths of the country.
cxs: He completely lacks intellectual curiosity; whether there might be lead in the water in large swaths of the country.
The School Uber Issue
I’ve always backed the bussing
Of students to the school
Pre-Uber, there was nothing
And walking would be cruel
Or maybe that should be The School Ubering Issue
Bob Shepherd writes: “It has been astonishing to me that there are literally millions of Americans who can’t see this” (Trump’s ignorance and amorality.)
Bob: They see it. But if we stop thinking of them as well-informed and/or reasonable (eliciting an ongoing sense of astonishment), and begin to recognize them as cult-brain followers, then the pieces tend to fall together in much more recognizable fashion. There were many in Hitler’s Germany who STILL loved Hitler, even after he died, the war was over, and the horrible facts came clear. Cults are mysterious things, but it’s happening here, albeit in its own specific historical expression. CBK
Trump’s supporters love the same food he does: McDonald’s and Diet Cokes. That explains why they love him. He is them in every way physically and mentally except he lies more than they do and is a total con, crook and fraud.
Trump is the imperfect president of Fast Food Nation.
And if you want to discover what fast food does to the brain and the body, watch “Super Size Me”
“You already know that eating large amounts of fast food can cause weight gain because it’s high in calories, sugar and fat. Fast food, however, can also have a negative effect on the health of your brain. The lack of nutrients in fast food, as well as the presence of unhealthy ingredients, contributes to a decrease in brain health.” …
“A diet low in omega-3 fatty acids increases the risk of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dementia, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.” …
“Regularly eating high-calorie meals can impair learning and memory capabilities.” …
https://healthyeating.sfgate.com/relationship-between-fast-food-brain-12203.html
That Trump has significant cognitive impairment and a host of emotional disorders is clear enough. Could these be related to his diet? Seems likely.
I don’t know what Trump’s diet was when he was a kid. If he did eat a healthy diet back then, then he must have very serious cases of ADHD, Dyslexia, language processing disorder, et al.
Trump is clearly, hands down, a deplorable basket case of learning and psychological disorders like being a psychopath who is also a malignant narcissist.