8 ms·

Mercer does have a point about bias in MSM. MSM called Steve Bannon an anti-Semite when he is in fact very, pro-Israel and very much against anti-Semitism. Ho

Mercer does have a point about bias in MSM. MSM called Steve Bannon an anti-Semite when he is in fact very, pro-Israel and very much against anti-Semitism. However, they failed to report that the Democratic National Committee candidate who almost won, Keith Ellison, was mentioned by the Anti-Defamation League, "Ellison’s remarks ‘deeply disturbing and disqualifying’". [1] He was one of only 8 members of Congress to vote against the Iron Dome anti-missle system which protected Israeli civilians from Hamas rockets. [2] [1] http://www.adl.org/press-center/press-releases/israel-middle-east/speech-raises-new-doubts-about-Rep-Ellisons-ability.html http://www.adl.org/press-center/press-releases/israel-middle... [2] http://jpupdates.com/2014/08/03/rep-ellison-explains-anti-iron-dome-funding-vote-need-cease-fire/ http://jpupdates.com/2014/08/03/rep-ellison-explains-anti-ir... [3] http://dailycaller.com/2016/11/17/democrats-must-scrutinize-keith-ellisons-anti-semitic-past-and-ties-to-radical-islam/ http://dailycaller.com/2016/11/17/democrats-must-scrutinize-... MSM chose not to report the Anti-Defamation League statement (ADL says Bannon is not anti-Semitic BTW) about Ellison nor did it report that he was one of 8 members of Congress to vote against Iron Dome, an anti-missle system that protected Israeli civilians from Hamas rockets. EDIT: After the DNC election which Ellison lost, the Wall Street Journal disclosed the following: "Mr. Ellison, who is an African-American Muslim, also faced complaints about his past associations with the Nation of Islam and statements he has made that were perceived as criticizing Israel. Haim Saban, an Israeli-American donor who funded the construction of the DNC’s Washington headquarters, in December publicly called Mr. Ellison “clearly an anti-Semite.”"[4] But they should have disclosed this information before the election. [4] https://www.wsj.com/articles/democrats-elect-tom-perez-party-chairman-1488054192 https://www.wsj.com/articles/democrats-elect-tom-perez-party...

jsmthrowaway 10y ago
An opportunity to link to CNN, of all places? Why would I pass that up? http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/01/politics/keith-ellison-anti-defamation-league-middle-east/ http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/01/politics/keith-ellison-anti-de... They even quoted "disqualifying" in the lede.
macawfish 10y ago
Please don't conflate Israeli nationalism with support for Jewish people on the whole. And don't conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. As a matter of fact, the majority of Jewish people I know, American and Israeli as well, are quite critical of the Israeli state as it has acted historically.
- davidf18 10y ago
  Please read the Anti-Defamation League statement regarding Ellison. What is notable is that MSM did not report the ADL statement of Dec 1, 2016 when it was very much newsworthy. The point is that one can't rely on MSM to give us important reliable news. > As a matter of fact, the majority of Jewish people I know. Well, the majority I know, both American and Israeli are not critical of how the state was re-established, rather they understand that the Palestinians turned down their state in 1948 and tried to destroy the newly established Jewish nation. It is useful news to know that the DNC was supporting a candidate who was one of only 8 to vote against Iron Dome anti-missle system funding meant to help protect Israeli civilians from Hamas rockets.
ryanmarsh 10y ago
Indeed. Bias is unavoidable. Mistakes are unavoidable. Outright lies are unavoidable. Today's news operation is a blazing fast click bait operation. But even back in the days of slow news the MSM got things really wrong on a regular basis. That's largely how people like Rush Limbaugh built their right wing media empires, by pantsing the MSM on a daily basis for decades. The narrative that the MSM is biased/wrong/propaganda is such a bedrock multi-decades old belief on the right that all Breitbart and CSN had to do was SHOW UP.
- gizmo 10y ago
  Well put, but I take issue with one part: > even back in the days of slow news the MSM got things really wrong on a regular basis This is false nostalgia. The mainstream media may be terrible today (and I think it is) but it's still better than it has ever been. Not long ago people subscribed to a single newspaper that never needed to print retractions. There were no comment sections to set the record straight. Journalists wouldn't get held to account on twitter. Journalists used to be middle-class white men, now it's more diverse.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - makomk 10y ago
    None of this is as clear-cut an improvement as you're suggesting. For example, take the rather dubious story about Trump's supposed secret communications channel with Russia - a dozen or so outlets refused to touch it, but the moment Salon decided to ignore the obvious issues with it and run it anyway it spread like wildfire on social media even to people who wouldn't normally read them. Social media effectively reduces the standards of the media as a whole to whatever the most clickbaity outlet is willing to initially run. Random members of the public and journalists who don't consider journalistic practices to apply to their social media also start dubious claims which spread wildly. Any corrections, retractions or debunkings never reach the same level of virality and go unseen.
    - 10y ago
raldi 10y ago
> MSM called Steve Bannon an anti-Semite when he is in fact very, pro-Israel You can be anti-Semitic and pro-Israel, just like how in the 1960's you could support South Vietnam while holding totally racist views about them.
tptacek 10y ago
Well, that's just about the misleading conceivable way to cite the ADL, which has an whole page that is entirely critical of Bannon, its first headline reading "BANNON HAS EMBRACED THE ALT RIGHT, A LOOSE NETWORK OF WHITE NATIONALISTS AND ANTI-SEMITES." (em. original) and, in literally the next paragraph after the one you're paraphrasing about his antisemitism, says: Nevertheless, Bannon essentially has established himself as the chief curator for the alt right. Under his stewardship, Breitbart has emerged as the leading source for the extreme views of a vocal minority who peddle bigotry and promote hate.
- davidf18 10y ago
  That is because the ADL withdrew their statement of Bannon [1], again not reported by MSM even though MSM reported the original ADL statement. Proves my point that you cannot rely on MSM to give you newsworthy information. [1] http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/11/17/bannon-breitbart-anti-defamation-league-backs-down/ http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/11/17/bannon-br...
  - jsmthrowaway 10y ago
    So let's say you're an assignment editor at NYT or WaPo. A presser crosses your desk: "ADL walks back earlier inflammatory rhetoric about Steve Bannon". You immediately toss it to your politics editor, who prioritizes it below the vast cornucopia of election shit happening in the mid-November cycle because nobody cares except Steve Bannon fans. Appeal is important, and "that thing they said, they don't say it any more" is not really a story; it's an update on the "that thing they said" story, of course. Before, we'd call this newsworthiness. Now we call it a vast MSM conspiracy to suppress coverage of an entire spectrum of people. It's weird that the kind of person who reads Hacker News and ostensibly understands creating products for a target market would then look at decisions such as these and not see them as understanding broad audience appeal. The Hill, Politico, Breitbart, all mastheads that cater to deep politics, all ran it. It's cool to see a narrative be created that broad appeal mastheads not running something is an indictment of "mainstream media" (the clue is in the name!) simply because the guy you like is not getting the attention you want. And then someone links the MSM running the very story that started you down this path (on CNN!) and you ignore it and continue peddling your version of events. The flaw in MSM is that there simply isn't enough time in the day to run everything, and every time I see commentary like this around a specific event, the math on newsworthiness immediately makes sense to me because I've been an assignment editor. But unfortunately it leaves an opening for your side to say "see! the terrible left is ignoring us!" and it sounds like a legitimate gripe to a lot of people.
andy_ppp 10y ago
I find Bannon's positions quite comical to be honest; when he says the Judeo-Christian religion my opinion is that this is code for "white people". I have this ominous feeling that they really are going to attempt to round up the 11 million illegal Mexicans, which really doesn't bare thinking about. They don't say it directly because they really believe they aren't racist, they just want America for white people, like it used to be, never.
quirkafleeg 10y ago
> MSM chose not to report the Anti-Defamation League statement about Ellison Do you seriously think you can make stuff up here and nobody is going to bother checking it? You literally just have to type Keith Ellison ADL into Google to demonstrate your claim is false.
- davidf18 10y ago
  Really? Where is the NY Times citation, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic? Please cite links that refer to the ADL statement about Ellison before the DNC election. I did google each of these publications and found nothing. Nor did I find anything that cited how he was one of 8 members of Congress to vote against the Iron Dome anti-missle system that has protected many Israelis civilians from Hamas missiles.
  - quirkafleeg 10y ago
    If you meant a specific newspaper did not post about it before a specific date, then perhaps you should have said that, rather than instead making a completely different claim that isn't true. > Where is the NY Times citation, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic? Please cite links that refer to the ADL statement about Ellison before the DNC election. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/01/us/jewish-groups-and-unions-grow-uneasy-with-keith-ellison.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/01/us/jewish-groups-and-unio... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/02/keith-ellisons-bid-to-lead-the-democratic-party-is-already-on-the-rocks/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/02/ke... http://www.wsj.com/articles/rep-keith-ellison-faces-critics-hoping-to-derail-his-bid-to-run-the-dnc-1480636762 http://www.wsj.com/articles/rep-keith-ellison-faces-critics-... https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/keith-ellison-and-the-battle-for-the-soul-of-the-democratic-party/509336/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/keith-e... All dated within 48 hours of the ADL statement, almost three months ago. > I did google each of these publications and found nothing. Now you're just proving you're lying. If you type this into Google: Keith Ellison ADL site: [each of those publications] those pages are the very first results. > Nor did I find anything that cited how he was one of 8 members of Congress to vote against the Iron Dome anti-missle system Do they routinely report on what he votes against in Congress? Or are you saying the "MSM" should for some reason focus on everything you personally happen to think is newsworthy?

jsmthrowaway 10y ago

An opportunity to link to CNN, of all places? Why would I pass that up? http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/01/politics/keith-ellison-anti-defamation-league-middle-east/ http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/01/politics/keith-ellison-anti-de... They even quoted "disqualifying" in the lede.

macawfish 10y ago

Please don't conflate Israeli nationalism with support for Jewish people on the whole. And don't conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. As a matter of fact, the majority of Jewish people I know, American and Israeli as well, are quite critical of the Israeli state as it has acted historically.

davidf18 10y ago
Please read the Anti-Defamation League statement regarding Ellison. What is notable is that MSM did not report the ADL statement of Dec 1, 2016 when it was very much newsworthy. The point is that one can't rely on MSM to give us important reliable news. > As a matter of fact, the majority of Jewish people I know. Well, the majority I know, both American and Israeli are not critical of how the state was re-established, rather they understand that the Palestinians turned down their state in 1948 and tried to destroy the newly established Jewish nation. It is useful news to know that the DNC was supporting a candidate who was one of only 8 to vote against Iron Dome anti-missle system funding meant to help protect Israeli civilians from Hamas rockets.

ryanmarsh 10y ago

Indeed. Bias is unavoidable. Mistakes are unavoidable. Outright lies are unavoidable. Today's news operation is a blazing fast click bait operation. But even back in the days of slow news the MSM got things really wrong on a regular basis. That's largely how people like Rush Limbaugh built their right wing media empires, by pantsing the MSM on a daily basis for decades. The narrative that the MSM is biased/wrong/propaganda is such a bedrock multi-decades old belief on the right that all Breitbart and CSN had to do was SHOW UP.

gizmo 10y ago
Well put, but I take issue with one part: > even back in the days of slow news the MSM got things really wrong on a regular basis This is false nostalgia. The mainstream media may be terrible today (and I think it is) but it's still better than it has ever been. Not long ago people subscribed to a single newspaper that never needed to print retractions. There were no comment sections to set the record straight. Journalists wouldn't get held to account on twitter. Journalists used to be middle-class white men, now it's more diverse.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- makomk 10y ago
  None of this is as clear-cut an improvement as you're suggesting. For example, take the rather dubious story about Trump's supposed secret communications channel with Russia - a dozen or so outlets refused to touch it, but the moment Salon decided to ignore the obvious issues with it and run it anyway it spread like wildfire on social media even to people who wouldn't normally read them. Social media effectively reduces the standards of the media as a whole to whatever the most clickbaity outlet is willing to initially run. Random members of the public and journalists who don't consider journalistic practices to apply to their social media also start dubious claims which spread wildly. Any corrections, retractions or debunkings never reach the same level of virality and go unseen.
  - 10y ago

raldi 10y ago

> MSM called Steve Bannon an anti-Semite when he is in fact very, pro-Israel You can be anti-Semitic and pro-Israel, just like how in the 1960's you could support South Vietnam while holding totally racist views about them.

tptacek 10y ago

Well, that's just about the misleading conceivable way to cite the ADL, which has an whole page that is entirely critical of Bannon, its first headline reading "BANNON HAS EMBRACED THE ALT RIGHT, A LOOSE NETWORK OF WHITE NATIONALISTS AND ANTI-SEMITES." (em. original) and, in literally the next paragraph after the one you're paraphrasing about his antisemitism, says: Nevertheless, Bannon essentially has established himself as the chief curator for the alt right. Under his stewardship, Breitbart has emerged as the leading source for the extreme views of a vocal minority who peddle bigotry and promote hate.

davidf18 10y ago
That is because the ADL withdrew their statement of Bannon [1], again not reported by MSM even though MSM reported the original ADL statement. Proves my point that you cannot rely on MSM to give you newsworthy information. [1] http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/11/17/bannon-breitbart-anti-defamation-league-backs-down/ http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/11/17/bannon-br...
- jsmthrowaway 10y ago
  So let's say you're an assignment editor at NYT or WaPo. A presser crosses your desk: "ADL walks back earlier inflammatory rhetoric about Steve Bannon". You immediately toss it to your politics editor, who prioritizes it below the vast cornucopia of election shit happening in the mid-November cycle because nobody cares except Steve Bannon fans. Appeal is important, and "that thing they said, they don't say it any more" is not really a story; it's an update on the "that thing they said" story, of course. Before, we'd call this newsworthiness. Now we call it a vast MSM conspiracy to suppress coverage of an entire spectrum of people. It's weird that the kind of person who reads Hacker News and ostensibly understands creating products for a target market would then look at decisions such as these and not see them as understanding broad audience appeal. The Hill, Politico, Breitbart, all mastheads that cater to deep politics, all ran it. It's cool to see a narrative be created that broad appeal mastheads not running something is an indictment of "mainstream media" (the clue is in the name!) simply because the guy you like is not getting the attention you want. And then someone links the MSM running the very story that started you down this path (on CNN!) and you ignore it and continue peddling your version of events. The flaw in MSM is that there simply isn't enough time in the day to run everything, and every time I see commentary like this around a specific event, the math on newsworthiness immediately makes sense to me because I've been an assignment editor. But unfortunately it leaves an opening for your side to say "see! the terrible left is ignoring us!" and it sounds like a legitimate gripe to a lot of people.

andy_ppp 10y ago

I find Bannon's positions quite comical to be honest; when he says the Judeo-Christian religion my opinion is that this is code for "white people". I have this ominous feeling that they really are going to attempt to round up the 11 million illegal Mexicans, which really doesn't bare thinking about. They don't say it directly because they really believe they aren't racist, they just want America for white people, like it used to be, never.

quirkafleeg 10y ago

> MSM chose not to report the Anti-Defamation League statement about Ellison Do you seriously think you can make stuff up here and nobody is going to bother checking it? You literally just have to type Keith Ellison ADL into Google to demonstrate your claim is false.

davidf18 10y ago
Really? Where is the NY Times citation, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic? Please cite links that refer to the ADL statement about Ellison before the DNC election. I did google each of these publications and found nothing. Nor did I find anything that cited how he was one of 8 members of Congress to vote against the Iron Dome anti-missle system that has protected many Israelis civilians from Hamas missiles.
- quirkafleeg 10y ago
  If you meant a specific newspaper did not post about it before a specific date, then perhaps you should have said that, rather than instead making a completely different claim that isn't true. > Where is the NY Times citation, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic? Please cite links that refer to the ADL statement about Ellison before the DNC election. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/01/us/jewish-groups-and-unions-grow-uneasy-with-keith-ellison.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/01/us/jewish-groups-and-unio... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/02/keith-ellisons-bid-to-lead-the-democratic-party-is-already-on-the-rocks/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/02/ke... http://www.wsj.com/articles/rep-keith-ellison-faces-critics-hoping-to-derail-his-bid-to-run-the-dnc-1480636762 http://www.wsj.com/articles/rep-keith-ellison-faces-critics-... https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/keith-ellison-and-the-battle-for-the-soul-of-the-democratic-party/509336/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/keith-e... All dated within 48 hours of the ADL statement, almost three months ago. > I did google each of these publications and found nothing. Now you're just proving you're lying. If you type this into Google: Keith Ellison ADL site: [each of those publications] those pages are the very first results. > Nor did I find anything that cited how he was one of 8 members of Congress to vote against the Iron Dome anti-missle system Do they routinely report on what he votes against in Congress? Or are you saying the "MSM" should for some reason focus on everything you personally happen to think is newsworthy?