4 ms·

This is what Scott Adams (the Dilbert guy) refers to when he says that our society is split down the middle, watching two different movies on the same screen.

This is what Scott Adams (the Dilbert guy) refers to when he says that our society is split down the middle, watching two different movies on the same screen. Some see: "As our newspapers and TV screens overflow with choleric attacks by President Trump on the media..." While others see: "As our corporate, left-aligned media powerhouses overflow our news feeds with biased/false statements about President Trump..." Ultimately, this just goes to show that the media has become a protected class, which -- just in case it isn't evident -- is a bad thing. The news outlets that Trump attacks are not independent little offices run by scrappy street journalists, but enormous corporate behemoths with clear cut political alignments and agendas, with goals so identical that you literally see the exact same wording in politicized headlines across several major networks. This goes for both the left and the right (though the proportion is lopsided to the left). The real journalists are the ones being demonized by the media and government alike (that's how you know they're reporting something actually being hidden away from the people), some of whom are living out their lives locked up in embassies.

luxuryballs 9y ago
I'd say that this article is also attacking Trump by making the jump from 'he criticizes the media' to floating the idea that he probably wants to use the force of law to jail and silence them.
- wlesieutre 9y ago
  Trump has explicitly said that he wants to do that http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/17/politics/comey-memo-press-jailed-trump/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/17/politics/comey-memo-press-jail...
  - txcwpalpha 9y ago
    The somewhat funny thing is that the article you linked kind of supports the person you replied to, because the article makes statements like this: > But, the suggestion from a sitting President of the United States to the FBI Director that journalists be jailed for reporting on classified information is, in and of itself, a stunning statement that goes beyond even Trump's most virulent anti-media statements to date. This is some pretty strong "how dare he?! Trump is making wild, evil statements that no other president would ever make!" rhetoric, and it's also absurd considering Obama's (and Bush's) entire presidency was plagued with issues where he wanted to prosecute reporters that reported on classified information [1]. 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/30/opinion/sunday/if-donald-trump-targets-journalists-thank-obama.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/30/opinion/sunday/if-donald-...
    - wlesieutre 9y ago
      That's true, and it's my second greatest disappointment of Obama's presidency after the no-oversight warrantless mass surveillance programs. For another example where he's gone much further off the rails than any recent president, how about his repeated pitch that we should change libel laws so that he can sue journalists? http://money.cnn.com/2017/03/30/media/libel-laws-donald-trump-new-york-times/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2017/03/30/media/libel-laws-donald-trum... Thankfully, criticism of public figures is pretty well locked in by the supreme court on first amendment grounds, so he'd need a new constitutional amendment to do this. But he does love to talk about it.
  - adrianratnapala 9y ago
    No that's an article reporting someone who claims that Trump wanted journalists who leak classified information to be jailed. Now US jurisprudence protects such journalists -- rightly I think. But what Trump was allegedly asking for is well within the norms of other Western countries, has been done through the back door by previous US administrations and is a far cry from silencing the media.
1_2__4 9y ago
> Ultimately, this just goes to show that the media has become a protected class, which -- just in case it isn't evident -- is a bad thing. No... no it does not. You might as well have posted pictures of kittens and claim they lead to the same conclusion.
CalChris 9y ago
This is just equivocation.
txcwpalpha 9y ago
> The real journalists are the ones being demonized by the media and government alike (that's how you know they're reporting something actually being hidden away from the people), some of whom are living out their lives locked up in embassies. There's a subtle implication here that the likes of Julian Assange are "real journalists" and are somehow noble, which is laughable. Assange (and WikiLeaks) have just as much political alignments and motives that all other media organizations have. Just because he's stuck in an embassy and doesn't have hordes of cash behind him doesn't mean he isn't just as biased. Quite frankly, WikiLeaks as a whole is no more trustworthy than CNN or Fox, and may be even less so. One of the most powerful (and hard to detect) ways to be biased in reporting isn't by printing attack articles against your enemy, but rather by not printing attack articles against your "friends". WikiLeaks does this every time they choose not to publish evidence damning people they support, which I'd be willing to bet happens more often than we all know. While we're on the topic, WikiLeaks also commits some pretty atrociously biased editorializing whenever they post new material. They used to just be a site that posted raw information ("here are the emails that were leaked"), but now they also add their own silly commentary to it ("here are the emails and this is what you should think about them"), often with hilariously bad analysis.
- mi100hael 9y ago
  > WikiLeaks does this every time they choose not to publish evidence damning people they support, which I'd be willing to bet happens more often than we all know. I'd bet it doesn't happen all that frequently. If you were a source and Wikileaks refused to publish, wouldn't you just take your material elsewhere and make it known Wikileaks tried to squash a story?
  - txcwpalpha 9y ago
    You mean like this? http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/347007-wikileaks-rejected-documents-on-russia-during-2016-election http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/347007-wikileaks-rej... I only wonder how many times similar things happen but we don't hear about it because the source doesn't have the connections/credibility to make WikiLeaks' refusal known.
flachsechs 9y ago
i don't know about the 'real' journalists either. after having done marketing for my own company, i just expect that anything that makes it onto a screen and into my attention span has an agenda and special interest behind it, spending money to make it visible. literally nothing you see is unbiased, not even personal blogs. i think this is the most valuable takeaway from the 2016 election.

luxuryballs 9y ago

I'd say that this article is also attacking Trump by making the jump from 'he criticizes the media' to floating the idea that he probably wants to use the force of law to jail and silence them.

wlesieutre 9y ago
Trump has explicitly said that he wants to do that http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/17/politics/comey-memo-press-jailed-trump/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/17/politics/comey-memo-press-jail...
- txcwpalpha 9y ago
  The somewhat funny thing is that the article you linked kind of supports the person you replied to, because the article makes statements like this: > But, the suggestion from a sitting President of the United States to the FBI Director that journalists be jailed for reporting on classified information is, in and of itself, a stunning statement that goes beyond even Trump's most virulent anti-media statements to date. This is some pretty strong "how dare he?! Trump is making wild, evil statements that no other president would ever make!" rhetoric, and it's also absurd considering Obama's (and Bush's) entire presidency was plagued with issues where he wanted to prosecute reporters that reported on classified information [1]. 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/30/opinion/sunday/if-donald-trump-targets-journalists-thank-obama.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/30/opinion/sunday/if-donald-...
  - wlesieutre 9y ago
    That's true, and it's my second greatest disappointment of Obama's presidency after the no-oversight warrantless mass surveillance programs. For another example where he's gone much further off the rails than any recent president, how about his repeated pitch that we should change libel laws so that he can sue journalists? http://money.cnn.com/2017/03/30/media/libel-laws-donald-trump-new-york-times/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2017/03/30/media/libel-laws-donald-trum... Thankfully, criticism of public figures is pretty well locked in by the supreme court on first amendment grounds, so he'd need a new constitutional amendment to do this. But he does love to talk about it.
- adrianratnapala 9y ago
  No that's an article reporting someone who claims that Trump wanted journalists who leak classified information to be jailed. Now US jurisprudence protects such journalists -- rightly I think. But what Trump was allegedly asking for is well within the norms of other Western countries, has been done through the back door by previous US administrations and is a far cry from silencing the media.

1_2__4 9y ago

> Ultimately, this just goes to show that the media has become a protected class, which -- just in case it isn't evident -- is a bad thing. No... no it does not. You might as well have posted pictures of kittens and claim they lead to the same conclusion.

CalChris 9y ago

This is just equivocation.

txcwpalpha 9y ago

> The real journalists are the ones being demonized by the media and government alike (that's how you know they're reporting something actually being hidden away from the people), some of whom are living out their lives locked up in embassies. There's a subtle implication here that the likes of Julian Assange are "real journalists" and are somehow noble, which is laughable. Assange (and WikiLeaks) have just as much political alignments and motives that all other media organizations have. Just because he's stuck in an embassy and doesn't have hordes of cash behind him doesn't mean he isn't just as biased. Quite frankly, WikiLeaks as a whole is no more trustworthy than CNN or Fox, and may be even less so. One of the most powerful (and hard to detect) ways to be biased in reporting isn't by printing attack articles against your enemy, but rather by not printing attack articles against your "friends". WikiLeaks does this every time they choose not to publish evidence damning people they support, which I'd be willing to bet happens more often than we all know. While we're on the topic, WikiLeaks also commits some pretty atrociously biased editorializing whenever they post new material. They used to just be a site that posted raw information ("here are the emails that were leaked"), but now they also add their own silly commentary to it ("here are the emails and this is what you should think about them"), often with hilariously bad analysis.

mi100hael 9y ago
> WikiLeaks does this every time they choose not to publish evidence damning people they support, which I'd be willing to bet happens more often than we all know. I'd bet it doesn't happen all that frequently. If you were a source and Wikileaks refused to publish, wouldn't you just take your material elsewhere and make it known Wikileaks tried to squash a story?
- txcwpalpha 9y ago
  You mean like this? http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/347007-wikileaks-rejected-documents-on-russia-during-2016-election http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/347007-wikileaks-rej... I only wonder how many times similar things happen but we don't hear about it because the source doesn't have the connections/credibility to make WikiLeaks' refusal known.

flachsechs 9y ago

i don't know about the 'real' journalists either. after having done marketing for my own company, i just expect that anything that makes it onto a screen and into my attention span has an agenda and special interest behind it, spending money to make it visible. literally nothing you see is unbiased, not even personal blogs. i think this is the most valuable takeaway from the 2016 election.