Media Manipulation

[bogeyman]

1. The strategy of distraction

The primary element of social control is the strategy of distraction which is to divert public attention from important issues and changes determined by the political and economic elites, by the technique of flood or flooding continuous distractions and insignificant information.

Distraction strategy is also essential to prevent the public interest in the essential knowledge in the area of the science, economics, psychology, neurobiology and cybernetics.

“Maintaining public attention diverted away from the real social problems, captivated by matters of no real importance. Keep the public busy, busy, busy, no time to think, back to farm and other animals”.


2. Create problems, then offer solutions

This method is also called “problem -reaction- solution.”

It creates a problem, a “situation” referred to cause some reaction in the audience, so this is the principal of the steps that you want to accept.

For example: let it unfold and intensify urban violence, or arrange for bloody attacks in order that the public is the applicant’s security laws and policies to the detriment of freedom.

Or create an economic crisis to accept as a necessary evil retreat of social rights and the dismantling of public services.


3. The gradual strategy

Acceptance to an unacceptable degree, just apply it gradually, dropper, for consecutive years.

That is how they radically new socioeconomic conditions (neoliberalism) were imposed during the 1980s and 1990s:

• the minimal state
• privatization
• precariousness
• flexibility
• massive unemployment
• wages
• do not guarantee a decent income,

...so many changes that have brought about a revolution if they had been applied once.


4. The strategy of deferring

Another way to accept an unpopular decision is to present it as “painful and necessary”, gaining public acceptance, at the time for future application.

It is easier to accept that a future sacrifice of immediate slaughter.

• First, because the effort is not used immediately
• Then, because the public, masses, is always the tendency to expect naively that “everything will be better tomorrow” and that the sacrifice required may be avoided

This gives the public more time to get used to the idea of change and accept it with resignation when the time comes.

5. Go to the public as a little child

Most of the advertising to the general public uses speech, argument, people and particularly children’s intonation, often close to the weakness, as if the viewer were a little child or a mentally deficient.

The harder one tries to deceive the viewer look, the more it tends to adopt a tone infantilizing.

Why?

“If one goes to a person as if she had the age of 12 years or less, then, because of suggestion, she tends with a certain probability that a response or reaction also devoid of a critical sense as a person 12 years or younger.”

6. Use the emotional side more than the reflection

Making use of the emotional aspect is a classic technique for causing a short circuit on rational analysis, and finally to the critical sense of the individual.

Furthermore, the use of emotional register to open the door to the unconscious for implantation or grafting ideas , desires, fears and anxieties , compulsions, or induce behaviors …


7. Keep the public in ignorance and mediocrity

Making the public incapable of understanding the technologies and methods used to control and enslavement.

“The quality of education given to the lower social classes must be the poor and mediocre as possible so that the gap of ignorance it plans among the lower classes and upper classes is and remains impossible to attain for the lower classes.”

8. To encourage the public to be complacent with mediocrity

Promote the public to believe that the fact is fashionable to be stupid, vulgar and uneducated…


9. Self-blame Strengthen

To let individual blame for their misfortune, because of the failure of their intelligence, their abilities, or their efforts.

So, instead of rebelling against the economic system, the individual auto-devaluate and guilt himself, which creates a depression, one of whose effects is to inhibit its action.

And, without action, there is no revolution!


10. Getting to know the individuals better than they know themselves

Over the past 50 years, advances of accelerated science has generated a growing gap between public knowledge and those owned and operated by dominant elites.

Thanks to biology, neurobiology and applied psychology, the “system” has enjoyed a sophisticated understanding of human beings, both physically and psychologically.

The system has gotten better acquainted with the common man more than he knows himself.

This means that, in most cases, the system exerts greater control and great power over individuals, greater than that of individuals about themselves.

http://theinternationalcoalition.blo...lation_08.html

http://www.syti.net/GB/SilentWeaponsGB.html

The game continues today and is much more sophisticated, those that manipulate are also being manipulated, and each keeps the others in check and the circle continues to rotate, or the windmills will continue, for those that are seeking the truth are up against the whole system and it is a continuous battle.

[bogeyman]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/poli...s-Johnson.html

Another technique that is used, it is never ending but it blends in so subtle that most people don't notice, they are so wrapped up in the lies, and just trying survive.

[Cara]

Here is an example of media manipulation using imagery.

This image - half a page worth - was the top half of a full-page, facing page spread article from the British newspaper, Financial Times (FT) Weekend Middle East edition this weekend - Saturday 4th November / Sunday 5th November 2016. There was no way you could miss it.

The article appeared under the section FT BIG READ: US ELECTION and has the heading "The Russia Factor".


(My apologies for the quality of the image - I took it with my iPad and the FT's distinctive pink paper colour does not show up well.)

This image is followed by a dense, half-page article explaining how it is that Russia could be manipulating the US elections.

It is a good example of the use of symbols, nuances and social memes to create a narrative. Here are key elements:

• The image of President Putin in dark glasses - using the fact that he is hiding his eyes to infer that he is hiding something. An easy way to "paint" someone's motives with a dark tinge. He also has a slight stubble - which is another visual cue for "dark purposes".
  [This is often used to paint men with darker, hairier complexions out to be evil in some way - witness the painting of Arabs as radical terrorists via visual cues.]
  
• The smaller image of the bear (a symbol of Russia) hiding behind a mask. This infers that Russia is not "man enough" / honest enough to confront directly. Another shot at painting their motives in a dark tinge
  
• The mask commonly associated with the hacker collective Anonymous sits over the bear's face. This implies that Anonymous is an instrument of the Russian state.
  
• The link showing the Wikileaks hourglass. Once again this implies the Russian state is acting through these agencies.
  
• Finally in the chain, the two "genuine" looking faces of the Clinton campaign team looking surprised and open. These are flattering photos showing aspects that paint them with honesty.
  
• The inset on the top right of the image story is of a clownish looking Trump - just compare him to archetypal clown faces - see below for more on this visual comparison, and
  
• A picture of nominee Hillary Clinton showing her looking serious and professional, clearly signifying: "I am the level headed person amongst this lot".

For reference, an archetypal clown face:

Notice the lifted up chin with shadows under it, the wide stretched mouth with protruding cheeks, the almost closed eyes that disappear in the wrinkles to the side of the eyes. These are all aspects present in the photograph of Trump, clearly inferring he is clown-like.

More subtle but still part of the imagery manipulation was advert on the facing page. It is a full colour advert for euronews with a single large font copy line:

SKILL
KILLS

The actual letters formed a frame for a bomber aircraft dropping bombs / missiles.



You can be sure the placement of this advert alongside a photograph of President Putin (made to look shady in dark glasses and stubble) is not accidental. It reinforces the idea of deadly force from a dark character.


So if you were an FT reader and did not bother to read the weekend edition with your full wits about you - which is probably the case for most FT weekend readers - and perhaps did not even read the article at all but skipped over it on your ways to stock market price information, all this would be subliminally / unconsciously absorbed by you, colouring your views going forward.

[mojo]

for those that are seeking the truth are up against the whole system and it is a continuous battle.

No doubt the current political climate revealed how corrupt things are including mainstream media. What can and should be done if considered awake and aware? I can only think of alternative/social outlets as another way. What about the mainstream media and those that are plugged in to that source, is it lost to truth? What about those plugged in? Shouldn't journalists be held more accountable now with all the evidence of corruption and who determines newsworthiness, the news outlet boss? Maybe that area of focus needs to change? It seems most of society is tapped in and reluctant to do anything. But it's clear the current system is not the best.

[Cara]

I posted this in my thread about Foundations, Trusts and NGOs - The not so hidden hands but it seems relevant here as well:

Posted by Searcher (here)
Here is an interesting schematic showing links from different players and foundations to media and "thought leaders". I think it is somewhat out of date so not all information included is current.



I found it here: http://www.911conspiracy.tv/Noam_Cho...e_Zwicker.html

[Cara]

I posted this on my thread about Heroes, Anti-Heroes, Villains and Fools.

It seems useful here too as an example of how a natural cultural mechanism - that of characterising Heroes and Villains - is high-jacked and used as a manipulation tactic by the media.

Posted by Searcher (here)
A couple of months ago I listened to a Newsbud round-table on how the media is used to cast various figures as first "angels" (aka heroes in the context of this thread) and then re-cast them as "villains" when these people stop towing the party line / scripted agenda.

What I like about about this podcast is the documentation it provides in its show-notes of the media narrative: showing clearly how the tone of the publication changes over time.


http://www.newsbud.com/2016/08/29/the-rulers-angel-evil-making-process-from-egypts-hosni-mubarak-to-turkeys-erdogan/

//
The Rulers’ Angel-Evil-Making Process: From Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak to Turkey’s Erdogan
Can people turn evil overnight? Do angels become evil overnight? Were they angels in the first place? Not in the real world, but one ruled by evil forces working through their illusion-making tentacles, aka the media. Join us in this episode presenting the rulers’ angel-evil-making process, and take a trip down memory lane from the rise and fall of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak to the current turmoil surrounding Turkey’s Recep Erdogan.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Rsb6pSUvz08

Show Notes
Time Magazine’s Top 10 Old Leaders: Hosni Mubarak
Bush Lauds Egypt Leader Mubarak
Hillary Clinton: “I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family"
American Tax-payers handsomely donning Mubarak with billions of dollars a year
Mubarak: Time Magazine Man of the Year
Hosni Mubarak: A Dictator who ruled Egypt for three decades
Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Hosni Mubarak
Hosni Mubarak’s Brutal Legacy
Egypt protests: America's secret backing for rebel leaders behind uprising
Was Washington behind Egypt’s coup d’etat?
John Bolton: U.S. ‘made big mistake’ pushing out Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak
Erdogan: Time Magazine Man of the Year
Erdogan: Turkey’s Man of the People
Erdogan: transforming Turkey in a way that no other leader has since Ataturk
Erdogan: The best model for Muslim Democracy, the Middle East and Arabs
Erdogan builds his secular, democratic & western friendly nation into a regional powerhouse
Erdogan: One of Obama’s Top 5 Buddies
Erdogan: Turkey’s Elected Dictator
Erdogan: Successful Leader or a Dictator?
Turkey’s Path to Dictatorship
Erdogan is turning his country into an Islam-tilted dictatorship
Erdogan: Despotism deepens in Turkey
Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Despotic Zeal

//

From the admittedly small number of data points above (just two!), being awarded "Man of the Year" by Time Magazine seems to be a kiss of death.

[Bill Ryan]

.
This short video is priceless.

It shows a CNN reporter interviewing an agitated and irate Hillary supporter, waxing lyrical about the dreadful election.

(It turns out he was a CNN cameraman )

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=1lo2jQhjV5w

[Sueanne47]

TPTB are desperate to get us all turn on each other, what with Brexit, the Election, Europe & the migrant rush...we are tired of it all and just want a bit of peace & love..

[Hervé]

Journalist: US-Linked Organization's Support for Syrian Civilians Sheer Lie

TEHRAN (FNA)- A Syrian journalist proved via release of several images of a Syrian child that the US-linked White Helmet Humanitarian Organization's claims of saving civilians in the war-hit country are mere lies.

Abbas Jom'eh released three images of a little girl that had been allegedly rescued by members of the White Helmet Organization in three different locations, disclosing the organization's lies about rescuing civilians in Syria.

In his tweeter page, the Syrian journalist placed three images form the girl that was rescued by the White Helmet's agents in different places.

"Actors in the White Helmet rescue one girl in three different places! Can't they play their role any better on this stage?" Abbas Jom'eh asked.

[Hervé]

RT's editor-in-chief slams new EU report as hypocritical and 'free speech doublethink'

RT Wed, 23 Nov 2016 23:09 UTC

© Russia Insider RT’s editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan.

For decades the EU has been lecturing Russia and touting freedom of speech as one of its core principles, but hypocritically dismissed it as an unnecessary luxury once their narrative was challenged, RT's editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan said.

"We of course are extremely disappointed, this is really outrageous," Simonyan said on the subject of the EU's so-called anti-Russia propaganda resolution. "We are disappointed at how easily the European establishment gives away its own principles. The principles that we've been hearing for ages. The principles about which Russia has been lectured for years, for decades. And now we see that this whole principle of freedom of speech is not really needed and looks scary to Europeans themselves."

"I do not understand whom it would affect more: Us, or the European establishment, which ... so easily for the sake of some odd, irrelevant, irrational fears, betrays its own principles," Simonyan added. She said freedom of speech apparently became an "unnecessary luxury" in the European Union once alternative voices such as RT and Sputnik gained popularity.


"Don't they realize that by taking such small steps, related to unwillingness to listen to another opinion, states turn into blind dictatorships and start wars, which no one needs," she added.

Simonyan also slammed Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontieres, or RSF), which she said was selective about journalists it chooses to protect.

"Reporters Without Borders is no longer pretending to protect journalists from all over the world and has finally proved it protects reporters only of its own little world," she said. Earlier in the day, Sputnik's head of the German service, Christoph Dreyer, addressed RSF, a non-governmental organization that is supposed to stand for press freedom, regarding the adopted EU resolution designed to "respond to information warfare by Russia."

The inquiry was dismissed as RSF said it no longer gives comments to the news outlets belonging to the Russian media group Rossiya Segodnya.

The EU resolution was adopted in Strasbourg with 304 MEPs supporting it, 179 voting against and 208 abstaining. It was drawn up by a Polish member of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, Anna Fotyga, and is based on a report dubbed 'EU strategic communication to counteract propaganda against it by third parties'.

The report says that Russian media attempts to "distort the truth, provoke doubt, divide the EU and its North American partners, paralyze the decision-making process, discredit the EU institutions and incite fear and uncertainty among EU citizens." The document singles out RT, Sputnik news agency, the Rossotrudnichestvo federal agency and the Russkiy Mir (Russian World) fund as being particularly devious tools of propaganda.

Sputnik filed an appeal over the resolution to a number of organizations such as the UN, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and several international journalists' organizations and NGOs, to deal with what it considers to be interference with freedom of speech in the EU.

The resolution is a sign of the "political degradation" of the western "idea of democracy," Russian President Vladimir Putin said, commenting on the development. "Everyone tries to lecture" Russia on democracy, and at the same time European lawmakers use restrictions, "which is not the best way" to handle issues, he added, congratulating RT and Sputnik journalists on their work.

[Hervé]

'Insane' WaPo Russian propaganda story slammed by Greenwald & others as disgusting smear

RT Fri, 25 Nov 2016 22:57 UTC

© Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

Glenn Greenwald, along with other journalists, has unleashed a torrent of criticism at The Washington Post over a piece about Russia leading a "fake news" campaign during the US election, calling it a "disgusting" smear and "supremely sh*tty" garbage.

The Washington publication, at one time hailed for its role in exposing the Watergate Scandal, has now been rounded on by a number of well-known figures from the media industry for publishing the article.

Award-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, significant in bringing Edward Snowden's US security revelations to the public, labeled the story "total journalistic garbage".

Glenn Greenwald Verified account ‏@ggreenwald

Glenn Greenwald Retweeted Max Blumenthal
More astoundingly, the Washington Post published this black list while concealing the identity of the "researchers" who compiled it:

Glenn Greenwald added,
Max Blumenthal @MaxBlumenthal
Washington Post treats sloppy blacklist that includes major progressive outlets as a serious resource on fake news: https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...8fe_story.html … https://twitter.com/maxblumenthal/st...70185451888640 …

In a series of tweets, Greenwald said the websites listed by chief source PropOrNot were smeared without any evidence by a group hiding its own identity.

Glenn Greenwald Verified account ‏@ggreenwald

Glenn Greenwald Retweeted Trevor Timm
Funniest part: the ones who spread this thought they were exposing "fake news" when they themselves were exhibiting all the hallmarks of it.

Glenn Greenwald added,
Trevor Timm @trevortimm
Embarrassing how many reporters breathlessly tweeted this without clicking through to the really shady site featured https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...8fe_story.html …

Previous Tweet Next Tweet

• 
  Glenn Greenwald ‏@ggreenwald 19h19 hours ago
  Remember how many 1000s of people - including journalists - instantly tweeted the Slate story of a Trump server to a Russian bank: total BS.
  
  0 replies 509 retweets 913 likes

Glenn Greenwald Verified account ‏@ggreenwald

If you're genuinely worried about the proliferation of fake news, it's definitely a good idea to start with your own Twitter & FB feeds.

Greenwald also indicated that the Washington Post piece is an example of how it has become "100 percent permissible - bordering on obligatory - to spout the most insane, evidence-free conspiracy theories if they involve Russia & Putin."

Key criticisms levelled against the article are that it was based on a Cold War think tank source and a report by dubious, anonymous researchers. It's also been slammed for a failing to critically evaluate a blacklist of publications that supposedly comprise a "sophisticated" Russian propaganda machine.

New York based journalist Adam Johnson scolded the Washington Post for "uncritically" publishing the story without asking "who's behind it".

In the piece, journalist Craig Timberg reported how 200 websites had been implicated by a group called PropOrNot in propagating fake news. These websites included RT.com, Truth-Out.org, WikiLeaks.com, ZeroHedge.com and the site for the Ron Paul Institute.

The article also incorrectly suggested RT had used the hashtag #CrookedHillary on Twitter.

The Washington Post has since retracted its statement regarding RT using the #CrookedHillary hashtag.

"A previously published version of this story incorrectly state that Russian information service RT had used the "#CrookedHillary" hashtag push by the then-Republican candidate Donald Trump. In fact, while another Russian informations service Sputnik did use this hastag, RT did not," the Washington Post said.

In a statement, RT responded to the article built on "false, unsubstantiated claims".

"It is the height of irony that an article about "fake news" is built on false, unsubstantiated claims. RT adamantly rejects any and all claims and insinuations that the network has originated even a single "fake story" related to the US election. It is telling that in publishing such outrageous and slanderous allegations, the article failed to provide a single example - via a hyperlink, a headline, or otherwise - to substantiate its case against RT."

It continued:

"Likewise, RT has never used #CrookedHillary hashtag in its coverage of the campaign - this is another fabrication that was neither fact-checked, nor challenged by the Washington Post. It is important to reiterate that these claims have not been presented as an opinion, but as unquestionable fact. In what is a particularly troubling development, RT was not contacted by the Washington Post prior to the publication of the article. In effect, RT was refused the right to respond to these absolutely absurd claims prior to their publication - claims that now have been reprinted by dozens of international media outlets."

[Hervé]

EU neither specified propaganda, nor gave Russian media right to defend – IFJ president to RT

Published time: 26 Nov, 2016 04:28
Edited time: 26 Nov, 2016 07:30
Get short URL

The EU’s attack on Russian media with its recent “anti-propaganda” resolution was grossly unfair and goes against the principles of free speech and ethical journalism, Philippe Leruth from the International Federation of Journalists told RT.

On Wednesday the European Parliament voted to pass a resolution to “respond to information warfare by Russia.” In a report written by Polish MEP Anna Fotyga, RT and Sputnik news agency were singled out as being among the most dangerous “tools” of “hostile propaganda.”

To get his opinion on the matter, RT reached out to Philippe Leruth, president of the International Federation of Journalists (IJF).

RT: Why was this resolution discussed in the first place, never mind passed?

PL: I really couldn’t know this, but I know this resolution is highly controversial – only 44 percent of the MEPs voted in favor. There were many abstentions, which shows there was a big discussion. But we couldn’t really understand this.

RT: What exactly is the fear? Are we right now warping the fragile minds of European readers? What do they worry about?

PL: We really don’t believe that you can counter propaganda, because they say there is propaganda, I should not say this, but if there is propaganda don’t fight it with propaganda. We believe in ethical journalism, in media literacy and in responsible journalism, and not that way.

RT: The word ‘propaganda’ gets thrown around an awful lot. Was there any evidence or a description of what propaganda is, or did they give an example of how the Russian media isn’t telling the truth?

PL: No, I couldn’t say on what it was based. At least, when you name a media by name, which is highly unusual, first of all you should give them the right to defend themselves, and second, you should show exactly what you mean by saying they are doing propaganda.

IFJ ‏@IFJGlobal

"IFJ & @EFJEUROPE don't believe that censorship, harassment and demonization are the right answers to counter #propaganda,” @IFJPresPhile

6:40 AM - 25 Nov 2016 from Brussels, Belgium

EFJ, IFJPresidentPhiLe, Anthony Bellanger and AJP

RT: What about the timing? Why do you think this initiative was discussed at this particular moment in time?

PL: Well, I find it very unfortunate because as we said, the International Federation of Journalists, which I am chairing from June this year, and its European Branch, we have been working on dialogue between Russian and so-called western journalists. There were several meetings that year and one will be held in Moscow in December with the support of the EU delegation in Russia. So it’s very difficult to understand why the European parliament took this initiative, which is jeopardizing this dialogue.

RT: The actual resolution itself was fascinating because it says the EU is still committed to democracy, media freedom and media pluralism. How can you limit freedom and give it at the same time?

PL: We have one principle which is very clear. In journalism, facts are sacred, comments are free. So as long as you are reporting ... the facts ... [accurately] you are free to have an opinion. That’s freedom of expression. So once again, if they considered the details of this resolution and considered [that] the media had not described the facts the right way, they should one, have shown on what occasion, and two, had invited them to defend themselves.

RT: Do you think there is an anti-Russian narrative existing in the West, in Europe particularly?

PL: Well, I wouldn’t dare myself to have such an opinion. Evidently, there are tensions, there are problems between Russia and the European Union. There were sanctions and there were counter-sanctions, but I am not a politician, I will not comment on this. I will state this state of tensions exists, but what bothers us is that in this very particular case media are incriminated, and we as a federation of journalists, we are defending the journalists, and we are promoting dialogue. Once again, we may work in different countries but we have one profession based on the same ethical principles.


Related:
Envoy blasts OSCE resolution targeting Russian media as discriminatory

[Hervé]

The Entire Mainstream Warmongering Media is Fake

By Jay Dyer Global Research, November 26, 2016
21st Century Wire 24 November 2016

If the Trump phenomena showed anything, it showed the consensus reality the mainstream media attempted to create concerning Hillary’s certain victory, as well as the consensus reality erected for decades, is not omnipotent.

In fact, the earliest days of mass print media were erected on a famous fraud known as the “Great Moon Hoax” of 1835 – something researcher Chris Kendall has long called attention to – wherein the “educated,” “elite” widely accepted the mainstream publications’ claim bat people inhabited the lunar surface.

In our day, a similar hoax still reigns, as mainstream media is literally as credible as Weekly World News’ Bat Boy story.

Orson Wells as Citizen Kane (1941)

Anyone who has seen Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane knows the director became a target of one of the most powerful media moguls of all time – William Randolph Hearst (who bought up all the major papers of his day). Not many years later, Skull and Bonesman “Baal,” aka, Henry Luce of Time Magazine fame and his CIA operative wife Claire Boothe would cooperate in promoting the “anti-establishment” hallucinogenic trend, along with the dozens of academic and government institutions associated with MK ULTRA.

What was supposedly anti-establishment was in fact promoted by the mass media for the explicit purposes of cultural revolution and social engineering, as Dave McGowan has detailed in his Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon.

The major television news companies, and CBS in particular, have their origins in operatives of the OSS, like William Paley and David Sarnoff, while the same goes for print media, as the CIA’s tentacles extended to major publications, including Katherine Graham’s Washington Post, the Bushes and the Moonies with the Washington Times, as well as the Mockingbird New York Times. Investigations into the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird would reveal extensive media control through some 400 top editors and journalists, and even today known establishment and CIA operatives such as Anderson Cooper (CNN-CBS) and Robert Baer (CNN) regularly “report the facts” to millions of Americans.

Journalist Robert Parry notes as a further example the mainstream, establishment press covering up numerous scandals for the Reagan Administration, including Nicaraguan drug trafficking and the infamous Iran-Contra:

At least since the 1980s, The New York Times has misreported or glossed over many international issues that put the United States and its allies in a negative light.

For instance, the Times not only missed the Nicaraguan Contra cocaine scandal, but actively covered up the Reagan administration’s role in the wrongdoing through the 1980s and much of the 1990s.

The Times lagged badly, too, on investigating the secret operations that became known as the Iran-Contra Affair. The Times’ gullibility in the face of official denials was an obstacle for those of us digging into that constitutional crisis and other abuses by the Reagan administration. [For more on this topic, see Consortiumnews.com’s “New York Times: Apologist for Power.”]

In that same era, The Washington Post performed no better. Leonard Downie, its executive editor at the time of the Contra-cocaine scandal, has continued to reject the reality of Ronald Reagan’s beloved Contras trafficking in cocaine despite the 1998 findings of CIA Inspector General Frederick Hitz that, in fact, many Contras were neck-deep in the cocaine trade and the Reagan administration covered up their criminality for geopolitical reasons.

This scandal was not limited to the GOP covering its ass, but also the other wing of the decrepit vulture of our two party system when the Clintons were implicated in the CIA’s drug importation to Mena, Arkansas, through the journalistic work of Gary Webb. The Telegraph explains:

Webb summed up the heart of his Dark Alliance series thus: “It is one of the most bizarre alliances in modern history. The union of a U.S. backed army attempting to overthrow a revolutionary socialist government and the uzi-toting “gangstas” of Compton and South-Central Los Angeles.

Perhaps most damningly, Webb wrote that crack was virtually unobtainable in the city’s black neighbourhoods before “members of the CIA’s army” began supplying it at rock-bottom prices in the Eighties. “For the better part of a decade,” he wrote in the intro to the first piece in the trilogy, “a San Francisco Bay Area drug ring sold tonnes of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles, and funnelled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerrilla army run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

Given the mainstream media is almost wholly owned by 6 conglomerates, we can begin to see how the coordination and control once considered a “conspiracy theory” is now made evident. In 1983, there were 50 and now it is roughly six, with NewsCorp owning the largest papers on three continents. That these facts sound like a “conspiracy theory” can only be presumed from a position of ignorance, especially given the full coordination and deception regarding the Trump – Clinton election of 2016, from rigged polls to Wikileaks revelations of 6o plus top media operatives directly promoting Hillary.

When the mainstream media and the lying CIA claimed Saddam had “weapons of mass destruction,” it was promulgating fake news. The false claim subsequently led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis for a ridiculous war that aided U.S. and Israeli foreign policy. While the WMD claim is now known to be untrue, the chemical weapons Saddam previously possessed were admittedly given to him by the CIA. When Saddam gassed Iranians in the conflict that saw U.S. arming of both sides of that war, it was done by a man installed and trained by the CIA (Saddam himself). Foreign Policy explains:

According to recently declassified CIA documents and interviews with former intelligence officials like Francona, the U.S. had firm evidence of Iraqi chemical attacks beginning in 1983. At the time, Iran was publicly alleging that illegal chemical attacks were carried out on its forces, and was building a case to present to the United Nations. But it lacked the evidence implicating Iraq, much of which was contained in top secret reports and memoranda sent to the most senior intelligence officials in the U.S. government. The CIA declined to comment for this story.

It has been previously reported that the United States provided tactical intelligence to Iraq at the same time that officials suspected Hussein would use chemical weapons. But the CIA documents, which sat almost entirely unnoticed in a trove of declassified material at the National Archives in College Park, Md., combined with exclusive interviews with former intelligence officials, reveal new details about the depth of the United States’ knowledge of how and when Iraq employed the deadly agents. They show that senior U.S. officials were being regularly informed about the scale of the nerve gas attacks. They are tantamount to an official American admission of complicity in some of the most gruesome chemical weapons attacks ever launched.

And as for Saddam as a tool of the CIA, even the UPI reported, based on Miles Copeland, the following:

In the mid-1980s, Miles Copeland, a veteran CIA operative, told UPI the CIA had enjoyed “close ties” with Qasim’s ruling Baath Party, just as it had close connections with the intelligence service of Egyptian leader Gamel Abd Nassar. In a recent public statement, Roger Morris, a former National Security Council staffer in the 1970s, confirmed this claim, saying that the CIA had chosen the authoritarian and anti-communist Baath Party “as its instrument.

Iraq wasn’t the only war-based lie (all wars are a racket, as General Smedley Butler said) of note – the entire tale of 9/11 was never questioned by the mainstream media, but in fact propped by coordinated disinformation. Within minutes, the top media outlets were assuring the public “Osama bin Laden” was the culprit, and what do you know, like Saddam, he happened to be another CIA cut-out asset. Not only was this flimsy official conspiracy theory ludicrous, it was compounded with an equally laughable “raid, capture and execution,” that was not televised, photographed or known, apart from the mainstream media simply claiming it was so. The CIA director even admitted as much, adding the infamous “situation room” photo was staged.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ltP2t9nq9fI

Following 9/11, a paper thin cover for expansion into Afghanistan was proffered upon the American population, when Afghanistan had no connection to 9/11 or Iraq. Incoherent and contradictory accounts of who was the villain, where Osama’s cartoonish base was and how this somehow related to Iraq was touted by W, while the media worked fully in tandem with this ridiculous foreign policy. Even more absurd, and confirming the tip of the iceberg Webb had uncovered, U.S. occupation of Afghanistan saw the exponential increase in opium production, with Fox even showing America’s finest guarding the opium fields! None of this could have been achieved without a massive coordinating deception campaign by the mainstream media. The lies have not been as successful in Syria, but we can expect them to keep the staged nonsense rolling.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=HNqIrDKnNE8

Jay Dyer is the author of the new book, Esoteric Hollywood: Sex, Cults and Symbols in Film from Trine Day Publishers. Focusing on film, philosophy, geopolitics and all things esoteric, JaysAnalysis and his podcast, “Esoteric Hollywood,” investigates the deeper meanings between the headlines, exploring the hidden aspects of our sinister synthetic mass media matrix.

The original source of this article is 21st Century Wire
Copyright © Jay Dyer, 21st Century Wire, 2016

[Hervé]

The list of alleged news-faking sites according to the MSM major news fakers... you know... that thing about the compulsive liar...

[Mike Gorman]

Yes, precisely and absolutely - this is some of the best commentary I have read recently on this topic. RT maybe the Russian version of 'Fox' but they do a very good job and why the hell shouldn't Russia have its own media, there is a distinct attempt to claw back to cold War rhetoric and identify Russia as being the enemy once again-it is like they can't seem to shift into any other paradigm of thinking, and real moves towards increased exchanges of ideas and cultural reality are automatically rejected!

[Hervé]

Fake News: Pro-militant media claims civilian casualties from "Russia-Assad airstrikes", shows mannequins in "video proof"


South Front Sun, 27 Nov 2016 00:00 UTC

© Unknown

Pro-militant media outlets and 'non-government' organizations continue to implement a wide range of propaganda techniques to blame Syrian-Russian forces for civilian casualties across Syria. While it's hard to expect any war without civilian casualties, the approach implemented by the mainstream media and its allies from the "Syrian moderate opposition" is shameless.

Now, pro-militant media accounts are spreading a fresh video (made by a media outlet known as "EMC") that shows alleged results of Russian-Syrian airstrikes.

The video fails to show some real civilian casualties but includes some members of the so-called "White Helmets" (a Western-backed NGO operation across militant controlled areas in Syria) and a full truck of dressed mannequins.

The low quality propaganda move has led to an outrage in the social media.

[norman]

Merkel Promises To Rid Internet Of Alternative Media





German Chancellor Angela Merkel has declared war on alternative media outlets that she says are responsible for subverting the government’s control over the public.



Merkel joined the chorus of other world leaders and huge multi-national media outlets who wish to rid the internet of alternative media websites, under the guise of “fighting fake news“.


Speaking in parliament, Merkel claimed that public opinion was being swayed away from establishment politics, claiming that independent news outlets posed a danger to national security.


“Something has changed — as globalisation has marched on, (political) debate is taking place in a completely new media environment. Opinions aren’t formed the way they were 25 years ago,” she said.


“Today we have fake sites, bots, trolls — things that regenerate themselves, reinforcing opinions with certain algorithms and we have to learn to deal with them.”


Merkel, 62, said the challenge for democrats was to “reach and inspire people — we must confront this phenomenon and if necessary, regulate it.”



She said she supported initiatives by her right-left coalition government to crack down on “hate speech” on social media in the face of what she said were “concerns about the stability of our familiar order”.


“Populism and political extremes are growing in Western democracies,” she warned.


Last week, Google and Facebook moved to cut off ad revenue to bogus news sites after a US election campaign in which the global misinformation industry may have influenced the outcome of the vote.


But media watchers say more is needed to stamp out a powerful phenomenon seen by some experts as a threat to democracy itself.


Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats are the odds-on favourites to win the German national election, expected in September or October 2017.
But she is facing a strong challenge from a resurgent rightwing populist party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has her liberal refugee and migration policy in its crosshairs.


It is currently polling at around 12-13 percent which could complicate the complex maths of coalition building after the poll.


All of Germany’s mainstream parties have for now ruled out forming an alliance with the AfD.

http://yournewswire.com/merkel-inter...rnative-media/

[Rocky_Shorz]

We allow nations to buy our leaders through Corporate donations in elections.

You know if they were creating lies is one thing, but affecting elections by telling the truth is something new...


They are just pissed they were caught cheating and exposed.

Stop worrying how the cheating was exposed and start finding politicians that have nothing to hide...

[Hervé]

The father of American propaganda: Edward Bernays

Gary G. Kohls, MD Natural Blaze Thu, 01 Dec 2016 14:55 UTC

© Melissa Dykes at Truthstream Media

"Tell a Lot of the Truth, but Never Tell the Whole Truth."

Propaganda: "a message designed to persuade its intended audience to think and behave in a certain manner. Thus advertising is commercial propaganda. Or institutionalized and systematic spreading of information and/or disinformation, usually to promote a narrow political or religious (or commercial) viewpoint." - from Business Dictionary

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic (AKA "capitalist") society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, and our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.... It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind." - Edward L. Bernays, Sigmund Freud's nephew, from his seminal book Propaganda (1928). Bernays was the founder of the public relations industry in the US.

Bernays had written earlier about the use of public relations techniques as a way for corporations to "so mold the mind of the masses that they will throw their newly gained strength in the desired direction." - Bernays, in his first influential book on propaganda: Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923)

Admen like Bernays are "professional poisoners of the public mind, exploiters of foolishness, fanaticism, and self-interest." — Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter when he warned President Franklin Roosevelt against allowing Bernays to play a leadership role in World War II

"Always tell the truth. Tell a lot of the truth. Tell a lot more of the truth than anybody expects you to tell. But never tell the whole truth." — quote from one of the participants of the 1924 annual convention of the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World (from Stuart Ewen's 1976 book, Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture)

The Associated Advertising Clubs of the World had officially adopted the slogan: "Truth in Advertising", which turned out to be, as with all advertising, all political campaigns and various public relations trickeries, just another bit of deception. The advertising industry had no intention of enforcing the empty promise. The promise of "truth" looked good to some naive consumers and probably influenced any number of folks, especially the gullible ones who had under-developed critical thinking skills.

We consumers of heavily advertised products (that we may subconsciously desire but can usually get along without), are accosted hourly by clever commercials that are broadcast on our "free" television and radio programs. We can't get away from it even when we surf the internet, when we idly page through our magazines or when we fritter away our time on our cellphones. Each encounter has an effect on our psyches - unless we are alert to the fact that some corporation or other is trying to sell us something.

Democracy Depends on Voters Who Have Critical Thinking Skills While...Capitalism Depends on Consumers NOT Being Able to Think Critically...

Thinking critically means making reasoned judgments that are logical and well thought out. It is a way of thinking in which one doesn't simply accept all arguments and conclusions to which one is exposed without questioning the arguments and conclusions. It requires curiosity, skepticism and humility. People who use critical thinking are the ones who say things such as, "How do you know that?" "Is this conclusion based on evidence or gut feelings?" and "Are there alternative possibilities when given new pieces of information?"

And whenever there is a political campaign happening (which in the US is essentially 24/7), prospective voters are accosted by partially true, squishy promises and sometimes vile verbal assaults from candidates who may be sociopaths, protofascists, serial liars or somehow never able to tell the whole truth about themselves, their real agendas or who their corporate paymasters are (whose hidden demands will necessarily be promoted if the bribed candidate is elected).

Personally, I don't recall ever being taught critical thinking or sales-resistance skills in my schooling, but I did acquire some by simply observing my very frugal and non-abusive parents, who provided my sister and I with our essential needs, tended a large backyard garden, bought no subscriptions to magazines, had no television and who listened to radio news programming that wasn't sponsored by profit-driven corporations.

I also grew up in a small rural Minnesota town that had very few shopping opportunities. Back then, thankfully, there was no such thing as a mall or a supermarket and there was nothing we ate that wasn't already organic. The only shopping we were ever tempted to do was from the Sears catalog. Nobody shopped until they dropped and nobody frittered away valuable time diddling on cell phones.

Baby boomer children in my era were rarely inoculated with vaccines, and although the ones we were given did indeed contain the neurotoxic metals mercury and/or aluminum , we never had multiple inoculations at one sitting. Instead, our mothers rushed to get us exposed to the many benign childhood infections such as chicken pox, measles and mumps whenever one of them appeared in town, and we then had lifelong immunity - no booster shots needed.

Psychiatric drugs had yet to appear on the market when my immature blood-brain barrier was maturing - and there was no such thing as ADHD, autism, Asperger's, bipolar disorder, premature dementia or even PTSD. And, although lobotomies, insulin shock and electroshock "therapies" were booming in America in the 1940s (wherever there were shock docs and insane asylums) we were protected by our geography. No such institutions were anywhere near my town.

I grew up in the years between World War II and the American War in Vietnam, but I lived in an all-white Scandinavian town in safe, rural Minnesota that seemed to have no interest in the overseas fights against Germany, Italy, Japan, North Korea, China and North Vietnam. I was fortunate that my father had been too young to "serve" in World War I and was too old for #2, so Neither I, my mother or my sister were ever beaten by an alcoholic, combat-induced PTSD-victimized father. There was no authoritarian or punitive parenting in my family, no confusing war-related nightmares coming from my parent's bedroom in the middle of the night and I had no parental chronic alcoholism to navigate.

However, it was only much later in my adult life that I realized that I had been the victim of a subtle propagandizing in my childhood. Simply by reading the bland history books that had been approved by some school book committee down in uber-patriotic, pro-war Texas that I began to realize that I had been deceived by half-truths. I finally understood that my beloved nation was no triumphant, exceptional "shining city on a hill" like I had been led to believe. The religion I was accidentally born into, which endorsed every genocidal war its leaders started, was not superior to all the others. I realized that my teachers, my journalists and even my pastors had never gotten around to teaching me about the whole truth about America's unethical, murderous, racist and genocidal military campaigns that started with Columbus and the conquistadors and continued with the mass killings of Native Americans and the theft of their homeland.

And I was never taught the whole truth about the satanic nature of American slavery, the lynchings of innocent blacks or the cruelty of white supremacy and segregation after Lincoln had supposedly "emancipated" the African-Americans.

Thanks to the political propaganda that drowned out every truth-teller, I never learned the whole truth of American imperialism, American racism, American militarism or American fascism. It took me decades before I finally realized that capitalism wasn't the same as democracy!

After all those decades of brain-washing, I am still working through the realization that I had been told thousands of patriotic lies about such things as the First Thanksgiving, the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the War Between the States and the Reconstruction Years that followed that war. It took me a long time to learn about the atrocities American soldiers committed in the Spanish-American War and in every war since World War II. And it took me a lot of study to realize that America and its CIA have been actively supportive of hideous right-wing military dictators throughout our recent history and, at the behest of sociopathic multinational corporations searching for cheap labor and unregulated markets for their goods, actually orchestrated the overthrow of a multitude of democratically elected national leaders.

I never asked my (equally deceived and propagandized) history teachers when I silently wondered about the ethics of the Divine Right of Kings, the Monroe Doctrine, Manifest Destiny, Eminent Domain or the many US Supreme Court decisions like Dred Scott and Plessy vs Ferguson that supported white supremacy, slavery, the status quo and blatant racism.

I'm sure that many folks of my generation (Baby Boomers) were victims of being told partial truths by teachers that we trusted. And we seemed to automatically trust the propaganda coming from politicians and opinion-leaders.

In short, even though I regarded myself as being a critical thinker when it came to consumer purchases and politics, I have to admit that I have been bamboozled more times than I care to admit.

And so have the citizens of other nations been bamboozled, including the "Good Germans" in the Third Reich, whose fascist leaders made evil use of America's own Edward Bernays and his insights into what he called "The Engineering of Consent" (the title of an essay that he wrote in 1947).

In that essay, Bernays defined "engineering consent" as the art of manipulating people. He maintained that "entire populations, which were undisciplined or lacking in intellectual or definite moral principles, were vulnerable to unconscious influence and thus susceptible to wanting things that they do not need. This is achieved by manipulating desires on an unconscious level. The central idea behind the engineering of consent is that the public or people should not be aware of the manipulation taking place." (From the March 1947 issue of the Annals of the American Academy of poliltical and Social Science.)

Bernays was handsomely paid by major corporations and assorted front group institutions to cunningly convince consumers to buy their products. The groups included the Committee on Public Information in Woodrow Wilson's administration to make the US entry into World War I palatable and getting Republican Calvin Coolidge elected to the presidency.

In addition, Bernays was employed by General Electric, Procter & Gamble, ALCOA, the American Tobacco Company, CBS, and others.

Cunning De-stigmatization Campaigns Were Invented by Bernays

Bernays was hired by the American Tobacco Company in their efforts to expand market share for tobacco, by designing what is now called a "de-stigmatization campaign" to make cigarette smoking by women OK. The now infamous publicity stunt involved hiring a group of attractive flapper girls - each smoking a cigarette - to march down Broadway Avenue in New York's 1929 Easter parade. He labelled the stunt the "Torches of Freedom" march. Bernays' de-stigmatization propaganda campaign worked like a charm and within 2 or 3 generations, lung cancer has become a leading cause of death in American women. It worked like a charm.

But what also has worked like a charm have been the multimillion dollar de-stigmatization campaigns from the Big Pharma front groups CHADD and NAMI that was begun and then heavily funded - to the tune of tens of millions of dollars per year - by all the big multinational psychopharmaceutical corporations like NAMI's"Founding Sponsors" (Abbott Labs, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Janssen, Pfizer, Novartis, SmithKline Beecham and Wyeth-Ayerst Labs), whose successor corporations continue to annually fund the propaganda campaign.

(Incidentally, in case you haven't noticed, there has recently emerged a "Make It OK" de-stigmatization propaganda campaign from a Minneapolis-based Health Partners-led consortium [that includes the Mayo Clinic, Park Nicollet, PrairieCare, Regions Hospital and Twin Cities Public Television{!}] that, under the cover of being a compassionate educational patient advocacy group, may have actually been designed to increase referrals for psychiatric care for those unfortunate people who may only have a temporary, emotionally-disabling problem that might be curable with non-psychiatrist, non-drug talk therapy, but who may have been mis-diagnosed with a permanent mental illness "of unknown cause" that "requires" life-long clinic visits and life-long "treatment" with unaffordable, disabling, brain-altering, often addictive and often dementia-inducing psych drugs [www.makeitOK.org])

Bernays made use of his uncle's psychological insights to control the public mind and manipulate it to create public acceptance for a product or idea. He wrote, "if you can influence group leaders (ie "thought leaders"), either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway."

One of Bernays most influential "accomplishments" occurred in the mid- to late 1940s, when he was hired by ALCOA (the Aluminum Company of America) to orchestrate a public relations campaign to convince the public that it would be good to add ALCOA's highly toxic by-product (fluoride salts) to the nation's drinking water supplies under the guise of preventing tooth decay. It was one of Bernays' most successful campaigns, with some state legislatures passing laws that compelled reluctant municipalities to fluoridate their water with the toxic waste product that had been responsible for poisoned - for decades - the air, soil, water, food, livestock and many other living things surrounding ALCOA's manufacturing plants. The aluminum industry, with the help of the American Dental Association (who is still in denial about the serious neurotoxicity of their mercury fillings), got rid of their poisonous by-products and made a profit at the same time!

Interestingly, a highly paid ($750,000 per year) ALCOA attorney named Oscar Ewing had been appointed by Harry Truman to be head of the US Public Health Service in 1947. Ewing had been in leadership positions in the Democratic National Committee since 1940 and he had twice been a Special Assistant to the U.S. Attorney General.

Obedient to the hidden agenda of the powerful aluminum industry, he and Bernays orchestrated a national fluoridation campaign that, over several years, fluoridated some 90 American cities. Opponents to the fluoride program that correctly suspected that there was a (now proven) conspiracy between industry and government were propagandized as "deranged". Today they would be denigrated as "conspiracy theorists".

During the "Roaring 20s", when the rigged stock market seemed to only go up, much of the impetus was provided by the public relations propaganda of Bernays and his colleagues that made the easily duped public somehow trust the sociopathic corporations and the equally sociopathic politicians that dominated the 1920s.

The lessons learned from the mistakes of the administrations of Republicans Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover came hard - and too late. Those lessons came in the form of the Great Depression, when unemployment for the middle and lower classes reached catastrophic levels but were not all that bad for the elites in the upper 1%, whose large fortunes may have temporarily dwindled to small fortunes, money with which they bought up securities at bargain basement rates as well as foreclosed land, homes and businesses.

Adolf Hitler and Josef Goebbels were big fans of Bernays

The sociopathic German fascists Adolf Hitler and Josef Goebbels, both of whom skilled serial liars and also anti-Semitic, were big fans of Bernays, who was a Jew.

I end this column with a number of quotes about propaganda from some famous fascists who made "good" use of the insights of his writings. My hope is that readers will apply what can be learned from this piece to the propaganda that is happening both politically and commercially in our nation.

"But it was not until the [First World] War that it became evident what immense results could be obtained by a correct application of propaganda." - Adolf Hitler, in Mein Kampf (1925), having read Bernays' book Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923)

"Through clever and constant application of propaganda people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise." — Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

"The fascist state must not forget that all means must serve the ends; it must not let itself be confused by the drivel about so-called "freedom of the press"...it must make sure that (the media) is placed in the service of the state." - Adolf Hitler

"All this was inspired by the principle - which is quite true in itself - that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying." — Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State." — Josef Goebbels, German Nazi "Minister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment"

About the author

Dr. Kohls is a retired physician who practiced holistic, non-drug, mental health care for the last decade of his forty year family practice career. He is a contributor to the efforts of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights and was a member of MindFreedom International, the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology, and the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. While running his own clinic, he taught a graduate level course, The Science and Psychology of the Mind-Body Connection, at the University of Minnesota Duluth. He now gives occasional presentations to the public and to healthcare professionals for CEU credits and writes a weekly column for the Duluth Reader, an alternative newsweekly published in Duluth, Minnesota. Many of Dr Kohls' columns are archived HERE

[Hervé]

Fake News: Newsweek Admits They Didn’t Proof Read ‘MADAM PRESIDENT’ Issue; They Didn’t Even Write It

Editor's choice 04.12.2016
Originally appeared at InfoWars

A Newsweek editor admitted Wednesday that the infamous Hillary Clinton ‘Madam President’ issue was not proof read before being shipped out, and no one on the staff at the magazine had any hand in writing it.

Appearing on Tucker Carlson Tonight, Newsweek political editor Matt Cooper attempted to defend the fact that Newsweek printed and shipped out commemorative issues declaring Hillary Clinton the next US President, days before the election even took place.

The outlet even had Hillary sign some of the 125,000 copies of the magazine, which in its introduction labeled Trump supporters as “deplorable” and described his campaign as “fear and hate-based conservatism”.

Cooper admitted to Carlson that he personally did not read the content of the issue before it was sent out, and neither did anyone on his staff. What’s more, none of them even know who wrote the thing.

“The writing in this is, shall we say, not up to the editorial standards of Newsweek,” Cooper said, adding “no one on our staff wrote it. We subcontract out to a company.”

“But when you read it before it went out, what did you say?” Carlson asked.

“Well, no, we didn’t [read it],” Cooper replied. “We subcontract these commemorative issues to a company … so it’s sort of been done on a separate track, and we did not review it before it went out.”

Things then got downright weird as Carlson asked what would’ve happened if the subcontractor printed something insane like the writings of Hitler, and then sent it out under the Newsweek banner, without the staff proof reading it.

“Well, if they had reprinted Mein Kampf, that would be even worse,” Cooper said, claiming that in future the magazine will work harder to review the content being printed in such issues.

So there you have it, an arm of the corporate media literally printing politically biased fake news, admitting it is fake, and admitting it doesn’t bother to review it or even write it in the first place.

Is it any wonder that less than 5 percent of Americans trust the mainstream media?

====================================================

... wondering if that subcontracted company which published that issue is a well known 3-letter "agency"?