Why We Hate The 'News Media' — a thorough accounting of the propaganda machine

May 5, 1970 - Berkeley, California, USA: Protester wearing gas mask throws tear gas back at the police
during protest at the University of California at Berkeley against the Cambodian Incursion of the War in Vietnam.
Photo by Stephen Shames

What exactly is the ‘news media’?

asks Damien Bennett, as he gives what DB Hill calls "a thorough accounting of the propaganda machine" by Democratic Party operatives with bylines.

We are meant to believe it is an impartial, nonpartisan, agendaless recorder of facts of the day. [Coffee snort shoots out the nose.] No retelling of something seen -- filtered through everyone from an originating witness to stringer to downline transcription to ante-hoc 'fact checker' to copy desk to proofreader to bureau chief to the publisher's shadow -- no retelling is without a POV, a slant, by the time it is mantled with a headline. It has always been so. But today's ‘news media’ has no authentic POV. Everyone is -- quite literally -- on the same scripted page. There is no originating 'reporter', instead there are hidden fabricators, who create and shape 'news' fictions for -- Influencers. Flavorists. Propagandists.

• NPR Says It Won’t ‘Waste Our Time’ Covering Hunter Biden Laptop Story October 22, 2020
  Terence Samuel, NPR’s managing editor: “We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions. And quite frankly, that’s where we ended up, this was … a politically driven event and we decided to treat it that way.”
• Glenn Greenwald: With News Of Hunter Biden Criminal Probe, Don't Forget The Media Outlets That Peddled The 'Russian Disinformation' Lie December 10, 2020
• WaPo, NYT Refuse To Return Pulitzers For Spreading Lies About Russia Collusion Hoax May 27, 2023

The ‘news media’ is today in the business of peddling, peddling junk 'news'. It is the Temu of propaganda. It does not report on new developments, it shifts and shores up narratives. The 'news media' and its creatures have taken their thirty pieces of silver, but unlike Judas Iscariot, who hung himself in shame for what he wrought, the 'news media', au contraire, is looking forward to prizes, bonuses, creative management contracts, speaking tours, and book deals -- everywhere the rattle of the shill's buy-me-pay-me begging bowl.

BEGIN HERE. Your lying eyes:

• Joe Scarborough (MSNBC): ‘F-You’ If You Don’t Believe THIS IS THE BEST BIDEN EVER March 6, 2024
  “Start your tape right now, because I'm about to tell you the truth. And f-you if you can't handle the truth. This version of Biden intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever. Not a close second. And I've known him for years. The Brzezinskis have known him for 50 years. If it weren't the truth, I wouldn't say it.”
• WaPo: ‘Cheapfake’ Biden Videos Enrapture Right-wing Media, But Deeply Mislead June 15, 2024
  The Republican National Committee posts a clipped video. Then the New York Post, the Telegraph and other pro-Trump outlets follow suit with the same deceptive framing.
• The Guardian: Videos Of Biden Looking Lost Are A Viral Political Tactic: ‘Low-level Manipulation’ June 19, 2024
• France24 (AFP): ‘Cheapfakes’: Out-of-context Videos Target Biden's Age June 19, 2024
• NYT: How Misleading Videos Are Trailing Biden As He Battles Age Doubts June 21, 2024
• NYT Backtracks, Admits ‘Hard To Imagine’ Biden Could Have Run U.S. For Another Term December 19, 2024
• Telegraph: The Truth About The Joe Biden Cover-up Is Finally Starting To Emerge April 19, 2025

Continue. ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE... (a merest sampling)

• Media Reportedly Pushed 25Th Amendment To Be Invoked 600+ Times Against Trump. What About Biden? [Spoiler: 1] July 9, 2024
• Despite Shooting, ABC, CBS And NBC Blast Trump With 95% Bad Press September 18, 2024
• ‘The Entire Room Is White’: NY Magazine Cries Racism After Cropping Black People Out Of Trump Party January 28, 2025
  The article, titled “The Cruel Kids’ Table,” falsely peddled the claim that “the entire room [was] white” at a pro-Trump event hosted by GOP Youth Advisory Council Co-Chair CJ Pearson—a black conservative.
• The Two Jakes: Split Video Proves Tapper’s Hypocrisy In Discussing Presidential Mental Fitness February 27, 2025
  ...Tapper was indignant at that thought of someone without a medical degree daring to claim that Biden was in cognitive decline.
• Receipts Don’t Lie: Drew Holden Slams Jake Tapper’s Cash-Grab Book On Biden’s Mental Decline February 27, 2025
• Ian Miles Cheong On X April 17, 2025: NPR’s CEO Katherine Maher on the truth: “Our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that’s getting in the way of finding common ground and getting things done.”
  [The entire talk here; money quotes start at 03'17".]
• Study: Media Gaslights Americans With Misleading Term [“Maryland Man”] For Illegal Immigrant Gangbanger Over 500 Times  April 21, 2025
• Staying on Script: The Legacy Media Coordinates Messaging With The DNC And Here’s How We Know (WATCH) April 28, 2025
• Collin Rugg On X April 28, 2025: Former CNN reporter Chris Cillizza says journalists were *not* covering up Biden's mental decline but were rather just too trusting of the Biden White House. Cillizza: "I think it was an inherent and sort of unconscious bias more than a conscious bias."
  [Also from Chris Cillizza.]
• Republicans Keep Trying To Make Biden’s Mental Capacity An Issue August 19, 2021 Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large
• Glenn H. Reynolds: At White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Fake Remorse Over Biden ‘Mistakes’ April 28, 2025
• Emma-Jo Morris: The White House Correspondents Dinner Taught Me That Media Bias Isn’t About Politics, Just Insanity  April 30, 2025
• Chuck Todd Claims Establishment Media ‘Didn’t Miss The Story’ On Biden’s Mental Decline April 29, 2025
  Todd: “And it’s this horrible sort of pitting different news organizations against each other when ultimately the people at fault are Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Jill Biden, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, every elected member of Congress.”
• AYFKM? WHCA's 2024 Photo Of The Year Says Everything About Why The Legacy Media Is Dead April 29, 2025

2024 WHCA Picture Of The Year. No. Really. NOT This.

• ‘60 Minutes’ Report That Prompted Trump Lawsuit Is Nominated For An Emmy Award May 1, 2025
  Last fall’s “60 Minutes” story on Kamala Harris — the subject of Trump’s $20 billion lawsuit against CBS — was nominated for an Emmy Award Thursday for “outstanding edited interview.” Trump, in his lawsuit, complained that the interview was deceptively edited to make his Democratic election opponent look good.
• ‘Aging Happens Quite Quickly’: Jen Psaki Claims She ‘Never Saw’ Biden Decline May 3, 2025
• NYT: ‘Chilling Parallels’ Between Third Reich And Trump’s Second Term May 3, 2025
• Trafalgar Group Pollster Robert Cahaly: Media Pushing Fake Polls To Pressure Congress May 4, 2025
  [Apparently over half the country is lying to itself.]
• Media Fail — Trump Job Approval Rises 4 Points To 53% April 6, 2025
• CNN’s Enten: Regretful Trump Voters Do ‘Not Exist’ April 16, 2025
• CNN Data Analyst Harry Enten's Brutal Numbers On Trump Approval Will Devastate Dems May 2, 2025
  Enten examined who people thought would be doing a better job as president: Trump or Kamala Harris? "Trump continues to score a higher percentage of the vote than Kamala Harris!" Enten explained. He said they've continued to see it in "poll after poll."

The hem of the reckoning.

• ABC News, Stephanopoulos Settle Defamation Lawsuit With Trump, Pay $15 Million, Apologize December 14, 2024
• Trump Cancels State Department Subscriptions To NYT, AP, Reuters [et al.] February 19, 2025
  On Feb. 14, a follow-up memo directed procurement teams to prioritize the cancellation of contracts with six major news organizations: the Economist, the Times, Politico, Bloomberg News, AP and Reuters. ... Earlier this month, the Trump administration ordered the General Services Administration (GSA) to terminate all media contracts, including subscriptions to Politico, BBC, E&E and Bloomberg.
• Jeff Bezos Announces Significant Shift In Washington Post Opinion Page Direction February 26, 2025
• Jeff Bezos On X February 26, 2025: I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages. We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others. 
• CNNLOL Wiped Out (Again) In Quarterly Ratings April 5, 2025
       TOTAL PRIMETIME VIEWERS / DEMO VIEWERS
       Fox News: 3.012 million (+46 percent) / 380,000 (+63 percent)
       CNNLOL: 558,000 (-6 percent) / 121,000 (-1 percent)
       MSNBC: 1.024 million (-18 percent) / 96,000 (-21 percent)
• Trump And CBS News Agree On Mediator To Settle $20B ‘60 Minutes’ Lawsuit April 8, 2025
• Disgraced Crybaby ’60 Minutes’ Executive Producer Resigns In A Snit April 23, 2025
  [Click link for roster of media shills fired, resigned, snit quit, squeezed, canceled, or demoted. Add Jennifer Rubin and Taylor Lorenz, both out at WaPo.]
• Paramount Chair Shari Redstone Throws Down After ‘60 Minutes’ Producer Resigns: Media Must ‘Give The Facts, Not Opinions’ April 23, 2025
• Public Broadcasting Exec Resists Trump Order To Defund NPR: 'WHOLLY INDEPENDENT' Of The Federal Government' May 2, 2025
  ['Wholly Independent' but needy.]
  In the 2025 fiscal year alone, NPR and PBS received around $535 million from the federal government.
• NYT Mocks Rural California Town For Not Using Mainstream Media May 4, 2025
  [Why might that be?]
• Trust In The Media Hits All-time Low In 50 Years March 1, 2025
• 71% Believe Media RIG POLLS To Fit Political Agenda April 29, 2025

An augury.

SOVEREIGNTY Wins The 2025 Kentucky Derby, Beating Favorite JOURNALISM May 3, 2025

And it turns out it wasn't just the WHCA Picture Of The Year. It is also the Pulitzer Prize in "breaking news photography."

Isn’t it funny that they gave the award for the one on the left? https://t.co/iwL5KTzoet

— The Gas Stove 🔥 (@TheGasStovee) May 5, 2025