4 June 2021 — MintPress News
The fact that the very department that trains high state officials and agents of secretive three letter agencies is also the place that produces many of the journalists we rely on to stand up to those officials and keep them in check is seriously problematic.
by Alan Macleod
22 March 2021 — FAIR
The Guardian (3/17/21) pretends not to understand the difference between overthrowing a government and arresting someone for overthrowing a government.
One can imagine an editor of the London-based Guardian (3/17/21) shaking her head sadly as she typed the headline: “Cycle of Retribution Takes Bolivia’s Ex-President From Palace to Prison Cell.” The subhead told readers, “Jeanine Áñez’s government once sought to jail the country’s former leader Evo Morales for terrorism and sedition—now she faces the same charges.”
20 January 2021 — FAIR
CNN (11/30/20) examined “China’s mishandling of the early stages of Covid-19,” despite the fact that China brought its pandemic under control within two months, whereas CNN is based in a country that at the time was seeing its own outbreak surge to unprecedented heights.
Several reports on China’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic came out late last year, based on what US outlets like CNN, the New York Times and ProPublicaclaimed to be leaked Chinese documents. Although these reports implied that China was responsible for how bad the pandemic has been because of its downplaying of numbers and censoring of critical information, these narratives are themselves misleading in several ways.
17 July 2019 — WSWS
CNN published a scurrilous attack against Julian Assange on Monday. Its sole purpose was to revive the discredited claim that the WikiLeaks founder functioned as an “agent” of the Russian government, in order to undermine growing opposition to the US attempts to prosecute Assange for exposing American war crimes and diplomatic conspiracies.
2 May 2019 — Greanville Post – The Grayzone
The Grayzone’s Anya Parampil joined Tucker Carlson on Fox News to discuss the corporate media’s abysmal coverage of the US-led coup attempt against Venezuela’s democratically elected government.
2 April 2019 — Caitlin Johnson
CNN has aired a segment in which pundit Fareed Zakaria tells the network’s audience that the US president has “been unwilling to confront Putin in any way on any issue” and asks “will Venezuela be the moment when Trump finally ends his appeasement?”
2 March 2019 — Mint Press
“CNN manufactured a story: They investigated us, then got Facebook to censor us due to our funding source and then boom, they had a story about a Russian-funded outlet getting banned by Facebook.” — In The Now host Rania Khalek
21 February 2019 — The Electronic Intifada
Facebook gives nod of approval to secretive and deceptive pages set up by a lobby group that collaborates with the Israeli government.
Facebook has banned several pages belonging to such viral media outlets as In the Now because they are affiliates of the Russian-funded network RT – even though these media outlets violated none of the social network’s rules.
Yet The Electronic Intifada can exclusively reveal that Facebook has given a nod of approval to a network of secretive and deceptive pages set up by The Israel Project, a lobby group that collaborates with the Israeli government and with Israel’s military establishment to influence public opinion against Palestinians.
7 December 2018 — Jonathan Cook
CNN’s firing of Marc Lamont Hill and outrage at Airbnb and the Quakers reveals a complete intolerance of criticism
Middle East Eye – 7 December 2018
For 30 years, the United Nations has held an annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on 29 November. The event rarely merited even a passing nod in the mainstream media. Until last week.
11 May 2018 — FAIR
Adam Johnson (FAIR.org, 10/21/17) called the “Woman in Chador Walks by Anti-US Mural” image “one of the most overused and toxic stock photos.” Documenting its ubiquity in online US coverage of Iran, Johnson argued that the cliche photo of “one or two Iranian women clad in black chadors, faces usually barely visible, walking past a mural of the Statute of Liberty with a skull face” was intended “to lazily tie together US-bashing and perceived subjugation of women, reinforcing the image of Iran as a country defined by misogyny and seething hate for the West.”
10 May 2018 — FAIR
The only named source in Barbara Starr’s report (CNN, 5/8/18), aside from the Iranian president, is British Maj. Gen. Felix Gedney, who says he’s seen “no change” in the behavior of Iranian-backed forces.
Why doesn’t CNN Defense Department reporter Barbara Starr just leave CNN and instead work directly for the Trump DoD?
7 April 2018 — FAIR
The White House made clear that Trump’s talk of pulling out of Syria was just talk (Independent, 4/4/18)–but not before numerous media figures expressed alarm that the illegal occupation might end.
At a rally in Cleveland last week, President Donald Trump said that the US will get out of Syria “very soon.” It is now clear that the 4,000 US troops currently occupying Syria (Washington Post, 10/31/17) will in fact stay in Syria (Independent, 4/4/18), even though keeping troops in another country in defiance of that country’s government is a violation of international law. Yet the very possibility of US withdrawal from Syria rendered apoplectic journalists who are convinced of the legitimacy of Washington’s domination of the country—international law be damned.
24 December 2017 — FAIR
For over a year, US media have insisted that the tactic of deflecting criticism by pointing to others’ flaws was the devious Soviet tool of “whataboutism,” and anyone using it was practicing “one of Russia’s favorite propaganda tactics.” If so, when it came time for CNN’s Jake Tapper (12/21/17) to spin for the Trump administration’s provocative and deeply unpopular move of the US embassy in Israel, the most trusted name in news was peak Pravda.
30 June 2017 — FAIR
CNN (6/27/17) reported the retraction of a Trump/Russia story, but the original is no longer available to see what CNN‘s source had claimed.
If an anonymous source knowingly and maliciously feeds a media outlet false information, should they continue to be granted anonymity? If media continue to protect the deceptive source’s identity, doesn’t that ensure the continuance of a disinformation conveyor belt?
On Monday, three CNN journalists resigned after an article alleging Trump associates’ ties to Russia was retracted by the network. Brian Stelter, CNN‘s media reporter (6/27/17), wrote:
The story, which reported that Congress was investigating a “Russian investment fund with ties to Trump officials,” cited a single anonymous source. These types of stories are typically reviewed by several departments within CNN—including factcheckers, journalism standards experts and lawyers—before publication.
29 June 2017 — FAIR
James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas released a heavily edited video on Tuesday that quoted CNN health producer John Bonifield expressing skepticism about his network’s priorities. Despite O’Keefe’s well-deserved reputation for sleaze, lies and deceptive editing, the video does show a continuous shot of Bonifield complaining about his network’s insistence on continually pushing the did-Trump-collude-with-Putin? scandal to the headlines: Continue reading
11 July 2014 — The Greanville Post
In this latest assault on Gaza, Israel had by Thursday already killed 69 Palestinians including 22 children and 13 women, plus 469 wounded including 166 children and 85 women, and 70 houses destroyed. These numbers have since increased significantly.
27 March 2014 — Global Research
Governments and major corporations control or, at least, try to manipulate public opinion and discursive processes through mass media communication. They also wage information wars through the use of mass media communication. Like other geopolitical events, this is the case concerning the Ukrainian anti-government protests and the proceeding February 2014 coup in Kiev. This information war is a contest where the international news networks and major newspapers act as armies, the weapons being used are the media, and the frontline is the interactive space known as the public sphere. Radio frequencies, air waves, satellite feeds, social media, cellular or mobile phone uploads, communication networks, and the internet are all part of the war.
6 March 2014 — Daily Slave
An interesting thing happened on Russia Today (RT) an English speaking television news channel that provides world news from a Russian perspective. Yesterday Liz Wahl one of their American news anchors out of Washington DC decided to quit live on air protesting what she claimed was RT’s slanted pro-Russian, pro-Putin news coverage. Amazingly just hours later, Wahl was on CNN talking with Anderson Cooper on his nightly cable news show AC 360 about her decision to quit. Continue reading
20 December 2013 — FAIR Blog
The end of a story in Politico (12/18/13), about a Politico media roundtable featuring CNN’s Jake Tapper, NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell, and Peter Baker and Mark Leibovich of the New York Times, caught my eye:
All four journalists were in agreement that the media in general leans left. Tapper said it’s simplistic to call out conservative or liberal, but it is a question of experiences and lifestyle. Most reporters and editors in New York or Washington have never worked a minimum wage job, experienced poverty or are Evangelical Christians, Tapper said.
28 November 2013 — RT
CNN has made significant cuts to its interview with the Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, most notably his comments on the number of people that actually support Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The New Dark Age 