Adding a phrase here and there to smear one’s political enemy. My latest at PJ Media:
Leftist media bias isn’t limited to the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and the rest. It operates at all levels of the establishment media. Last Wednesday, the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, South Dakota published a piece that is a textbook example of how Leftist “journalists” present news articles designed to manipulate the public into holding the views they wish them to hold.
Wrote Argus Leader reporter Joe Sneve: “Mike Gunn, a retired business owner and a dark horse in the 2018 Sioux Falls mayoral race, drew attention from the nonprofit South Dakota Voices for Justice for a series of Facebook posts expressing support for tighter immigration laws and alarmism over the country’s increasing Muslim population.”
So right off the bat, we have Mike Gunn against the South Dakota Voices for Justice, which makes it sound as if Gunn is against justice. The candidate’s crime was actually that he shared posts from “the Facebook page of Americans First, Task Force of Aberdeen SD, a self-described educational page that regularly shares memes and news stories critical of Islam.” It’s a “self-described” educational page, you see: Sneve is semaphoring that readers should approach this group with skepticism.
And what post did Gunn share? “The post in question included a story from the website JihadWatch.com stating the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is tied to terrorist organizations. Similar claims have been made by Republican and conservative office seekers throughout the country who site [sic] a Center for Security Policy report linking the organization to terrorist groups in the Middle East.”
This gives readers the impression that Jihad Watch (which is the website that I operate) and the Center for Security Policy are responsible for the claim that CAIR is tied to terrorist organizations.
So I wrote to Joe Sneve and pointed out that it was not I who stated that CAIR was tied to terrorist organizations, but the Justice Department. I sent him this link to substantiate what I was saying. Sneve, however, wrote back saying that after consulting with his editor, they had decided not to change the wording of their story.
Sneve’s story continued: “But the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation, has repeatedly defended CAIR and says the Center for Security Policy is an anti-Muslim extremist group.”
In my email to Sneve, I also wrote: “I wonder if you are familiar with the charges that the Southern Poverty Law Center is not a neutral arbiter of what constitutes an ‘extremist’ group and what does not, but has been harshly and justifiably criticized for turning a blind eye to Islamist extremist groups such as CAIR while defaming legitimate conservative organizations with their ‘extremist’ label.” Sneve never responded to this.
Note also that he describes the SPLC as “a nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation.” In contrast to how he treated the Americans First group, Sneve slaps no “self-described” qualifier on his description of the SPLC despite considerable evidence that it is not a neutral arbiter. The evidence points to it being a hard-Left smear group that uses its “extremist” label to tar legitimate groups that oppose its Leftist agenda.
Sneve is no different from hordes of other establishment media self-described reporters in larger markets. It is virtually universal practice for mainstream reporters to treat Hamas-linked CAIR and the defamation factory SPLC as if they were reliable sources, and to force conservatives such as Mike Gunn to defend themselves against their charges….
Read the rest here.
Andy says
Ratings for Leftie Late Night Liberals are Imploding!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fWbT0d9Qlc
Andy says
Thanks for the link Jay, Interesting article.
Andy says
Pamela Geller: Robert DeNiro denounces US — while visiting sharia dictatorship
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMNSTquHJB8
J D S says
More FAKE news on the way……More kowtowing to islam and it’s ugliness…News outlets are more and more becoming un newsworthy and are just putting out FAKE information…I just hope the public will see through this and put these FAKE news outlets out of business. ADVERTISEMENTS are what keeps these people operating..boycott those…. TV, newspapers, magazines or whatever or whoever advertise with the FAKE liberal leftist news outlets. Either that…or…..one shows one have aligned themselves with them.
CRUSADER says
Late Night Liberals are SNEVELY….
jewdog says
The “Argus Leader” is a self-described “news” journal. Actually, it is a hard-left propaganda sheet. No wonder so many newspapers have gone out of business – the free market has done a good job.
lebel says
Here’s a recent case of “media bias” – how to blame everything on Muslims by expert Pamela Geller, a good friend and ally of yours:
https://gellerreport.com/2018/02/fla-schol-shooter-islamic-left.html/
StellaSaidSo says
The article shows the school shooter’s f/b page featuring the words ‘allahu akbar’, but it does not claim that the shooter was a Muslim.
I doubt that anyone would be surprised if he turned out to be, however.
lebel says
It’s a total fabrication, Geller-style. Other commenters, including fans of hers, have figured it out (see below)
“Apparently, Pamela dug up a Facebook account of the wrong guy, probably a leftist with a similar name, smeared him, and then deleted all of that stuff, leaving only this update: “UPDATE: I have been unable to confirm if earlier reports of a Facebook page belonging to Nicholas Cruz is indeed his.”
Pathetic. Disgusting.”
StellaSaidSo says
Reports from other news sites reference the same f/b page as belonging to the Florida school shooter. Geller’s article did not claim that Cruz was a Muslim. Quoting from a ‘commenter’, especially one with an obvious bias, does not get us any closer to the truth.
CRUSADER says
There’s a litany to blame Muslims for.
Skeezix says
I heard that the Florida school shooter had expressed sympathetic comments toward Islamic extremism.
Lydia Church says
And that paragraph also made him look like he was anti-everything, does not want any immigrants, must be a racist and hates muslims to death… etc.
Yes, I know how their smear campaigns operate, exactly like that.
They paint one as the victim and the other as the villain with their words, slandering, assuming, using accusatory wording, slowly sculpting out the emotional reactions of the readers, twisting their attitudes and views in the process, and their behavior and actions as a result. Next thing there is an army ready to riot and protest with violence. The ignorant masses are so easily manipulated and the powerful elite know they are useful idiots and use them as such. Puppets on a string, all their emotions are being pulled and then their limbs march in the direction their puppet-masters have already planned on the drawing board long before. Like unthinking robots, they follow mindlessly…
MFritz says
Ah, it’s another Gannett-fake news “outlet”. Yeah, they don’t like Robert Spencer. Or the truth in common.
They make and they finance politicians they like and they make and break politicians they don’t like. And they “make” lots of news too. Fake news.