Category: Media

Tet Offensive and the Emergence of Fake News

George Noga

More Americans believe Elvis is alive (8%) than trust the media (6%).
Tet Offensive and the Emergence of Fake News
By: George Noga – January 26, 2020

        We begin with the facts which, with 52 years perspective, are now clear to all. January 25, 2020 was Tet, the beginning of the Vietnamese lunar new year. In 1968 Tet was on January 30 and brought a shock wave to Vietnam as the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong began a coordinated surprise assault unprecedented in scale and ferocity. More than 100,000 strong, they attacked over 100 towns across South Vietnam.

        Enemy goals were to inflict massive US casualties, collapse the South Vietnamese army and overthrow its government. Although Tet surprised the US, it regrouped, fought back and by late March had achieved total victory. Enemy casualties were 60,000-70,000 (mostly KIA) while US losses were 2,000-3,000. Enemy losses were so severe they were unable to mount an offensive again until 1972. The NV/VC achieved none of their military or civil goals and suffered a complete and crushing defeat.

     But in living rooms throughout America, nightly television news reported an overwhelming American defeat. Most reporters never ventured outside of Saigon and then media stars descended on the scene from New York and Washington with their ideological baggage. The most prominent was Walter Cronkite who peered into the camera and said the war couldn’t be won, whereupon President Johnson reportedly said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost the country.” Today, one of the highest journalism awards is The Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism.

        To be clear, the Vietnam War was an unmitigated American disaster; over 58,000 brave Americans died. It was predicated on the ersatz domino theory; our objectives never were clearly articulated; we hamstrung our military and did not try to win; and our military and political leaders were inept, dishonest and bereft of credibility. Given this miasma, we probably would have lost even if Tet had been honestly reported. Nonetheless, the Tet reporting was the modern advent (or revival) of fake news.

       The media always were scurrilous. Joseph Pulitzer was a muckraking publisher best known for fake news promoting the Spanish-American War. It is an indictment of journalism that its most prestigious awards are named after Pulitzer and Cronkite, purveyors of fake news. We now have fake reporters, reporting fake news, receiving fake journalism awards named after fake journalists famous for fake reporting.

An Antidote for Fake News: Fair Witnesses and Mentats

         Americans want the plain truth even if it shatters cherished shibboleths. So-called fact checkers (Facebook, PolitiFact, Snopes) are dishonest and unprincipled. America needs unimpeachable sources for determining facts, i.e. Fair Witnesses and Mentats.

       Fair Witness is a product of Robert Heinlein (Stranger in a Strange Land). In a future dystopia, citizens counter despotic government with Fair Witnesses, recognized as so truthful and objective as to be unimpeachable. They have an eidetic memory and receive deferential treatment. Fair Witnesses are only a small part of one of Heinlein’s books published in 1961; nonetheless, there are 125 million internet entries, the same as for Pope Francis. The idea clearly resonates. Mentats, created by Frank Herbert (Dune), are similar. Like all great science fiction, it speaks to us in our own time.

      Such a concept is needed today and it would work! Fair Witnesses would transform debate about any issue lending itself to logic or proof. Imagine the possibilities for politics, business and advertising. Above all, the media would no longer decide which truth Americans are allowed to know and which truth they are not allowed to know. It would spell the end of progressivism which is based entirely on lies. Finally, Fair Witnesses would put to rest the Elvis myth and end the plague of fake news.

Next on February 2, we demonstrate the advantages of the Electoral College.
More Liberty Less Government  –  mllg@mllg.us  –  www.mllg.us

Jack the Ripper and the Copycat Effect

George Noga
The media bear much responsibility for the mass casualty attacks they blame on guns. The copycat effect is so widely recognized some countries ban reporting of suicides.
Jack the Ripper and the Copycat Effect
By: George Noga – January 14, 2018

       In our post of December 10, 2017, we promised to focus on the role of the media in spawning mass casualty attacks (“MCA”). There are many effective actions we can take to reduce MCAs; our December 10th post (available here) addressed untreated mental illness as the single greatest cause. The second leading cause is the copycat effect, known at least since the 1774 publication of a Goethe novel.

       Nearly 250 years ago, Johann von Goethe wrote his classic “The Sorrows of Young Werther” wherein the hero commits suicide with a pistol. Following its publication, there was a spate of identical suicides throughout Europe at a time of low population when few could read, books were dear and news moved glacially. Now, there are seven billion mostly literate and interconnected people; the media are global and pervasive; and news travels at the speed of light. And when there is a copycat MCA, the media reflexively blame it on guns; this is as crazy as blaming pistols for Werther’s suicide 

        Even today, a spike in emulation suicides following a widely publicized suicide is known as the Werther Effect. Following Marilyn Monroe’s 1962 suicide from a drug overdose, there were at least 200 copycat suicides within 30 days. The copycat effect is so widely recognized that some countries (Norway) ban all reporting of suicides.

Jack the Ripper is to MCAs what Young Werther is to suicides. Jack the Ripper inspired many copycat attacks in his time and they continue (mostly in England) up to this day. Sociologists as early as 1890 understood that highly publicized crimes could be self-spreading and coined the term suggesto-imitative assaults.

      Much has been learned since Jack the Ripper; the following is accepted science: (1) The amount of attention paid to MCAs is directly related to their occurrence; (2) MCAs occur in clusters, not randomly; (3) A MCA is much more likely in the aftermath of a recent MCA; and (4) There is no contagion with 3 or fewer causalities.

      Recent studies also identify ways to reduce MCAs: (1) Do not glorify shooters or sensationalize their actions; (2) Use shooters’ names only when absolutely necessary; (3) Avoid use of superlatives such as “record number killed”. Also, the media should vastly limit (voluntarily) coverage except in the area the MCA occurred. No pictures or images of the perpetrator should be shown, especially in an iconic Che Guevara pose, like the photo of Dzhokar Tsarnaev on the cover of Rolling Stone.

    Progressives and the media (one and the same) blame guns for every MCA; however, they themselves are culpable. If we did not ignore untreated mental illness and took steps to reduce the copycat effect, MCAs would plummet. When subtracting gun deaths due to suicides and the failed war on drugs with its appurtenant gang violence, the US gun homicide rate would be among the lowest in the world.

       We have understood the copycat effect for both suicides and MCAs since at least the times of Young Werther and Jack the Ripper respectively. It’s beyond time we held the media to account for their significant share of the butcher’s bill.

The next post on January 21 analyzes the first year of the Trump presidency.

All the News is Fake News

George Noga
The mainstream media are purveyors of propaganda; all their news is fake news!
All the News is Fake News
By: George Noga – September 17, 2017
     The above headline is a slight exaggeration; only 90% of the news is fake. Although Fox, talk radio, Drudge and some print media disseminate real news, the mainstream media (“MSM”) have 10 times the consumers. But it’s far worse than that.
     It’s not just an occasional news story, reporter or organization that is fake or even many that are fake; the MSM all are fake. They knowingly with malice aforethought purvey pure propaganda, which is classically defined as: non objective information used to influence, manipulate and to further an agenda by presenting data selectively to produce a desired response. They no longer even aspire to verisimilitude.
      It begins in journalism schools which draw naif students from the bottom deciles and employ faculty from the farthest left. They are anti-business, pro-government and guzzle progressive kool-aid. Everyone in their bi-coastal world is in lock step. It continues on the job where media employees band together to form caucuses. There are caucuses for women, LGBTQ+, blacks, latinos and many others. These caucuses control how any story involving their group is covered and reported. Following are the principal methods the MSM uses to create fake news – along with examples.
1. They selectively decide which stories to cover and which to ignore. They go into a frenzy over any perceived alt-right scandal while ignoring those on the left. They will cover the fake Trump-Russia story while ignoring the real Clinton email scandal.
2. The caucuses assure all stories conform to predetermined dogma. The best example is the pedophile–priest scandal. It really was all about homosexual priests preying on teenage boys; pedophilia was involved in only 3% of the cases. This mortified the gay caucuses who then misdirected the story to blame virtually non-existent pedophiles.
3. The MSM slant stories to fit their narrative. They bash guns in the wake of mass shootings while ignoring stories where guns stopped crimes. The most egregious example is Appalachian State where 204 of 208 papers covering the story knew but failed to report that legal firearms were responsible for stopping the tragedy.
4.  Stories about right wing extremism (which are rare) are featured and repeated ad nauseum. Extremism on the left (which is plentiful) is ignored. The peaceful Tea Party is bashed while violent Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter and Antifa get passes.
5. Whenever a story (even an isolated one) confirms a liberal prejudice, it is treated as being typical. A story that contradicts a liberal bias is treated as an isolated incident. A white cop shooting a black suspect is treated as an example of (very rare) police racism while a story about Muslim terrorism (very common) is regarded as Islamophobia.
6. If something untoward happens on the right, it is a scandal; if it happens on the left, they focus on extraneous factors. They used leaked information to enflame the (fake) Trump-Russia story while condemning leaks involving the (real) Obama unmaskings.
     It is madness to expect honest reporting from journalists who, even today, revere Walter Cronkite as an icon, hero and saint. Cronkite achieved his legendary status by an act of gross journalistic malpractice via his misreporting on the Tet offensive. In any field of human endeavor other than journalism Cronkite would be held in disrepute.
      Finally, recall the editor of Newsweek who defended his unconscionable reporting of the Duke lacrosse rape story by saying: “The narrative was right, but the facts were wrong.” The MSM purveys propaganda – not news; all their news is fake news!
The next post takes a fearless, but way too early, look at the 2020 election.

Election Analysis and Afterthoughts

George Noga
Hillary had a world class marketing team trying to sell box wine to oenophiles, more baggage than a carousel at LAX, a paranoid streak rivaling Nixon and a limitless sense of entitlement.
Election Analysis and Afterthoughts
By: George Noga – January 15, 2017
     We got it right all year! My January 17th post cited 3 principles: (1) no permanent majorities; (2) the longer a party is in power, the more likely it is to lose; and (3) economics trumps all else. I also cited 3 keys: (1) polling is dead; (2) Obamacare is wildly unpopular; and (3) demographics, i.e. for Republicans to make gains among Hispanics, Asians, women and millennials would be easier than for Democrats to make gains among whites. All 6 of these principles and keys proved to be correct.
 
     My September 20th special posting began “I don’t purport to know who will win the election, but I know how it will be decided. . . . It will be decided by les deplorables, good-hearted, hard-working Americans branded as racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and Islamophobic and revulsed by the latte-left’s perversion of America and outraged about being lied to.” Those words proved to be prophetic.
 
     Our final preelecton post on November 6th stated the race was tightening and Trump would win if all or most of the following happened: (1) polling was flawed; (2) there were late shifts in voter sentiment; (3) Obamacare repudiation was robust; (4) government failure drove voters as in the Brexit vote; and (5) blacks and millennials stayed home while evangelicals turned out in force. BINGO! All five happened. 
 
     Clinton and the Democrats lost because a good, decent and just society is based on a voluntary social and economic compact between citizens and government. That compact was violated, desecrated and trampled upon by Obama, Clinton and liberal elites who would be our masters. Voters demanded change from failed hyper-progressive social and economic policies. It had nothing to do with Comey or Putin; it had everything to do with deeply flawed governance and candidates.

Post-Election Reflections

  •     Hillary outspent Trump 2 to 1 and had a better organization but, in the final analysis, the best sales and marketing are limited by the product being sold. As one pundit nailed it, they had world class marketers trying to sell box wine to oenophiles.
  •     After every defeat, Democrats delude themselves into believing that their problem lay in not getting their message out. Their problem was that they did get their message across and it was soundly rejected by the voters. They never learn.
  •     Liberals exposed their churlish souls after the election: rioting, contesting the results, tampering with the electoral college and planning to disrupt the inauguration.
  •    Voters repudiated Obama’s policies and his method of governance, although he remains personally popular. Both Hillary and Obama immeasurably aided Trump.
  •     Demonization of opponents is dead. The Democrats won in 2012 by turning a good and decent man (Romney) into an unrecognizable monster. It did not work against Trump even though he was a target rich candidate. It may never work again.
  •     Democrats obsess with branding their opponents as racists. That abomination also may never work again. Disagreement about immigration is not racism. Over 200 counties that voted for Obama in 2012 changed to Trump; were they all racists? 
  •     Steve Bannon as a Trump advisor outraged liberals who were a-okay with Al Sharpton advising Obama. Bannon has degrees from Georgetown and Harvard, served 7 years as a navy officer and had successful stints at Goldman Sachs and Breitbart News. Sharpton attended Brooklyn College for two years before dropping out, never served in the military, owes $4.5 million in unpaid taxes and is known mainly for his role in the sordid Tawana Brawley affair that a jury ruled was a giant hoax.
 
    The fierce, frothing-at-the-mouth animus and virulence liberals are showing for Trump is not out of concern for America or because progressives are afraid he will fail. Au contraire; it is entirely because they are  terror-stricken that he will succeed!
 Coming January 20th – an Inauguration Day retrospective of the Obama presidency

Media Bias in Person-of-the Year Honors

George Noga
It is the time of year when the media hand out awards. Their choices reflect their biases.
Media Bias in Person-of-the Year Honors
By: George Noga – December 4, 2016
     It is approaching the time of year when the media and others self righteously and pompously bestow their 2016 person-of-the-year awards. These awards reveal the media’s true values and provide a look deep into their arrogant, biased, progressive psyches. Following is an analysis of both international and local year-end awards.
    We begin with the Nobel Peace Prize. Since WWII there has been only one arguably conservative winner (Kissinger) out of nearly 100 recipients – a rate of 1%. Undeserving winners include: Red Cross, UNICEF, Amnesty International, Gorbachev, Arafat, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, UN IPCC, and Barack Obama. Manuel Santos won in 2016 for a treaty his countrymen soundly rejected; Alvaro Uribe, who brought FARC to the table, should have won. What about Ronald Reagan ending the Cold War?
     Time Magazine has anointed a person-of-the year since 1927. In 90 years there have been only 6 businessmen named –  a rate of 6.7%, or one every 15 years. Business has a greater and more direct impact on people’s lives than government. Among deserving honorees missing are: Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Elon Musk, Charles Schwab, Steve Jobs, Fred Smith, Sam Walton, Walt Disney, Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
      Local awards are even more outre. Our Central Florida newspaper bestows an annual award and I have a list of the recipients since 1983. For the past 33 years, there have been only three business people who won the award and they won mostly for reasons other than their business success – one won because his private development was for a purpose supported by the newspaper and the other two won primarily for their philanthropic activities. Some of the winners noted below truly are laughable.
    • One winner founded an organization that has wrought considerable harm
    • Many politicians and public employees won for simply doing their duty
    • One politician won for passing a (totally unnecessary) tax increase
    • Another person won for politicizing a respected non-political organization
    • Someone won for donating a small portion of great inherited wealth
    Our local paper annually publishes the 50 most influential people in our area. During the recent ascendancy of the Tea Party, they did not list any of the Tea Party leaders in the top 50 – even though they wielded enormous power. It was comedic to see the people they included on their list as being more influential than the Tea Party leaders.
      I once had a friend fond of saying “whoever tooteth not his own horn, his horn goeth untooteth“. My final awards story is personal and inescapably involves tooting my own horn. In 1994 I founded the first school voucher program in Florida totally with private funds. We began by providing 250 scholarships to poor children from Central Florida and had another 2,500 on a wait list. Today that program funds 68,000 students at an annual cost of $300 million; overnight it transformed the school choice narrative. The paper was aware of our program, once giving it front page headlines.
      To my great surprise and consternation, I awoke one morning to read that the local paper had named an “Education Person of the Year“. The honoree was a two-bit liberal politician who had proposed an unneeded tax increase for schools which had zero percent chance of ever passing. Now – I don’t really care about such awards, but this one tells you everything you ever need to know about media bias and depravity.
      Year-end awards provide a bright spotlight into the dank, dark media psyche. Peace prizes, Time Magazine awards and local newspapers’ honors reveal their drossy values and their contempt for anyone that doesn’t imbibe the progressive Kool-Aid.
The next post tells a true and heart-warming Christmas story.

The Seen Versus the Unseen

George Noga
What we see is frequently far less important than what we don’t see. This is true
particularly for economic growth, international trade, climate change and poverty.
The Seen Versus the Unseen
By: George Noga – October 23, 2016

       Election issues, both real and fake, are viewed through the prism of what is readily seen and are juxtaposed against what is opaque or occult to most Americans. The seen versus the unseen is singularly germane for economic growth. The data Americans readily see are many years of positive economic growth and unemployment rates approaching historic lows. Looking only at what is seen, many people conclude the US economy is performing satisfactorily. But let’s look at the unseen.

     The US, in its eighth year of economic recovery, is averaging 2.0% growth in real GDP. Real economic growth since 1945 averages 3.3% and is 4.3% for the years following the prior 10 recessions. Had the US grown at the 4.3% post-recession average from 2009 onward, today real GDP would be $10,300 higher for every man, woman and child in America. The unseen 900-pound gorilla of economic growth is the $26,700 that is missing from every American household each and every year – forever. Had Obama simply achieved average results, we would be infinitely better off.

For foreign trade deals, what we can see are job losses, harm to affected industries and deleterious effects on communities impacted. The pain is visible, immediate, and concentrated, whereas the benefits are unseen, long term, opaque and diffuse. Every American household benefits $2,500 per year just from China – even if they manipulate their currency, subsidize exports and use cheap labor. The unseen benefits to Americans from foreign trade vastly outweigh short-term job losses and other impacts.

     For climate change, we see media reports of warming, melting glaciers, polar bears on ice flows, extreme weather events and receding arctic icecaps. The largely unseen is: (1) no warming for 20 years; (2) glaciers receding for the past 150 years; (3) record polar bear populations; (4) no increase globally in insurance claims for weather events; and (5) an increasing antarctic icecap which is 10 times the size of the arctic icecap. Completely unseen are the immediate benefits to humanity that could be realized if the trillions now being totally wasted on infinitesimal reductions in temperature were diverted to human needs such as disease eradication, clean water supply and nutrition.

     We are bombarded by media reports and images of poverty, homelessness and hunger although none of these conditions exist per se in America today. What we don’t see is that these conditions (which do still exist) result nearly exclusively from untreated mental illness and from a small cohort of Americans of low ability, i.e. those who struggle to fill out a simple form. These conditions, and their attendant social pathologies, are what result in poverty, hunger and homelessness. Political correctness prevents us from identifying and addressing the real underlying problems.

     We see gun violence whenever there is a shooting; we don’t see the 2.5 million times each year guns are used lawfully to prevent or to stop crime. We see that more Americans have health insurance; we don’t see the armies of under employed 29ers and 49ers and the high premiums, deductibles and co-pays. We see the spending but the debt and deficits go largely unseen. We see what is reported by the media; we don’t see many stories covered that run counter to the progressive narrative. We see what we recycle; we don’t see it going into the same landfill as all our other garbage.

What we see is often vapid and illusory and intended to beguile us into accepting progressive shibboleths and dogma. The unseen is frequently much more important.

The next post in our 2016 election series is scheduled for October 30.

The Truth About Matthew Shepard

George Noga
By: George Noga – January 17, 2014
      Like me, you probably accepted the media version of Matthew Shepard’s murder; there was, after all, nothing to contradict it. As reported by the media, on October 6, 1998, Matthew Shepard, a 21 year old University of Wyoming student, left a Laramie bar late one night with two men, was brutally beaten and crucified to a fence post where he was left to die – although he clung to life for 6 more days.  He was murdered solely because he was gay in what universally has been touted as the hate crime of the century.
      Shepard’s vicious murder became a bedrock of liberal-progressive shibboleths about the hate permeating middle America. During the 15 years following Matt’s murder, liberal and gay rights organizations have orchestrated the activities listed below; they continue to this day with unabated intensity and undoubtedly will persist ad infinitum – whether or not they are true.
  1. Even before Matt died, national gay rights groups trumpeted Matt’s story as one of extreme homophobic cruelty and violence; they condemned Laramie, and by extension all of middle America, as a crucible of intolerance. The national media uncritically bought in and made the case a cause celebre. Matt was portrayed as an innocent martyr.
  2. At least four TV movies have been made – each one increasingly mawkish.
  3. The Shepard saga has spawned a panoply of art, poetry, publications, studies, museum exhibits, merchandise and dramatizations – which continue 15 years after his murder.
  4. Matt’s mother founded the Matthew Shepard Foundation, which sells goods including a hoodie emblazoned with “Erase Hate”. She travels widely and gives 50 speeches a year.
  5. The most successful commercial exploitation of Matt is The Laramie Project, a play staged thousands of times; it is among the 10 most ever performed plays in high schools. It  depicts life in middle America as ugly, violent, intolerant and hopelessly psychotic.
  6. Schools throughout the land use “Laramie” study guides that direct classroom discussion about homophobia, our culture of violence and rampant injustice in fly-over America.
    There is one thing wrong with the previously accepted facts of the Matt Shepard murder saga: they all are lies; none of them is true. What really happened was a murder resulting from a drug (methamphetamine) deal gone sour. To top it off, one of Matt’s murderers, Aaron McKinney, was also gay and likely had a prior sexual relationship with Matt Shepard. Also, the crucifixion to a fence post never happened. This bears repeating in a bigger font.
“Matt Shepard was murdered by his gay lover in a drug deal gone bad. Everything you ever thought you knew about Matt Shepard is a lie.” 
     The real facts have come to light only recently, primarily in a book published in October 2013 entitled “The Book of Matt“. Its author, Stephen Jimenez, is both progressive and gay. To his credit, he ended up writing a book far different than the one he originally intended by following facts wherever they led him. Jiminez studied Shepard’s murder for 13 years, interviewed hundreds of witnesses and scoured thousands of pages of public records. His book has been critically acclaimed even by gay groups and favorably reviewed by the Advocate.

The Real Lesson From Matt Shepard’s Murder

     The abject fecklessness of the media in the Shepard case is hard to fathom – even by someone who believes they are slime. It’s not just that they blindly accepted “facts” provided by biased sources advancing a point of view. Most disturbing of all is that Matt’s saga exposed their universally and deeply held belief that the monstrous brutality of Matt Shepard’s murder occurred solely because he was gay; moreover, such events were de rigueur in small town middle America. After all, these rubes all are gun-toting, homicidal, psychotic homophobes.
“The visceral contempt and hatred liberals, progressives and
the media have for America is the real hate crime of the century.”
      I also am disappointed with myself for having accepted the “official” media version of Matt’s death. At the time it happened and as the years have passed, I could not reconcile the ersatz facts of the Shepard case with my view of America. In the America I know and love, the events as originally reported could not have happened. I was right; they did not happen.
      The visceral contempt and hatred liberals, progressives and the media have for America, on full display for all to see in the Matt Shepard case, is the real hate crime of the century.

All-Time Media Hall of Shame

George Noga

Nonexistent Guns, Nonexistent Defeat and Nonexistent Scandal

By: George Noga – June 1, 2011
  
      Media Watch is one of our regular features. Only this time I explain why and how media bias occurs. This is followed by the three most egregious examples of media bias that MLLG has reported since we began in 2007. As a bonus, I throw in a current example of extreme media bias dealing with gas prices.
     If you are like most, you assume when news happens, the editor or producer impartially assigns the story to a reporter who (hopefully) has some knowledge of the subject matter. The reporter objectively covers the story and reports the facts. The editor, also objectively, questions the reporter, fact checks and edits. The end result, even if flawed, represents a good faith attempt to report the news.
“Media organizations have, inter alia, black, Latino, gay and women’s caucuses that solely determine how any issue affecting their caucus is reported.”
 
      That’s not how it happens. Every substantial media organization has internal groups they call caucuses, i.e. employees who band together to determine how anything affecting their caucus is reported. Caucuses always exist for blacks, Latinos, gays and women; there may be others. Most other issues such as those involving the military, environment, guns, poverty, corporations and religion don’t require caucuses as all reporters  have been in lockstep about them since at least journalism school. Should they forget the correct slant, that’s where editors come in.
      Let’s follow a typical news story involving say abortion. The editor/producer will try to assign the story to a reporter from the women’s caucus. The reporter will write the story using only criteria and terminology approved by her caucus. If perchance the story was assigned to a reporter not part of the women’s caucus, that reporter would not submit the story to the editor without first running it by the women’s caucus. If the story was significant and involved something not previously discussed by the caucus, the reporter and/or editor would not print it without first checking with the members of the affected caucus. Nothing ever gets printed that disrespects a caucus. Now that you understand the process, let’s go to the media hall of shame.
Appalachian State: Nonexistent Guns
      In 2002 an Appalachian State student went on  a shooting spree killing 3 and wounding several; 208 newspapers reported the story, of which 204 reported the killer was stopped, pounced on, tackled or overpowered by other students. All the networks reported the story this way. When I read the story I wondered how students pounce on or tackle a gunmen. There’s one major problem: the students didn’t tackle or pounce on the armed killer. Two of the three students went to their cars and retrieved legal handguns which they used to subdue the killer.
     The role guns played in stopping the killer was well known. Over 100 reporters interviewed the students and nearly every reporter knew the positive role handguns played in stopping the bloodshed. Yet, less than 2% of the newspapers mentioned the students’ handguns. This kind of reporting is de rigeur in Cuba, Zimbabwe, Iran and North Korea. American media will not report stories with a positive role for guns although they happen 2,500,000 times a year in the US.
Walter Cronkite and Tet: Nonexistent American Defeat
     Walter Cronkite was just another anile talking head until he endeared himself to progressives by his misreporting of the Tet Offensive – declaring Tet a great American defeat and the war irretrievably lost. That’s NOT the way it was. Tet was a desperation gamble by the enemy who suffered staggering losses – 60,000 of their best men. Both then and now the political and military leaders of North Vietnam declared Tet to be a total defeat and disaster for them. Tet was a massive American victory.
“If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read it, you are misinformed.” «TWAIN» 
     Tet was the biggest story of Cronkite’s career and he got it dead wrong. The media’s distrust of America  transmogrified Cronkite into a media hero – make that saint. Cronkite achieved legendary status due to an act of gross journalistic malpractice. The crowning achievement of the media darling of my lifetime was not only wrong, it caused America great harm.
Pedophile Priests: Nonexistent Scandal 
     There never was a pedophile priest scandal; less than 3% of incidents were pedophilia. What really happened was a homosexual priest scandal. Pedophilia is rare; it involves children before puberty whose age usually is a single digit; moreover, pedophilia is mostly heterosexual. Of all the misreporting and bias in the past few decades, this story tops the charts.
     As media began to report about the emerging scandal, the gay caucuses were mortified. Gay organizations are so sacrosanct, powerful and intimidating, no one opposes them. So the media protected the priests (and by extension gays) by concocting pedophilia, which is a bogeyman everyone opposes. The church gleefully went along because it knew pedophilia was a strawman and it couldn’t dare confront the church’s culture of homosexuality.
     The lengths the media went to protect gays is legion. In the 8-page U.S. News & World Report story, homosexual was mentioned once. Instead, the magazine used sex-abuse scandal, predatory sexual behavior, youth-sex scandaland sexual misconduct; they tried to blame celibacy. All of this was misdirection. Over 95% of incidents involved boys; this rules out priests not being able to marry and celibacy as causes. But the problem runs even deeper. Gay men are attracted to the priesthood because it provides an unending supply of young, impressionable and vulnerable boys. Despite the horrific scandal, nothing much has changed; the band plays on.
Media Watch 2011 – Obama and High Gas Prices 
     It is instructive to contrast media reporting of gas prices during the Bush and Obama presidencies. Bush was hounded by the media for 8 years. At press conferences he was asked the following: “What do you say to people who are losing patience with gas prices at $3 a  gallon? “How much of a political price are you paying for $3 gas?” “A majority of Americans disapprove of your handling of gas prices.”  He and Cheney were lambasted for their former connections to the oil industry. At the end of Bush’s presidency gas prices (inflation-adjusted) were 9% lower than when he took office.
     Since Obama took office gas prices have skyrocketed. Where are the media watchdogs? Virtually no questions have been asked Obama about: (1) the high price of gas and home heating; (2) Obama’s bungled response to the BP oil spill; (3) the moratorium on domestic oil exploration; (4) the lack of drilling permits in the gulf; and (5) the loss of tens of thousands of jobs in the energy sector. The statist media is dead; it finally expired in 2008 after being comatose for many years. There are only a few places for truth these days, mainly talk radio, Fox News, Drudge and the Internet.