In a single sentence I can summarize the current state of how the Mainstream Press Operates

[excelsiorlef]

"Frequently in the Press left wing activism is treated more like terrorism and right wing terrorism is treated more like activism"

See how the NYT ran a a litteral op ed call for military action against BLM and then WaPo later apologized for criticizing its publication

See how the Convoy in Canada was treated.

Think about how BDS is talked about vs say the horrific and sometimes violent reaction to Bud Light giving a can to Dylan

See now how litteral terrorist threats against queer merchandise is reported in say the WaPo by including all their grievances including going out of its way to talk about the nonsense santanism shit. It's entirely about normalizing right wing terrorism and terroristic ideology as grounded in valid grievances. See how it makes sure to quote business people saying Target giving in is good for business and engaging in social issues is risky (then imagine this article if this was left wing bomb threats over Christmas displays yeah?)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/24/target-lgbtq-clothing-controversy-boycott/

It's fucking infuriating

There is a complete imbalance and fuck all anyone can do about it

 

[PallasKitten]

It's a depressingly accurate description of the state of current mainstream news/press. And it feels especially bleak since I don't see it changing any time soon. Even here in the UK, it often feels like BBC News - whom are supposed to be "impartial" or otherwise take a neutral/non-political stance - frequently write pieces that depict right wing insanity as perfectly reasonable views to hold and impose on others.

 

[TeddyShardik]

Even the word "Activism" is painted in a bad light every day, by the press.

You're more useful being passive, and just accepting of what your Lords decide is the best for you.
We're just living in modern Feudalism, and the people owning all the land want to keep it that way.

And the media is just just the right tool for the job.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Even the word "Activism" is painted in a bad light every day, by the press.

You're more useful being passive, and just accepting of what your Lords decide is the best for you.
We're just living in modern Feudalism, and the people owning all the land want to keep it that way.

And the media is just just the right tool for the job.

Click to shrink...

Only left wing activism

Activism from the left is presented as threatening and violent

Activism when used as a descriptor of right wing is used to downplay and normalize and sanitize their actual violence

 

[Klyka]

Isn't it cause right winger have been buying all the news stations they can over the years?

 

[excelsiorlef]

Isn't it cause right winger have been buying all the news stations they can over the years?

Click to shrink...

Huge factor absolutely especially because frequently some of the better journalism did come from local journos.

 

[Netherscourge]

Left wingers are portrayed as radicals, while Right wingers are portrayed as oppressors.

It gaslights everyone and gets ratings from both groups.

 

[Bufbaf]

For some reason I was afraid excelsiorlef of all people would go off on a rant about "gaming press bad no finish games" and other assorted bullshit, took me too long to realize this was in etc lol.

Saved!

 

[excelsiorlef]

while Right wingers are portrayed as oppressors.

Click to shrink...

I'm assuming you mean oppressed right?

Cause like fuck the media actually acknowledges that right wingers are all agents of oppression

 

[TheGummyBear]

Left wingers are portrayed as radicals, while Right wingers are portrayed as oppressors.

It gaslights everyone and gets ratings from both groups.

Click to shrink...

Im confused by your statement when right wingers across the world actively are trying to oppress me.

For fuck sake, one of the people actively behind the modern right wing movement, Vladimir Putin, keeps using gay and trans people as one of his excuses for invading Ukraine. How much more oppressive do you need to get than a genocidal, imperialist maniac?

I'm assuming you mean oppressed right?

Cause like fuck the media actually acknowledges that right wingers are all agents of oppression

Click to shrink...

Going by "it gets ratings from both groups" I don't think it was a mistake.

 

[Nola]

I find myself going back to this as a perfect encapsulation with the problem with the MSM and reporting on the right:

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/the-democracy-we-think-we-have-on-the-media

BOB GARFIELD That montage is a product, obviously, of sound editing. But more importantly of contextualizing, which is crucial journalism. And yet so often absent partly because it can be confused with editorializing. So if we're in search of enablers of murderous demagoguery, we can't entirely exclude the mainstream press. Which in its determination to avoid the appearance of bias let alone activism, chronically soft pedals depravity–whether with bland euphemistic language-- Or careless water carrying for big lies. The first edition of Tuesday's New York Times headline about Trump's post-El Paso post-Dayton address, Trump Urges Unity Versus Racism, was nominally accurate but unforgivably devoid of context. Like reporting on 9/11 by saying, 'sunny day in New York City.' And we get suckered by the same con again and again.

............

BOB GARFIELD So there's the aforementioned carelessness of the mainstream media and then there is, perhaps, something more insidious, a tolerance for racism and xenophobia laundered through punditry on electoral pragmatism. In an essay for Slate this week, Tom Scocca observed that tolerance for intolerable ideology is too often advertised as a virtue. In effect, trying to make bigotry respectable. Tom welcome back to OTM.


​

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/el-paso-mass-shooting-white-nationalism.html

The Slate piece referenced

Like Nixon, Stephens was simply expressing racist ideas that he supposed belonged to someone else—some figure, or mass of figures, offstage, whose point of view deserved a respectful hearing. He was writing, that is, in the dominant mode by which white nationalist ideas are presented in America: as a second-order concern, or, better yet, a third-order one, a warning that liberals, by denouncing racism, run the risk of offending or provoking the people who hold those racist views (or views that may seem, to a snobbish and uncaring coastal elite, to be racist, when in fact they reflect the reasonable or at least understandable frustrations or fears of the people who hold them).

Polite media outlets have been full of these defenses of racism, or defenses of the feelings of white people with racist opinions, since Trump's victory. Usually, these defenses are presented as critiques of "identity politics," or, more daringly, of "diversity." ​

Its a great deconstruction of the way the MSM habitually launders, normalizes, and treats as a virtue the tolerance of right wing lies and extremism and the purveyors of it. Resulting in a process where every new encroachment of extremism is processed through a MSM machine that routinely softens it, avoids proper context for fear of accusations of bias, and pushes it out the other end in a way that invites false equivalencies and legitimacy to extremist ideology and action.

I think one of the most growingly insidious ones here is the new CNN. Which is basically attempting to make this process their new core business and media strategy.

 

[meowdi gras]

Isn't it cause right winger have been buying all the news stations they can over the years?

Click to shrink...

As billionaires continue gobbling up media outlets unabated, this shit is just going to become more and more ubiquitous. Because let's not kid ourselves, nearly all billionaires are themselves right-wingers; if not outright ideologues, certainly sympathizers.

 

[excelsiorlef]

I find myself going back to this as a perfect encapsulation with the problem with the MSM and reporting on the right:

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/the-democracy-we-think-we-have-on-the-media

BOB GARFIELD That montage is a product, obviously, of sound editing. But more importantly of contextualizing, which is crucial journalism. And yet so often absent partly because it can be confused with editorializing. So if we're in search of enablers of murderous demagoguery, we can't entirely exclude the mainstream press. Which in its determination to avoid the appearance of bias let alone activism, chronically soft pedals depravity–whether with bland euphemistic language-- Or careless water carrying for big lies. The first edition of Tuesday's New York Times headline about Trump's post-El Paso post-Dayton address, Trump Urges Unity Versus Racism, was nominally accurate but unforgivably devoid of context. Like reporting on 9/11 by saying, 'sunny day in New York City.' And we get suckered by the same con again and again.

............

BOB GARFIELD So there's the aforementioned carelessness of the mainstream media and then there is, perhaps, something more insidious, a tolerance for racism and xenophobia laundered through punditry on electoral pragmatism. In an essay for Slate this week, Tom Scocca observed that tolerance for intolerable ideology is too often advertised as a virtue. In effect, trying to make bigotry respectable. Tom welcome back to OTM.


​

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/el-paso-mass-shooting-white-nationalism.html

The Slate piece referenced

Like Nixon, Stephens was simply expressing racist ideas that he supposed belonged to someone else—some figure, or mass of figures, offstage, whose point of view deserved a respectful hearing. He was writing, that is, in the dominant mode by which white nationalist ideas are presented in America: as a second-order concern, or, better yet, a third-order one, a warning that liberals, by denouncing racism, run the risk of offending or provoking the people who hold those racist views (or views that may seem, to a snobbish and uncaring coastal elite, to be racist, when in fact they reflect the reasonable or at least understandable frustrations or fears of the people who hold them).

Polite media outlets have been full of these defenses of racism, or defenses of the feelings of white people with racist opinions, since Trump's victory. Usually, these defenses are presented as critiques of "identity politics," or, more daringly, of "diversity." ​

Its a great deconstruction of the way the MSM habitually launders, normalizes, and treats as a virtue the tolerance of right wing lies and extremism and the purveyors of it. Resulting in a process where every new encroachment of extremism is processed through a MSM machine that routinely softens it, avoids proper context for fear of accusations of bias, and pushes it out the other end in a way that invites false equivalencies and legitimacy to extremist ideology and action.

Click to shrink...

And this isn't just an American thing

UK press is out of control

Canadian press is similar

And I should say not particularly new, just very obvious as the dogwhistles became humanwhistles.

I've been criticizing coverage of progressive protestors since I was in high school 20 years ago.

 

[Netherscourge]

Im confused by your statement when right wingers across the world actively are trying to oppress me.

For fuck sake, one of the people actively behind the modern right wing movement, Vladimir Putin, keeps using gay and trans people as one of his excuses for invading Ukraine. How much more oppressive do you need to get than a genocidal, imperialist maniac?

Click to shrink...

Of course they are oppressors.

From the point of view of conservatives, though, they think they're being unfairly label as dictators and fascists by the media.

(They ARE fascists; but it offends them and that gets ratings; so they flock to the media outlets that defend them.)

This is all a battle for viewership for the media outlets. Hence why CNN is suddenly giving people like Trump a platform.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Of course they are oppressors.

From the point of view of conservatives, though, they think they're being unfairly label as dictators and fascists by the media.

(They ARE fascists; but it offends them and that gets ratings; so they flock to the media outlets that defend them.)

This is all a battle for viewership for the media outlets. Hence why CNN is suddenly giving people like Trump a platform.

Click to shrink...

You said the media actually presents right wingers as oppressors

They don't not really.

 

[BossAttack]

Hey, that OP is more than a single sentence! Now whose being disingenuous?

But seriously yes, it's why I can't watch MSM. In addition to their need to turn everything into a "debate" with voices from both sides. No assholes, we actually don't need to hear from the other side as to whether human rights are good.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Hey, that OP is more than a single sentence! Now whose being disingenuous?

Click to shrink...

"Frequently in the Press left wing activism is treated more like terrorism and right wing terrorism is treated more like activism"

You scared me I thought I added a period lol.

 

[Kernel]

Only left wing activism

Activism from the left is presented as threatening and violent

Activism when used as a descriptor of right wing is used to downplay and normalize and sanitize their actual violence

Click to shrink...

Well it is threat to the billionaires who own the media companies.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Well it is threat to the billionaires who own the media companies.

Click to shrink...

Yep

 

[TheGummyBear]

I can't help but think of another boycott from this year. (I'm trying to not mention a certain topic but if it's still against the rules, please let me know. I just think it's relevant to the comparison.)

Trans people were like "please do not buy this thing, it actively harms us." No stores raided or bomb threats delivered, just please don't support this thing.

Conservatives? Threats of shedding blood at literal sights of rainbows.

The former was demonised. The latter is "activism."

There's a huge problem with media coverage.

 

[Brinbe]

we ultimately know what side capital is on and why wapo/nyt are who they are.

that's why non-profit news is the way to go. you can't expect these 'mainstream' press organisations to be the ones to hold the systems to account when they depend on it and operate within it.

Investigative Journalism and News in the Public Interest

ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.

www.propublica.org

Poynter

Poynter is a nonprofit media institute and newsroom that provides fact-checking, media literacy and journalism ethics training to citizens and journalists in service to democracy.

www.poynter.org

Homepage | Media Matters for America

www.mediamatters.org

 

[Lord Fanny]

Isn't it cause right winger have been buying all the news stations they can over the years?

Click to shrink...

That's part it, but the reality is that America's mainstream press has always been far more friendly to the rightwing than the left. This isn't really all that new. The 'paper of record,' The New York Times, has subtlety (and not so subtlety) been the most rightwing rag for almost its entire existence

 

[PinkSpider]

It's a depressingly accurate description of the state of current mainstream news/press. And it feels especially bleak since I don't see it changing any time soon. Even here in the UK, it often feels like BBC News - whom are supposed to be "impartial" or otherwise take a neutral/non-political stance - frequently write pieces that depict right wing insanity as perfectly reasonable views to hold and impose on others.

Click to shrink...

I feel Channel 4 news are closest to what the BBC should be but then they are probably too left some may say. But if calling out our failing structures and how it's impacting society negatively is bias then so be it. (Even if they aren't doing it perfectly). I'm bias as I feel society should lean towards the left but the right is pretty shit and we should be impartial on the guage of what's best for people and doing best for society and not some scale of looking after people to fucking them over.

 

[Megawarrior]

That's what happens when you have billionaires owning the press.

 

[Surakian]

This is why governments trying t ban things like TikTok is dangerous to us. We don't really have mainstream media to inform people so all that is left is social media and regular people to fight for ourselves.

 

[Shadow of the Void]

This is why news media should not be allowed to operate on a for-profit basis, and preferably should not be owned by massive conglomerates.