Month: September 2024

Media Sued for False Information – What Happens?

by

Article by Sam Levine in The Guardian, 9/30/24

Headline: “What price are US media outlets paying for spreading election lies?”

Subhead: “A wave of lawsuits ending in settlements show defamation law is not going to save us from election misinformation”

“As voting got under way for the 2024 US presidential election, the voting technology company Smartmatic and the conservative outlet Newsmax reached an agreement about election lies in the last one.”

. . . “Some of the settlements have come with on-air apologies and retractions. Others, including the agreement between Fox and Dominion, have not. In some cases, the terms of the agreements have not been disclosed at all, leaving the public in the dark about what price, if any, outlets are paying for spreading election lies.”

. . . “Lidsky cautioned against expecting too much from trials. ”

“ ‘The public hasn’t, as a whole, bought into the definitive declaration of truth,’ she said. ‘There are, through motivated reasoning, people who are going to continue to believe what they want to believe.’ ”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/30/election-lies-misinformation-media

 

Traditional Media Sink or Swim?

by

Article in the New York Times By Farah Nayeri, 9/29/24

Headline: “As Mainstream Media Faces Unprecedented Challenges, Can It Save Itself?”

Subhead: “A panel at the Athens Democracy Forum explores how and whether traditional news organizations can regain the influence and trust that once defined them”

“On the first day of the fall semester at Boston University, Michelle Amazeen, an associate professor of mass communication, asked her graduate students to fill out a questionnaire listing their favorite movie, band, book and news source. She was in for a surprise.

“Next to news source, many of her 16 students left a blank. Several mentioned TikTok, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). One named a mainstream publication (The New York Times) as their source of news and information.

“By and large, young adults are getting their news, if they get it at all, from social media,” Ms. Amazeen said. As far as they’re concerned, “social media is exciting and it’s accessible,” because there’s little effort or expense required: just a scroll down a smartphone screen.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/29/world/democracy-media-challenges.html

Social Media Dump

by


Article by By Don Jacobson on UPI 9/28/24

Headline: “Trump Media co-founder, investor dumps shares following lockup period”

Is the end near?

“A co-founder of former President Donald Trump’s Truth Social messaging platform has dumped his shares following the expiration of a mandatory -lockup’ period, a public filing shows.”

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2024/09/28/major-Trump-Media-investor-dumps-shares-following-lock-up-period/5831727550906/

The Former . . . ? Doesn’t Like The Media

by

Article by by Dominick Mastrangelo in The Hill, 9/27/24

Headline:  “Amanpour: Melania Trump’s ‘mainstream media’ remark is ‘dangerous”

“CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour is chastising former first lady Melania Trump over comments she made attacking the mainstream media in a recent interview.

“ ‘Mrs Trump is mistaken, political violence is not the fault of the ‘mainstream media and I wish she would take back this false and dangerous accusation,’  Amanpour wrote in asocial media post Friday morning.

“The CNN anchor was referencing  an interview Trump gave on Fox News a  day earlier.

. . . “Former President Trump and his allies regularly attack the mainstream media, singling out CNN in many cases as ‘fake news’ and ‘the enemy of the people.’ ”

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4903456-christine-amanpour-melania-trump-mainstream-media-remark/ Former President Trump and his allies regularly attack the mainstream media, singling out CNN in many cases as “fake news” and “the enemy of the people.”

Media Outlets for Sale? That’s Smokin!

by

Article in The Guardian by Anna Bawden and Mark Sweney
Wed 25 Sep 2024 12.35 EDT

Headline: “Pressure mounts on publisher of Economist over ties to tobacco”

Subhead:  “Exclusive: Experts pull out of health conferences run by Economist Impact after revelations of commercial links”

“Pressure is mounting on the publisher of the Economist over its commercial ties with the world’s three biggest tobacco companies, after numerous senior NHS and international health experts pulled out of two more Economist Impact health conferences after the Guardian’s investigation into its links with big tobacco.

. . . “Prof Sir Michael Marmot, director of the Institute of Health Equity at University College London and a global authority on health inequalities, said: “I was not aware Economist Impact were supported by big tobacco companies when I accepted the invitation to speak at this event. Now I am aware, I will no longer be appearing at the conference. I have never and would never work with the tobacco industry, and I am disappointed these details were not disclosed in advance”

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/sep/25/pressure-mounts-on-publisher-of-economist-over-ties-to-tobacco

New Purpose of Media – Normalizing Wierdness?

by

Article by By Josephine Harvey in the Huffington Post 9/25/24

Headline: “Mary Trump Slams Media’s Dangerous Interpretations of Her Uncle’s Gibberish”

Subhead: ” ‘The push to normalize Donald is Breathtaking’ said Donald Trup’s Niece”

“Mary Trump has accused legacy media organizations of normalizing former President Donald Trump and injecting meaning into his increasingly incoherent statements, and warned of its “dangerous” effects.”

. . . ““It’s as if the legacy media has decided that its job is not to report what he’s saying, but to translate it for us,” she added. “The problem is twofold. One, they’re not telling us that’s what they’re doing. They’re reporting it as if these are the things Donald is saying coherently.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mary-trump-donald-trump-media_n_66f41197e4b01c2b5008ec52

Media Voter-Machine Fraud Claims, What Happened?

by

Article on NPR by Maddy Lauria & David Folkenflik, 9/26/24

Headline: “Voting-tech company settles with right-wing network over false election claims”

“Once more, a voting tech company has settled its defamation lawsuit over false allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election before the start of trial — in this instance, Smartmatic USA’s suit against the conservative network Newsmax.”

“. . . ‘Lying to the American people has consequences,’ the company’s statement said. ‘Smartmatic will not stop until the perpetrators are held accountable.’ ”

https://www.npr.org/2024/09/26/nx-s1-5130183/newsmax-smartmatic-settlement-defamation-election-lawsuit

Legacy Media Treat Elections as Sports Events

by

Rollerball Image from TMBD

Article by feris Hero, Daily Kos, 9/24/24

Headline: Dear Legacy Media, Election Coverage Is Not (And Never Should Be) A Sporting Event

“The legacy media coverage of elections is too often treated by them and others as some kind of sporting event. I’m not even really discussing the elections themselves, but rather the coverage itself is the sporting event. A bad week of media coverage gets stories about ‘How Can the Campaign Turn This Around?’, which is often a cover to run negative points about the opposing campaign. Media complains that campaign isn’t providing enough details on some policy point, ignoring the fact that no politician has provided actual details on policies since at least before any of us were born.”

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/9/24/2272572/-Dear-Legacy-Media-Election-Coverage-Is-Not-And-Never-Should-Be-A-Sporting-Event?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

The Cats Know the ‘Truth’ – So do the Media

by

Article in Huffington Post by Ron Dicer, 9/24/24

Headline:  “JD Vance Rips Media for Debunking Haiti Story, says Let People Speak their ‘Truth’ “

Subhead: “The GOP veep nominee also danced around questions about controversial governor candidate Mark Robinson.”

“The Ohio senator, who is Republican Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate, attacked the media for actually investigating to disprove the claims and later complained that too few in the media investigate the truth.

. . . “Vance, of course, conveniently failed to mention the townsperson who spoke her ‘truth’ in a police report that apparently fueled many of the racist lies but admitted later that she found her cat in the basement.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jd-vance-media-debunking-let-people-speak-their-truth_n_66f2971be4b0199dbefae802

 

Lie Exposed in Media, Spun Out of Control

by

Article in Media Matters by Matt Gertz, 9/18/24

Headline: “JD Vance, Springfield, and how MAGA media spun a racist lie out of control”

Subhead: “Vance’s office was told it was “baseless” from the beginning”

“Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance told reporters on Tuesday that it was their job — not his — to fact-check his claim that Haitians were stealing and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. The Wall Street Journal did just that, revealing on Wednesday morning that Springfield’s city manager told Vance’s office that the story was baseless, soon after the Republican vice presidential nominee started publicly making the racist claim.”

“Earlier this month, a Springfield resident published a since-deleted post to a private local Facebook group spreading “vague, third hand gossip” about Haitian immigrants stealing and eating pets in the area.

The internet rumor spread to X on September 5 and spiraled through the right-wing media apparatus for days. Then on the morning of September 9, Vance, who is extremely online, promoted the claims on X, triggering a slew of supportive coverage from right-wing media.

https://www.mediamatters.org/jd-vance/jd-vance-springfield-and-how-maga-media-spun-racist-lie-out-control