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Malicious Media?

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Article in Daily Kos by Sabrina Haake, 12/99/24

Headline:  “Media malfeasance got us here, and media malfeasance will keep us here”

“Mainstream media spent last week in a self-righteous frenzy over Joe Biden’s pardon of his son.

“Almost none of the coverage explained that Hunter Biden was pardoned for offenses rarely prosecuted in the first place.

“. . . Since the pardon was announced, Fox News has churned non-stop false narratives equating the “Biden crime family” with Trump’s long litany of felonies. Fox News ran over 80 features covering the Biden pardon over the past week alone, yet to this day has still never factually discussed J6 or Trump’s role in it.

“Fox similarly offers no criticism of Trump’s plan to install a psychopath to turn the FBI into a dragnet against American citizens.. . . ”

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/12/9/2291063/-Media-malfeasance-got-us-here-and-media-malfeasance-will-keep-us-here?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

Media Empire Trouble

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Article in The Guardian by Lauren Aratani, 12/9/24

Headline:  “Rupert Murdoch loses battle to control succession to his media empire”

Subhead:  “Media mogul’s three adult children will retain control despite attempt to give his son Lachlan complete control”

“Rupert Murdoch’s three adult children will retain control over their father’s media empire upon his death, a Nevada court has ruled after Murdoch launched a campaign to wrest away their power and give it all to his oldest son.

“The New York Times reported on Murdoch’s loss, citing a sealed court decision that was filed on Saturday. The family battle took place outside of the public’s eye, despite attempts from the media to gain access to the trial.”

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/dec/09/rupert-murdochmedia-empire-children

Media Whitewashed Tyrant

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Just a regular guy – but will it happen here?

Article in The Guardian by Zoe Williams, 12/9/24

Headline:  “They ‘didn’t look the type’: how the media was fooled by Bashar and Asma al-Assad”

Subhead:  “Some journalists underestimated the threat of the brutal president, while his first lady was glamorised in a Vogue feature”

“When the Syrian spring erupted in 2011, Vogue magazine ran a profile of Asma al-Assad titled A Rose in the Desert. Her husband had already killed more than 5,000 civilians, including hundreds of children, when Asma was described as ‘the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies’. The journalist, Joan Juliet Buck, went on to note that ‘her style is not the couture-and-bling dazzle of Middle Eastern power but a deliberate lack of adornment’ ”.

“. . . Vladimir Putin was, around the same time, trying to cast himself as an action hero, releasing photos of himself on horseback, bare-chested, on a Harley, with a tiger. Who needs to have a stick up their arse about kleptocracy when it looks like so much fun? If an autocrat doesn’t look or act like one, if he looks instead like a giraffe (as people said about Bashar al-Assad), or a joker, or a clown, or a reality TV showman, maybe it won’t be such a bad life under him after all.”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/09/how-media-was-fooled-bashar-asma-al-assad

News Coverage – Look Out Below!

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Article in The Hill by Filip Timotija. 12/7/24

Headline: “Jon Stewart slams media speculation of Trump presidency”

“. . . Right before interviewing Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) during the episode, Stewart knocked news coverage of Trump’s transition and argued that the country has been through a ‘tumultuous’ year.

“ ‘We appear to be in a transitional period where we are not sure about whether the ground we are standing on is solid, although the news media seems convinced that we are the Road Runner and the Coyote, and the Coyote has run over the cliff, and we just looked down and realized there’s nothing under our feet, and now we are plunging to our deaths,’ Stewart joked in reference to the Looney Tunes animated characters.

“ ‘Because the news media is always very circumspect,’ he added.”

https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/5028055-jon-stewart-media-speculation-trump/

Hegseth Winger Media-Support

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Article from Media Matters by Starr, 12/5/24

Headline: Matt Gertz on right-wing media support for Pete Hegseth: “They’re trying to move someone from Fox & Friends’ weekend show to sixth in line for the presidency”

Subhead: “Gertz: “Donald Trump has repeatedly sought out people that he likes from his television, likes from Fox News, for big roles in his administration”

“I think there is. I think what we’re seeing right now is a test of the power that the right-wing media has within the MAGA movement. Some sort of flare clearly went up over the last 24 hours because after largely remaining passive and backing off from the nomination as all of these damning reports came out, people at Fox and throughout the right-wing media have started rallying to Hegseth’s defense.”

https://www.mediamatters.org/pete-hegseth/matt-gertz-right-wing-media-support-pete-hegseth-theyre-trying-move-someone-fox

Indiana Media Voudoun

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Article in Media Matters by Olivia Little, 12/5/24

Headline:  “Right-wing media launched a migrant witch hunt in rural Indiana”

Subhead:  “Hate groups, a local politician, and the Heritage Foundation tried to take advantage of the misinformation-fueled panic”

“Months after the Trump campaign’s flagrant lies about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, went viral, right-wing media continue to fuel fear of Haitian migration. In Indiana, a small city was the focus of a misinformation-fueled migrant witch hunt led by right-wing media that emboldened hate groups and is now being used as a case study to justify anti-immigrant policies.

“Logansport is a rural city with a population of about 18,000 residents. In mid-September, Kayla Blakeslee, a right-wing talk radio host based out of Fort Wayne, Indiana, posted on Facebook screenshots of emails that claimed “20,000 plus Haitian immigrants” were “dropped off” in Logansport over the last six months. Blakeslee wrote, ‘Is Logansport, IN the new Springfield, OH???’ ”

https://www.mediamatters.org/immigration/right-wing-media-launched-migrant-witch-hunt-rural-indiana

Press Freedom Jeopardy?

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Article in FAIR by Ari Paul, 12/6/24

Headline:  “Appeals Court Upholding TikTok Ban Is a Grim Sign for Press Freedom”

“Donald Trump is just weeks away from returning to the White House, and when he gets there, it is all but assured that he will attack press freedom (FAIR.org, 11/14/24; NBC, 12/4/24).

“But the will and desire to clamp down on free speech and expression isn’t just a Trumpian phenomenon. A US District Court of Appeals panel, with two Republican-appointed judges and one picked by a Democrat, has upheld a law forcing the sale of TikTok because of its alleged Chinese government control (AP, 12/6/24).

“All corners of government, joined by members of both major parties, concur that national security concerns should allow the government to scrap First Amendment principles. This means that Trump’s aggressiveness against free speech isn’t an anomaly of his Make America Great Again movement, but a general feature of American state power. The enormity of this decision, if upheld by the notoriously conservative Supreme Court, is a dire sign of what is to come.”

https://fair.org/home/appeals-court-upholding-tiktok-ban-is-a-grim-sign-for-press-freedom/

TikTok – Medium of Free Speech or Espionage?

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Update:

Article in Washington Post by Madalin Necsutu and Anthony Faiola, 11/6/24

Headline:  “Romanian court annuls presidential vote after Russian interference claims”

Subhead:  “Calin Georgescu won the first round of the election after being propelled by TikTok. Romania’s security services pointed to ‘Russian hybrid actions.’ “

“The Constitutional Court took the extraordinary step of annulling Romania’s presidential election Friday after the country’s security services assessed that the nation had been the target of ‘Russian hybrid actions’ that used TikTok to promote a candidate who has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/12/06/romania-court-annuls-presidential-election/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

Headline:  “Appeals court upholds nationwide TikTok ban-or-sale law”

Subhead:  “The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit made the expedited decision ahead of the TikTok ban’s looming Jan. 19 deadline, in a high-profile case pitting national security concerns against free speech.”

“A federal appeals court has turned away a challenge to a fast-approaching nationwide ban of short-video app TikTok unless it divests from Chinese ownership, placing national security before free speech concerns and bringing the app’s 170 million U.S. users closer to losing access to the wildly popular platform.

“he U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Friday sided with the Justice Department, which argued that the U.S. government has the authority to ban TikTok based on the national security risk that TikTok could be pressured by the Chinese government to expose Americans’ data or influence what they see. TikTok’s parent, ByteDance, is based in China.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/12/06/tiktok-ban-court-ruling-justice-department-bytedance/

All the News That’s Fit to Buy

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Article in IPS by Omar Ocampo, 12/3/24

Headline:  “Twelve U.S. Billionaires Now Have a Combined $2 Trillion”

Subhead: “Nvidia’s Jensen Huang joins the oligarchic dozen, which have more influence over media and politics than ever. “

“The collective net worth of America’s top twelve billionaires has surpassed $2 trillion as of December 3.”

“. . . Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, along with others in the billionaire class, have unsurprisingly used the power of their wealth to expand their political and economic influence. They have both purchased large media platforms, which has granted them the ability to set the terms of public debate with the hopes of influencing public opinion in their favor. ”

https://ips-dc.org/twelve-u-s-billionaires-now-have-a-combined-2-trillion/