Links

Media Voter-Machine Fraud Claims, What Happened?

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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

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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

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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

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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

How to Identify Fakes in the Media

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Article by Annique Mossou from Bellingcat.com, 11/1/21 (over a year old, but still good)

Headline: A Beginner’s Guide to Social Media Verification

“How can we tell whether the posts, articles and claims we see on the internet and social media sites are true? Online conspiracies and deliberately misleading, partisan content are serious issues, after all.”

. . . “Verification doesn’t need to be difficult. It also doesn’t require any complicated algorithms or access to advanced tools or programs that automatically detect whether an image may be fake or manipulated.

“A critical mindset and a close look at the context of an image or post, allied with simple tools such as a Google search or reverse image platforms, are often all it takes to discover whether a piece of content is genuine.”

https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/2021/11/01/a-beginners-guide-to-social-media-verification/

Groups File to Protect FCC Ownership Rules

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Article in Freepress.net by Craig Aaron, 9/20/24

Headline: “Public-Interest Groups Defend FCC’s Broadcast-Ownership Rules Promoting Competition, Diversity and Localism on Air”

“On Friday, six public-interest, media-reform, media-justice and labor organizations joined to file an amicus curiae brief defending the Federal Communications Commission’s broadcast-ownership rules against an industry challenge in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

“The six groups are Common Cause, the Communications Workers of America-National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Free Press, the Future of Music Coalition, the musicFIRST Coalition and the United Church of Christ Office of Communication, Inc. (“UCC Media Justice”). All of these entities have long participated in FCC proceedings and court cases on this issue. Attorneys Cheryl Leanza and Rachel Stillwell authored and filed the brief on the groups’ behalf.

“The FCC’s media-ownership rules are designed to promote competition, viewpoint diversity, ownership diversity and the delivery of local content by broadcast stations licensed to serve communities all across the United States.”

https://www.freepress.net/news/press-releases/public-interest-groups-defend-fccs-broadcast-ownership-rules

FCC  broadcast ownership rules:

https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/fccs-review-broadcast-ownership-rules

Article on the kkfistory website from community radio pioneers Lorenzo Milam and Jeremy Lansman who protested to the FCC against duopoly and bland, monolithic radio of 1974.

https://www.kkfistory.org/lorenzo-jeremys-petition-against-god/

Media Blamed for Assassination Attempts

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Article in Mediaite by David GilmourSep 9/19/24

Headline:  “Greg Gutfeld Blames Media for ‘Their Own Role’ in Trump Assassination Attempts”

. . . another attack on the media (sigh) . . .

“Fox News host Greg Gutfeld blasted “the media” for “their own role” in the two assassination plots against former President Donald Trump.

“Trump appeared on Gutfeld’s show on Wednesday night, just days after the Secret Service foiled a second assassination plot in months, arresting an individual who sought to shoot the Republican nominee as he played golf in Florida on Sunday.

“In the wake of the plot the Trump running mate Senator JD Vance (R-OH) accused “liberals” and the mainstream media of ramping up dangerous political rhetoric that was inspiring violence by calling the former president a “danger to democracy” or a “fascist.”

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/greg-gutfeld-blames-media-for-their-own-role-in-trump-assassination-attempts/

Skeptical about the Media due to Deep Fakes?

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Article in Ars Technica by Benj Edwards – 9/19/2024

Headline:  “Due to AI fakes, the “deep doubt” era is here”

Subhead:  “As AI deepfakes sow doubt in legitimate media, anyone can claim something didn’t happen.”

“Deep doubt is skepticism of real media that stems from the existence of generative AI. This manifests as broad public skepticism toward the veracity of media artifacts, which in turn leads to a notable consequence: People can now more credibly claim that real events did not happen and suggest that documentary evidence was fabricated using AI tools.”

. . . “When we are evaluating the veracity of online media, it’s important to rely on multiple corroborating sources, particularly those showing the same event from different angles in the case of visual media or reported from multiple credible sources in the case of text. It’s also useful to track down original reporting and imagery from verified accounts or official websites rather than trusting potentially modified screenshots circulating on social media. Information from varied eyewitness accounts and reputable news organizations can provide additional perspectives to help you look for logical inconsistencies between sources.”

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/09/due-to-ai-fakes-the-deep-doubt-era-is-here/

Repeating a Lie in the Media Doesn’t Make it True

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Article in Daily Kos by Xaxnar, 9/19/24

Headline: “Must-Read from Jamison Foser – How the media fails us by “Privileging the lie”

“When a news report treats the truthfulness of a lie as an open question, it privileges the lie. When a news report devotes more and more prominent space to recounting the lie and the liar’s defense of it than it does making clear that it’s a lie, the article privileges the lie. When a news report focuses on the target of a lie’s struggle to deal with the impact of the lie, the article privileges the lie. And when a news report focuses on the topic of the lie — even if it does a good job of making clear the lie is a lie — it privileges the lie, because it allows the liar to set the topic of conversation, and thus increases the electoral salience of a topic the liar believes is to his benefit.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/9/19/2270386/-Must-Read-from-Jamison-Foser-How-the-media-fails-us-by-Privileging-the-lie?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

Going, Going, Gone!?

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Article by Don Jacobson on UPI, 9/19/25

Headline: “Trump Media shares reach new low as lockup period set to expire”

“Trump Media, which trades under the ticker symbol DTJ, is the parent company of the GOP nominee’s Truth Social social media platform.

“Thursday’s drop-off continued a six-day slide that has seen Trump Media shares fall more than 10%, wiping out billions in value as retail investors nervously eyed the expiration of the lockup period, under which early investors, including the former president himself, were barred from selling shares following a merger with publicly traded shell company.”

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2024/09/19/Trump-Media-shares-reach-new-low-lockup-period-set-expire/4501726765890/