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How the MSM makes its sausage — 42 Comments

  1. The ultimate example of this gambit was the FBI and DOJ using their paid informant (was it Mr. Steele himself?) to get FISA warrants. But his say-so wasn’t sufficient so for corroboration they went to an Isikoff story written in Yahoo News for independent confirmation.

    The problem was that the anonymously sourced story was really just reporting on the controversy generated by the informant himself. They got the warrant anyway, of course.

    I did scan the linked article, which does mention the Steele dossier; but they left out the part with the Isikoff article being used as evidence. That was the most shocking to me.

  2. Mark Judge is a very interesting man. He has learned a great deal through his suffering with internal and external demons and seems to have developed tremendous courage.

  3. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so damaging if in the rare case where an MSM outlet issues a retraction, it wasn’t buried and in tiny print. If the NYT and WaPo were the least bit trustworthy they would’ve had a front page headline stating in the largest possible print “We Were Wrong about Russia Collusion and We Apologize” (or any other fake news “report the contraversy” story). But the reality is that to this day there’s a huge number of people who still fully believe the Russia Collusion hoax as well as lots of other false stories, and it’s not in the MSM’s interest to disabuse them of that belief. Not at all.

    As we all know, most of the false narrative building the media does is primarily fueled by powerful elites with political and financial agendas. But at least some of it is also about making the audience that consumes it feel good about themselves by reinforcing their warped world views. After all, the people who regularly read the NYT or watch CNN aren’t really looking for the truth, they’re looking to confirm their biases. They’re looking for self satisfaction and reaffirment of their moral superiority. They prefer delusion to reality.

  4. Not MSM. CM. Corporate Media!

    The Left and Alinsky have been kicking our *sses controlling language. We need to learn from them. The words we use matter. We need to stop using their words. It gives them and their institutions validation.

    CNN is not mainstream. They have a fraction of the viewers Joe Rogan’s podcast/videocast has.
    The Atlantic magazine is not mainstream.
    The Washington Post is not mainstream.

    The Atlantic is owned by one of the wealthiest women in the world and the Washington Post is owned by one of the wealthiest men in the world.

    Corporate Media.

    This is not my original idea. I’ve been hearing others advocate for this for a few years and I see more and more adoption of the term, even in very public forums. I’m hearing independent journalists use it now.

    1. “Mainstream” implies massive acceptance. It cedes victory. This is not valid and is easily refuted by looking at viewer/readership statistics. It is not a true statement so don’t state it.

    2. “Corporate” accurately describes the power structure. They are not in the news business. They are in the revenue generation business. They exist to generate revenue for their owners/shareholders. Or, in the case of private owners like Laurene Jobs, Jeff Bezos and Marc Benioff, they exist as vanity projects to promote their absurdly wealthy benefactors’ interests.

    3. “Corporate” is an accurate divider between them and reporters/pundits like neo, Bari Weiss, Matt Taibi, Glenn Greenwald, Joe Rogan, Michael Malice, Jordan Peterson, Glenn Reynolds. Neo is free to speak her mind.

    4. Independent news sources are not beholden to a corporate structure or the leviathan hierarchy of a New York Times. A camel is a horse designed by a committee. I get more accurate covid vaccine information from Alex Berenson (one dogged, determined, brilliant reporter focused on the truth) than I do from CNN or FoxNews with their huge staffs and layers of bureaucracy.

    Corporate media is not mainstream. It is not beholden to the public, or truth. They are enormous companies in the business of creating content to advance a narrative and/or generate ad revenue.

    Corporate Media

  5. Rufus: Helpful analysis. Similarly, I wish that people would stop referring to Leftists as “progressive,” as there really is nothing progressive about their ideas and desire for control.

  6. I’m not a fan of the term “Corporate Media” because it plays into the “Capitalism sucks” meme. I only wish that media were in it for the money. They’d reflect the interests of the general public then. More accurately (per Glenn Reynolds) CNN, MSNBC, the NYT, the WP, etc. are an arm of the Democratic Party and the permanent bureaucracy – although that’s a redundancy.
    Calling them Corporate Media only invites a “we need government regulation of the CM” response.

  7. T-Rex on December 1, 2021 at 2:53 pm said:

    Rufus: Helpful analysis. Similarly, I wish that people would stop referring to Leftists as “progressive,” as there really is nothing progressive about their ideas and desire for control.”

    Diabetes is a progressive disease, even when treated. Similarly Alzheimer, and many other forms of neuro-degenerative ailments.

    The idea of “progress” being identified exclusively with a socially and ethically positive forward or upward “direction” is as we all know an ideological construct dating back to Vico.

    It is a concept which former liberals who were no longer [if ever] interested primarily in individual liberty latched onto, in order to veil themselves with the reputation of say, a decades earlier populist Whiggism, as in Henry Clay’s American System: a national policy of improvements to uplift all.

    But I cannot think of anyone who takes the political term “progressive” to imply a commitment to objective and demonstrably distributive human progress for all stakeholders, any more than the political term “liberal” has anything to do with the classic formulations which were meant to secure personal and economic liberty against government officeholder overreach..

    But then, they cannot very well call themselves “The League of Resentment and Envy Driven Moral Defectives”, or as Zaphod would have it, “The Union of Collectivist Mutants Offloading the Costs of our Mutations on to You”, can they.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/01/10/conservatives-really-are-better-looking-research-says/

  8. RE Media,

    The mention of France reminds me of a term I used to occasionally use: “Collaborationist Media”.

    Vichy Media, might be just as good apart from the fact that leftists have no sense of irony and would object that Vichy France was blah blah blah . LOL

  9. Mark Judge is a very interesting man. He has learned a great deal through his suffering with internal and external demons and seems to have developed tremendous courage.

    In Judge’s case, I suspect it’s what the song says, “‘Freedom”s just another word for nothin’ left to lose..”

  10. Back when the term “mainstream media” was coined, the designated outlets did constitute the bulk of what most people read and viewed.
    Now, not so much.

    Rufus and Eva both make good points, but I’m on her side: we shouldn’t associate bona fide capitalism & legitimate corporations with the collaborationist propaganda arm of the Democrat Régime.

    I’ve sometimes used the term “legacy media” to distinguish the old-mainstream from the new independents, but that also could encompass some venerable conservative outlets like the New York Post.

    Coming up with new brand names to replace conventional usage is hard.
    I think I’ll just go with President Trump: Fake News Media
    Or maybe The Brandon Times.

  11. Some sausage is essentially fermented ground meat.

    My strangest summer job was making sausage culture by the hundreds of gallons. It was canned like orange juice concentrate, frozen, then shipped to customers all over the US.

    It was a very responsible job. If I screwed up, the factory would lose a day’s production. The guy I replaced had had a nervous breakdown and needed Some Time Off.

    That’s how I helped make sausage.

    I don’t think the MSM is as careful as I was.

  12. I’m missing all the love of corporations here.

    Did Coca Cola have your back during last year’s riots? Pepsi? Morgan Stanley? The major airlines? Disney? NBC? Paramount? Alphabet (Google)? Meta (Facebook)? Amazon?

    They all couldn’t change their logos fast enough to show support for the rioters.

    What corporation has your best interests at heart, and what do corporations have to do with Capitalism?

    I judge individual entities by individually. Do they support and protect freedom? Are they fair? Do they charge a fair price? Nothing about Amazon’s size or make up of their Board makes them more or less capable to do those things than an independent, sole proprietor I transact with in my own backyard.

  13. Regime Media and Palace Media are also both good terms. Legacy is too kind and non-commital.

    I prefer Corporate Media because it’s not as emotional as “Regime” and “Palace.” One can use it without seeming like one is inviting debate. It is a simple statement of fact. A statement that gives away the game.

  14. To be technical I’m sure much of the right leaning ‘truth teller’ media that most of us here would support are also ‘Corporate Media.’

  15. Art Deco,

    I suspect the same regarding Judge. It seems like there are two ways humans often get there; losing it all or having an abundance of wealth. I keep trying to thread the needle but it’s likely a fool’s errand. And, of course, either extreme doesn’t guarantee freedom and enlightenment. Plenty of paupers and tycoons shuttle this mortal coil with regret and misery.

  16. Griffin,

    Yes, absolutely. That’s another reason I like the term. It’s good to remember FoxNews is part of Rupert Murdoch, Inc. Witness the transfer of power to his children. Not exactly Roger Ailes’ newsroom any more…

  17. “Based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 6.1 million employer firms in the United States in 2018 (latest data): Firms with fewer than 500 employees accounted for 99.7 percent of those businesses.”
    It’s not the business of business to charge “a fair price” or “to support and protect freedom”. It’s their very existence that insures “a fair price” and promotes the presence of freedom.
    As for Coca Cola and Amazon – I would bet the farm (if I had one) that they squander less money than any federal, state, or local government entity.

  18. Rufus T. Firefly on December 1, 2021 at 6:08 pm said:

    I’m missing all the love of corporations here.

    Not from me.

    When was the last time large corporations on average [ or more precisely their top managers] stood up for the free market, economic liberty for all, and the indifferent application of the law?

    Was there even a last time?

  19. How about “Corporate Propagandists”?

    BTW, last I read, just 6 parent corporations control nearly the entire broadcasting industry.

    The major woke corporations have made the calculation that only the left poses a threat to their continued existence. Appeasement through virtue signaling and donations to the ‘appropriate’ parties is their “protection money”.

  20. Big corporations frequently find that rent-seeking and regulatory capture are far more profitable than “capitalism”. It is much easier to make money if you have the government squashing your competition and dumping slops in your trough. Do you pay for that privilege? Of course you do. But it’s worth it.

    Why the scare quotes on “capitalism”? Because I think most of us here, who think we’re for “capitalism”, are really for free enterprise. Rent-seeking and regulatory capture are the antithesis of free enterprise.

    Marxists use the word “capitalism” as a criticism. “Capitalists” take over society for their own benefit. That is exactly what corporations engaged in rent-seeking and regulatory capture do. The only thing Marxists have wrong about it is that they attribute the evil to the corporation and not to the government, without which rent-seeking and regulatory capture cannot exist. They have this fantasy that people who use guns are less powerful than people who have money. As Machiavelli observed, while gold can buy iron, iron has no trouble acquiring gold.

    Government and big corporations are like a farmer and his hogs, respectively. The farmer feeds the hogs and keeps the wolves away. It’s great for the hogs until the bacon part.

  21. Is the Daily Wire a corporation? Salem Media?

    Hell, probably a bunch of even smaller outlets are corporations also.

    I get what people are trying to say with term but it seems inexact.

  22. Yes, several here have said it, and I’ll second the motion: Stop calling it the ‘Main Stream Media’. It is anything but. It’s the ‘Corporate Media’ and it’s drifted out of the main stream and into a terrible, fetid backwater of its own making. Let it stay there, bloat belly up, and rot – a lesson to all.

  23. @Griffin:I get what people are trying to say with term but it seems inexact.

    I think most of us here know that any business of any size is probably incorporated. It’s foolish not to be, since someone who slips on the sidewalk in front of your mom-and-pop shop can end up with your house, your savings, and your kids’ college money if you are NOT incorporated.

    If you need the technical term for the figure of speech it’s “synecdoche”. What’s meant here by “corporation” is “the subset of big corporations that have power and influence”. The “too big to fails” who get the rules changed to favor them.

    So no, we don’t mean the Daily Wire or my neighbor who owns a car wash under an LLC. It’s like how if you call someone a “suit” you don’t mean someone who wears one to church.

  24. Just call ’em the Mainstream Corrupt Media. (Works for me….)
    – – – – – – – – –
    And speaking of capitalism (in the best sense of the term), not all may be lost, since even in these confusing and perilous times, there is good news—that entrepreneurship and innovation are thriving…”necessity” kicking in right on cue to be the “mother of invention”:
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/millions-americans-are-scrambling-become-independent-system-it-collapses-all-around-them

    (No doubt much to “Biden”‘s chagrin….)

  25. I judge individual entities by individually. Do they support and protect freedom? Are they fair? Do they charge a fair price?

    1, A fair price is (1) transparent to the customer and (2) what the customer is willing to pay in (3) a market in which the capacity of the producer or vendor to act as a price maker is circumscribed or non-existent.

    2. A business is fair when the deal is understood up front by all parties in every market in which the business operates – goods and factor markets alike.

    3. A business does well enough when it refuses to be conscripted into causes of any kind and limits its intervention in public life to promoting the liberties of producers, vendors, and consumers to transact business with each other per their preferences in circumstances where the deal is transparent to all parties. Business proprietors and business employees can certainly engage in causes in their capacity as persons.

  26. Was there even a last time? [that corporations stood up for free markets, etc.]

    Interesting question. Ronald Reagan’s politics was developed in part through speaking tours he gave under the funding and auspices of General Electric corp.

    The Olin Foundation is another possible example, though I don’t know much of the details. Read the first couple Wiki paragraphs here.
    _____

    Very nice description of rent seeking crony capitalists by Frederick.

    I’ve got a house guest that has never seen many of my favorite films and last night we watched The Aviator which is about Howard Hughes. The portrayal of Juan Trippe and Pan Am airlines (which may not be entirely accurate) is a classic example of the worst of Frederick’s description.

  27. TommyJay,

    I second your praise of Frederick’s description.

    I have not seen “The Aviator,” but I have seen the scene of Hughes dining with Hepburn’s wealthy family and taking her foppish brother to task. It’s so delicious I choose not to research it for fear of learning it never happened.

  28. TommyJay, you mention the Olin Foundation. Here’s some more info:
    “By closing its doors, this pioneer in the conservative movement’s network of cash dispensers is simply following the express wishes of its founding benefactor, John M. Olin, who died in 1982.

    Fearful that his family might someday lose control of the foundation and that it would fall into liberal hands-much the same way that the descendants of Henry Ford lost control of his foundation to a board of progressives-Olin stipulated that the foundation’s trustees were to spend all of his money by the end of their lives. So, when the foundation’s longtime president, former Treasury Secretary William Simon, died in 2000, the remaining trustees dutifully decided to phase out the institution over the next five years.”
    That’s the way to do it.

  29. Griffin,

    I don’t understand why the fact that you like some “Corporate” media outlets is a defense against using the term.

    It is good to speak the truth. That is one reason I don’t like, “mainstream media.” It is not, necessarily, mainstream. I don’t think any CNN show regularly cracks 1,000,000 viewers, including folks who accidentally left the TV on while taking a shower. What percentage of the country loathes FoxNews and does not trust it? 60%? 70%? How about MSNBC? What news outlet is, actually, mainstream? Mainstream implies trust, dependability, reliability. What outlet has earned that name?

    And even if you like FoxNews or NewsMax or Salem Broadcasting, why is it harmful to highlight the fact that they are a business and not a public trust? Businesses can change. Knowing something was sponsored by the Walt Disney Company would have imbued trust with me 30 years ago. Now it does not. I’m glad I am informed.

  30. Rufus,

    I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t feel that strongly about this and usually if talking about this I just say ‘media’ or something like ‘WaPo, CNN etc.’

    But I don’t use ‘Corporate Media’ because it just seems too all encompassing.

    I know what people mean by it but just like I hate juvenile nicknames for politicians it’s not how I talk.

  31. The one descriptor for the media that I thought actually fit was Rush Limbaugh calling them ‘the drive by media’ because there was such a lack of depth and curiosity to their coverage but I’m not sure that even fits in today’s environment.

  32. Rufus,
    That’s a great scene with quite a bit going on. The chaotic, aimless, and preening chatter thrown at a focused goal-driven man is what sticks with me.

    I recommend watching the whole film though it is long at nearly 3 hrs. It’s a film I haven’t seen a bunch of times, even though I own it. I think Hughes’ creeping mental disfunction and his obvious physical pain later in the film isn’t something that I relish revisiting on a whim. It’s a fabulous script and production though.
    _____

    Eva Marie,
    I once heard someone at or near the top of the Ford Foundation defend their orientation vis-a-vis Henry Ford’s political inclinations. They justified themselves by saying that Henry let Edsel control the foundation knowing that Edsel was a liberal. I wouldn’t know if that was true.

    Other foundations/donors that seem pretty good based on my limited knowledge are the Carnegie and the Langone Hospital in NYC. The ones I know in California are a horror show.

  33. Re: “The Aviator”…

    TommyJay:

    I also recommend “The Aviator.” That was the film where I realized that DiCaprio was an excellent actor and would have a fine career beyond his pretty boy stage.

    The film followed the outlines of what I knew of Hughes’ life (not all that much). Here’s a link which says the film was reasonably accurate, though not complete:

    https://dailyhistory.org/How_accurate_is_the_movie_The_Aviator

    Yes, the film is hard to get through more than once for the portrayal of Hughes’ mental anguish as his mind deteriorated.

  34. Eva Marie,

    Thanks for that information about the Olin Foundation. Pretty clever. We won’t see it play out in history, but he was undoubtedly correct.

  35. Red State has several posts up that kind of put the sausage on the grill.

    https://redstate.com/jeffc/2021/12/01/chris-cuomos-scandal-is-a-microcosm-of-a-larger-problem-in-media-n485113

    However, Chris Cuomo’s behavior can also be seen as a microcosm of how the Fourth Estate typically deals with Democratic politicians. When one takes a step back and looks at the bigger picture, the activist media does the exact same thing with President Joe Biden and other Democratic politicians.

    They constantly run defense for Democrats while placing Republicans and conservatives in their crosshairs.

    The establishment media apparatus has a Cuomo-like relationship with the Democratic Party and has carried it on since before Trump ever thought of running for president. They are essentially the Ministry of Propaganda for the left. The difference is that nobody within their ranks will hold them accountable for their apparent disregard for objectivity.

    Even in the case of Andrew Cuomo, they only took action against him because he had become a liability. …We can best believe that if the former governor was still a net positive for Democrats, they’d have done Chris Cuomo’s job for him.

    The reality of the situation is that Americans should be leery of most of the media outlets they consume. Chris Cuomo is not the only corrupt so-called journalist out there. Most of the media activists in popular outlets are in league with the hard left and the Democratic Party. Cuomo’s actions are but a glimpse into how this world functions.

    https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/12/01/media-buries-the-lede-about-the-big-news-concerning-lebron-james-n485051

    They talk about James going into “health and safety protocols.” If you’re not familiar with the term and many likely are not, you might think he injured himself. Talk about burying the lede. But many other media outlets followed ESPN’s lead, just saying that he’d entered the “health and safety protocols,” not being explicit in their headlines.

    This is an extremely reluctant way of saying he has COVID, but ESPN didn’t even mention COVID in the story until the 13th paragraph. Even in that paragraph, they don’t say he has it — they just talk generically about what a player must do according to league rules if one has it. They don’t say anywhere in the article that he has COVID; they are that hesitant to even do that.

    So, why is the media trying so hard not to say he’s got it in those simple and clear terms? Can we call it a pro-James bias?

    https://redstate.com/brandon_morse/2021/12/01/the-left-is-losing-its-most-ardent-supporters-n485023?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=onsite&utm_campaign=-1

    The youth are very good at getting messages out and they carry the most fire when delivering them. The left spends a lot of time, effort, and money in getting the youth on their side. Celebrities, artists, and musicians are utilized quite a bit in this quest, dragging impressionable youngsters into their way of thinking and turning them into walking, talking propagandists.

    And yet, they’re turning away from Biden. While this may be just Biden, the implications here are a bit heavier.

    If the youth is more plugged in than ever and they’re turning their back on Biden, then it doesn’t bode well for the party that pushed him so vehemently. It’s clear that Biden is a puppet and the majority of Americans do think that there’s someone else running the show, including a sizeable chunk of Democrats.

    It’s clear that Democrats pushed a lie, and a youth that believes it was lied to has never reacted kindly to the liars.

    It’s possible that a massive disillusionment may be resulting from the Democrat’s philosophy of “by any means necessary.”

    Because if the Democrats lied about Biden…what else are they lying about?

    The very best sausage is in this casing.
    https://redstate.com/bonchie/2021/12/01/dr-fauci-and-jen-psaki-tag-team-a-presser-that-devolves-into-a-mind-bending-disaster-n485057?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=onsite&utm_campaign=-1

    But the real meat is here.
    https://redstate.com/joesquire/2021/12/01/the-infrastructure-bill-is-joe-bidens-shovel-ready-jobs-moment-n484821?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=onsite&utm_campaign=719

    [After some background on Obama’s programs that never happened]
    Now, Joe Biden is celebrating the passage of a bipartisan infrastructure bill, and one that he says will kickstart the economy and fix major issues in our infrastructure system immediately. But we already know that won’t be the case because that relies again on “shovel-ready jobs” at a time when employment is sluggish and there are supply chain and transportation issues.

    None of the jobs or projects will get underway in a timely manner, but once again, the media will not care all that much. Biden got something passed, and it’s cemented into his legacy. That was the goal. That’s what they want.

    Then there is some background on Chris Cuomo’s termination — finally — at CNN.

    A friend of mine on the left reached out via Twitter after the texts detailing Cuomo’s involvement with his brother’s team came out. “It’s journalistic disgrace,” he said. “I’m actually surprised I haven’t seen much else on it ever, other than from you. Meaning the left wasn’t covering it.”

    There is a reason that the media acts like this, and it goes beyond “They are leftist partisan hacks.” There is a reason they didn’t want to touch any of this. It’s all because these people know who butters their bread.

    News executives, account managers, and editors know that the goal in journalism isn’t journalism. The goal is to do it in a way that gets eyes on the advertisements of the people who pay them big bucks to get their ads on television and in print.

    For them, it’s not about journalism. If it were, they wouldn’t be worshipping the Democrats like they do. They wouldn’t be trying to build up new superstars. [AOC for instance]

    You won’t find out about Biden’s infrastructure promises being empty until well after the fact, because the news outlets don’t want to run off their audiences (any more than they already have) and reporters don’t want to lose that sweet, sweet access in Washington they’ve been getting.

    “Establishment Media” has a nice ring to it; I think I’ll start using that label.

  36. Thanks for that link huxley.

    As expected, the story element of Juan Trippe buying Senator Brewster is debatable in term of historical accuracy.

  37. How about “Corporate Propagandists”?

    Or as Gerald McRaney said in an interview many years ago, “I know they’re lying sons of bitches, she knows they’re lying sons of bitches, they know they’re lying sons of bitches, and the only people I truly care about know they’re lying sons of bitches.”

  38. MSM coverage is mostly truthful to the same extent that the Saint Fentanyl riots were mostly peaceful.

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