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My latest PJ article: Too good to fact check — 8 Comments

  1. LEOs have been terminating veterans in the US for some time now. It hasn’t gotten much attention for obvious reasons.

  2. “Erdeley and the editors appear to have jettisoned those time-honored procedures for reasons that were most likely both ideological and self-serving: the story was a perfect fit for their pre-existing biases about campus rape and its perpetrators, and the tale was so sensational that it could practically guarantee them a record number of readers.”

    Bingo. The only question to be answered now is what will be the consequence? I am not hopeful.

  3. “Erdely and Rolling Stone set out to find a particular type of narrative and they got a sensational one.”

    Brit Hume once noted that it’s not about bias or a lack thereof; we all have our biases. It’s rather about how we control those biaes so as not to color the facts.

    Erdley et. al. not only failed to control their biases, they fed them and exacerbated them. This Rathergate all over again except to an exponential degree.

    My astonishment is that people think this is unusual for the media. It’s not, just look at the headline mongering from 150 years ago; it was at least as bad as it is today. Don’t forget, Lincoln was called “an ape” outright and many people believe that the Spanish-American war came to pass because of ginned-up press reports of the explosion of the USS Maine in Havana harbor (to name but two examplesa).

    Nihil sub sole novum (There is nothing new under the sun)!

  4. Geoffrey Britain, 3:23 pm — “Bingo. The only question to be answered now is what will be the consequence? I am not hopeful.”

    Is your pet cricket chorus all tuned up and ready to perform, for their expected concert?

  5. The Duke rape case should have been an instructive wake up call for all educators and journalists. It’s like it never happened. I guess when you always claim the moral high ground, you can do as you wish.

  6. Media ‘rejiggering’ of stories happens up and down the scale.

    It’s even MORE common in the tiny stories that are obviously never going to be ‘fact checked’ — typically those tossed in the hopper by stringers.

    On the economics, stringers HAVE to ‘polish’ their stories to get them inserted.

    Usually this takes the form of crafting a piece that simply reinforces the ‘party line’ at this or that periodical.

    Group reinforcing news blurbs get published — whereas jarring realities get clipped out and down to the floor.

    In one-party states — like ‘Barry’s world’ — this can reach apex deceit.

    One is reminded of the bizarre screeds in Der Sturmer, wherein wholly fabricated ‘news stories’ and ‘crimes’ met print.

    It also smacks of Stalinism: the continual turmoil of new out-groups/ out-factions/ wrong-thinkers/ counter-culturalists/ ‘wreckers’ …

    That these fellows are absolutely aping Hitler and Stalin is totally lost on them.

    Such is the nature of the ‘True Believer.’

    Religion is not dying — it’s being perverted into the anti-Ten Commandments.

    For MAN is to be greater than God. (Yiikes);
    The ways of all fore-fathers are to be dis-honored;
    And a general license to covet is extended across the age.

    The theft and murder part, is also patent.

  7. My recent long weekend in Libby-Land (a.k.a. The Vineyahd), this “rape culture” thing came up. As in, “They’re [evil conservatives] just trying to deny the Rape Culture[TM].”

    Rape Culture[TM] is now officially A Thing. An Article of Faith. (And a Shibboleth, natch.) Because, patriarchy!

    Goes right along with Climate Change. Because, ecology!

    Et cetera, et cetera, and so forth.

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