This is going to be offensive to some people, but... Conflict-avoidant women and emasculated men are the root cause of this.
Most know the type - they're all over the media, HR, and marketing departments. Very good at message alignment because consensus is viewed as the goal. Absolutely terrible at dealing with objective reality because any idea that deviates from the consensus (however false) is viewed as a threat.
A couple of observations based on my years – long ago – in the newsroom of a major metropolitan daily paper:
Reporters seldom have a thorough understanding of the things they write about. To be fair, it's just not possible. I noticed early on that every time there was a story on a subject that I personally knew a lot about, there were errors. Most people probably have experienced similar. If there aren’t outright mistakes, there’s that generally lame feel that tips you off instantly that the writer doesn't have a clue what he's talking about. It always made me wonder how many of the stories on subjects that I didn’t know much about were also inaccurate. Probably most.
Reporters and editors generally have little interest in anything technical, especially when it involves machines and how they work. Much too low-brow to bother with. Many months after the space shuttle Challenger disaster, a story came across the wires with the final findings of the investigators. It revealed manufacturing errors made on the seals between sections of the solid rocket booster casings that were blamed for springing a leak and setting off the big fuel tank. I won’t get into the details, but here at last was the actual physical cause, and it was a machining deficiency that I had not thought of. An aha! moment for anybody interested in how that magnificent machine was put together and what brought it down. I assumed this would be Page One news, and I lobbied for treating it as such in our afternoon planning meeting. Big yawn. I don’t recall whether it even made the paper. The story was technical in nature, with no drama or bureaucratic finger-pointing. In other words, it was not the sort of soap-opera crap that would get their juices flowing, so some very important findings on one of the most memorable disasters in US history were ignored.
I think it is money that makes the world go round. The cut trickles down to the cub reporter. It is as obscene and plain as this. I too was hitting my head against the wall at their inability to understand what was going on, but eventually I wizened up. I am talking of 2020 when I got muzzled very effectively in my country.
The article by Eugyppius was very interesting and encouraging to read. Apparently, in the German "mainstream" press, vaccine injury and death stories are no longer completely off limits. Eugyppius also notes that the company that really created the most-used "vaccine" is a German company. Pfizer just partnered with this Big Pharma firm. Now we need to see if anyone in the American mainstream press (besides Tucker Carlson and a few others) follows the lead of these German news organizations. I would add that these German stories are barely scratching the surface of a scandal that qualifies as a "crime against humanity," but it's a start ... certainly a departure from the 3-year norm.
... And any departure from the Status Quo "coverage" is in itself "a story."
Does your memory extend back to the USSR's and other communist governments' ways? How 100% of their press also was perfectly unified in their disinformative voice? And all their elections and politburo also were unanimous behind their 'dear leaders'? Welcome to the USSR of A. The sooner you realize it, the sooner you wake up.
Thorsteinn, you've identified the trillion-dollar question: Why does the "watchdog" press take a pass on the most important stories of our times?
You identified some possible/likely answers with your use of the Socratic method: "Was it fear of the fact-checking industry? Was it fear of public opinion? Was it an utter lack of the ability for critical thinking? Was it cowardice? Dishonesty? Recklessness?
"Why didn’t they?"
My answer: A little of all of the above. One thing is clear: "Pack journalism" is followed by 100 percent of the corporate journalist "pack." No critical thinkers or dissenters exist in any big newsroom.
And it's not just Covid stories either. IMO this qualifies as the biggest problem in the world today - All the important topics are off limits to real investigations.
I'd say the "journalism" produced by every big "news" organization is highly suspect. A massive purge of these newsrooms would have to occur for the public to ever learn important real truths.
Apr 24, 2023·edited Apr 24, 2023Liked by Thorsteinn Siglaugsson
In 2016 I met Helgi Hrafn Gunnarsson, who was an MP for Iceland's Pirate Party at the time and his newspaper publisher wife, Inga Auðbjörg Kristjánsdóttir and shared conversation with them over Brennivín in Reykjavik. I knew them to be basically anarchists who supported public funding for healthcare. I liked them, except for that public funding for healthcare thing.
What has been the Pirate Party's position on pandemic protocols, the jab? And her newspaper's reporting?
Just confirming, did Thorsteinn have difficulty with the Scandinavian media? In my US silo I just assumed it was the US media that has gone to “hell in a hand basket”.
Why? Why do birds fly, or why do all "five-eye countries" stare directly towards the security state. MSM and most of Independent social platforms have been co-opted by spook organizations. It's only more noticeable now because their decades long propaganda campaigns have been so successful causing demented spooks to become more brazen. News outlets might be corporately owned, but news and even the entertainment divisions are thoroughly controlled by the security state. And that's also why many Hollywood scripts must be reviewed by the CIA and now the CCP before being approved and funded. It couldn't be more obvious that the "COVID terror campaign" like all other "military operations" was synchronized to gain the optimum effect of compliance from the proles.
The MSM is owned and controlled by big private corporations, not the science or journalism departments of universities (although that might have made little difference anyhow given the state of academia). They are afraid of other big private corporations (Pfizer et.al) at the advertising and legal risk level and they are afraid of the State at the info sourcing and patronage level. They are not afraid of the man in the street. If 7,5 people per 100,000 died (or 2 per 1,000 have been seriously injured) because they failed to report news that went against the interests of BigPharma or BigGov, then in their ecosystem that's acceptable collateral damage. On top of that most journalists are not the best and the brightest that society produces; those sharp pencils wouldn't consider a career in journalism. The big risk at the moment is that the alternative media is being or going to be censored (see the EU's Digital Services Act and the revelations from the Twitterfiles in the USA), so that there is no dissenting alternative to the MSM lapdogs. What Thorstein is after in the current timeframe is very difficult: reforming the MSM while BigGov is busy saving their skin from independent media. How about bankrupting them through class action suits? Is not going to work; they owe no contractual obligations to the man in the street for fair and accurate reporting. How about nationalising them? That will make only things worse. How about a mass boycott of the MSM at the level of Bud Light but only bigger and longer? Unfortunately, their subscriber base is already ultra-low. They rely on corporate advertising and government patronage these days. Despair, anyone?
The problem is huge corporations. The news outlets are a part of huge corporations which have their own agenda. They could care less about uncovering and reporting on corruption since they are totally complicit in it. Politicians don't care about breaking them up because they receive political donations from them.
There’s a reason the Ben Collins of the world resort so often to credentialism — it’s really the only thing they have. “Reporter for NBC News” is important because “NBC News” is important. But the narrative is set far above their pay grade, they’re just tasked with finding the most acceptable way to push it. There’s a reason that Musk gave the story to Taibbi in the first place — major outlets wouldn’t run it to begin with!
And if Ben Collins didn’t push the narrative for NBC News, somebody else would — and he knows it. There’s no shortage of people lining up to write fluff PR pieces for the rich and powerful.
If you want to know how the NY Times can employ over 1,000 journalists and continue to miss the most important stories of the day (instead covered by one guy in his free time and his feline editor) — it’s because they’re paid to miss the most important stories of the day. The whole industry is simply the modern-day version of the JournoList.
I think you're right, it's all of the above. As far as a "massive purge of these newsrooms", that won't happen because they're owned and controlled by the same players behind the madness. So, they don't need to be profitable. As long as they prop up the revenue sources the media owners ARE profiting from, they're doing a fine job. Subsidizing them has been a bargain, and a necessity. That won't change. They'll make attempts to increase appeal by appearing to do better. A bigger audience increases their influence. But their raison d'etre is what it is. New sources are the only possible fix.
Usually I just watch Tucker, and leave the TV off. But walked by and it happened to be on yesterday, showing a drug ad, on Fox News. I wondered when this would happen - just saw the news he's out. I got the impression last week he was tired of pulling his punches so much, so something had to give. They chose advertisers over content. I hope that turns out to be a killer for Fox. CNN Lite won't have much of an audience.
May 1, 2023·edited May 1, 2023Liked by Thorsteinn Siglaugsson
>>>Was it fear of the fact-checking industry? Was it fear of public opinion? Was it an utter lack of the ability for critical thinking? Was it cowardice? Dishonesty? Recklessness?<<<
A bit of all of it. There was also, I think, a safety for mainstream journalists by the fact that all of them were the same, not investigating the hard news on Covid. When I criticized pharmaceutical companies for prior vaccine history in a March 2020 OpEd, one of the NYT editorial columnists wrote a piece that said just as there were no atheists in foxholes during a war, there should be no Pharma haters during a pandemic. I answered that in a letter to the NYT (link below). Many of my colleagues, however, told me privately they thought it was not a battle in which they wanted to be engaged. I never understood that. It was only a battle for the truth, isn't that what we are supposed to do as journalists?
This is going to be offensive to some people, but... Conflict-avoidant women and emasculated men are the root cause of this.
Most know the type - they're all over the media, HR, and marketing departments. Very good at message alignment because consensus is viewed as the goal. Absolutely terrible at dealing with objective reality because any idea that deviates from the consensus (however false) is viewed as a threat.
A couple of observations based on my years – long ago – in the newsroom of a major metropolitan daily paper:
Reporters seldom have a thorough understanding of the things they write about. To be fair, it's just not possible. I noticed early on that every time there was a story on a subject that I personally knew a lot about, there were errors. Most people probably have experienced similar. If there aren’t outright mistakes, there’s that generally lame feel that tips you off instantly that the writer doesn't have a clue what he's talking about. It always made me wonder how many of the stories on subjects that I didn’t know much about were also inaccurate. Probably most.
Reporters and editors generally have little interest in anything technical, especially when it involves machines and how they work. Much too low-brow to bother with. Many months after the space shuttle Challenger disaster, a story came across the wires with the final findings of the investigators. It revealed manufacturing errors made on the seals between sections of the solid rocket booster casings that were blamed for springing a leak and setting off the big fuel tank. I won’t get into the details, but here at last was the actual physical cause, and it was a machining deficiency that I had not thought of. An aha! moment for anybody interested in how that magnificent machine was put together and what brought it down. I assumed this would be Page One news, and I lobbied for treating it as such in our afternoon planning meeting. Big yawn. I don’t recall whether it even made the paper. The story was technical in nature, with no drama or bureaucratic finger-pointing. In other words, it was not the sort of soap-opera crap that would get their juices flowing, so some very important findings on one of the most memorable disasters in US history were ignored.
I think it is money that makes the world go round. The cut trickles down to the cub reporter. It is as obscene and plain as this. I too was hitting my head against the wall at their inability to understand what was going on, but eventually I wizened up. I am talking of 2020 when I got muzzled very effectively in my country.
The article by Eugyppius was very interesting and encouraging to read. Apparently, in the German "mainstream" press, vaccine injury and death stories are no longer completely off limits. Eugyppius also notes that the company that really created the most-used "vaccine" is a German company. Pfizer just partnered with this Big Pharma firm. Now we need to see if anyone in the American mainstream press (besides Tucker Carlson and a few others) follows the lead of these German news organizations. I would add that these German stories are barely scratching the surface of a scandal that qualifies as a "crime against humanity," but it's a start ... certainly a departure from the 3-year norm.
... And any departure from the Status Quo "coverage" is in itself "a story."
Does your memory extend back to the USSR's and other communist governments' ways? How 100% of their press also was perfectly unified in their disinformative voice? And all their elections and politburo also were unanimous behind their 'dear leaders'? Welcome to the USSR of A. The sooner you realize it, the sooner you wake up.
I sincerely hope the legacy media doesn't reform. I'm enjoying watching it die.
Thorsteinn, you've identified the trillion-dollar question: Why does the "watchdog" press take a pass on the most important stories of our times?
You identified some possible/likely answers with your use of the Socratic method: "Was it fear of the fact-checking industry? Was it fear of public opinion? Was it an utter lack of the ability for critical thinking? Was it cowardice? Dishonesty? Recklessness?
"Why didn’t they?"
My answer: A little of all of the above. One thing is clear: "Pack journalism" is followed by 100 percent of the corporate journalist "pack." No critical thinkers or dissenters exist in any big newsroom.
And it's not just Covid stories either. IMO this qualifies as the biggest problem in the world today - All the important topics are off limits to real investigations.
I'd say the "journalism" produced by every big "news" organization is highly suspect. A massive purge of these newsrooms would have to occur for the public to ever learn important real truths.
In 2016 I met Helgi Hrafn Gunnarsson, who was an MP for Iceland's Pirate Party at the time and his newspaper publisher wife, Inga Auðbjörg Kristjánsdóttir and shared conversation with them over Brennivín in Reykjavik. I knew them to be basically anarchists who supported public funding for healthcare. I liked them, except for that public funding for healthcare thing.
What has been the Pirate Party's position on pandemic protocols, the jab? And her newspaper's reporting?
Just confirming, did Thorsteinn have difficulty with the Scandinavian media? In my US silo I just assumed it was the US media that has gone to “hell in a hand basket”.
Why? Why do birds fly, or why do all "five-eye countries" stare directly towards the security state. MSM and most of Independent social platforms have been co-opted by spook organizations. It's only more noticeable now because their decades long propaganda campaigns have been so successful causing demented spooks to become more brazen. News outlets might be corporately owned, but news and even the entertainment divisions are thoroughly controlled by the security state. And that's also why many Hollywood scripts must be reviewed by the CIA and now the CCP before being approved and funded. It couldn't be more obvious that the "COVID terror campaign" like all other "military operations" was synchronized to gain the optimum effect of compliance from the proles.
The MSM is owned and controlled by big private corporations, not the science or journalism departments of universities (although that might have made little difference anyhow given the state of academia). They are afraid of other big private corporations (Pfizer et.al) at the advertising and legal risk level and they are afraid of the State at the info sourcing and patronage level. They are not afraid of the man in the street. If 7,5 people per 100,000 died (or 2 per 1,000 have been seriously injured) because they failed to report news that went against the interests of BigPharma or BigGov, then in their ecosystem that's acceptable collateral damage. On top of that most journalists are not the best and the brightest that society produces; those sharp pencils wouldn't consider a career in journalism. The big risk at the moment is that the alternative media is being or going to be censored (see the EU's Digital Services Act and the revelations from the Twitterfiles in the USA), so that there is no dissenting alternative to the MSM lapdogs. What Thorstein is after in the current timeframe is very difficult: reforming the MSM while BigGov is busy saving their skin from independent media. How about bankrupting them through class action suits? Is not going to work; they owe no contractual obligations to the man in the street for fair and accurate reporting. How about nationalising them? That will make only things worse. How about a mass boycott of the MSM at the level of Bud Light but only bigger and longer? Unfortunately, their subscriber base is already ultra-low. They rely on corporate advertising and government patronage these days. Despair, anyone?
The problem is huge corporations. The news outlets are a part of huge corporations which have their own agenda. They could care less about uncovering and reporting on corruption since they are totally complicit in it. Politicians don't care about breaking them up because they receive political donations from them.
It's because they are presstitutes who will be fired if they stray from the approved narrative.
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/its-no-surprise-medias-ignoring-the
There’s a reason the Ben Collins of the world resort so often to credentialism — it’s really the only thing they have. “Reporter for NBC News” is important because “NBC News” is important. But the narrative is set far above their pay grade, they’re just tasked with finding the most acceptable way to push it. There’s a reason that Musk gave the story to Taibbi in the first place — major outlets wouldn’t run it to begin with!
And if Ben Collins didn’t push the narrative for NBC News, somebody else would — and he knows it. There’s no shortage of people lining up to write fluff PR pieces for the rich and powerful.
If you want to know how the NY Times can employ over 1,000 journalists and continue to miss the most important stories of the day (instead covered by one guy in his free time and his feline editor) — it’s because they’re paid to miss the most important stories of the day. The whole industry is simply the modern-day version of the JournoList.
I think you're right, it's all of the above. As far as a "massive purge of these newsrooms", that won't happen because they're owned and controlled by the same players behind the madness. So, they don't need to be profitable. As long as they prop up the revenue sources the media owners ARE profiting from, they're doing a fine job. Subsidizing them has been a bargain, and a necessity. That won't change. They'll make attempts to increase appeal by appearing to do better. A bigger audience increases their influence. But their raison d'etre is what it is. New sources are the only possible fix.
Usually I just watch Tucker, and leave the TV off. But walked by and it happened to be on yesterday, showing a drug ad, on Fox News. I wondered when this would happen - just saw the news he's out. I got the impression last week he was tired of pulling his punches so much, so something had to give. They chose advertisers over content. I hope that turns out to be a killer for Fox. CNN Lite won't have much of an audience.
Here's why ... Follow the trail https://open.substack.com/pub/saxxon/p/do-your-research?utm_source=direct&r=1u8tu3&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
>>>Was it fear of the fact-checking industry? Was it fear of public opinion? Was it an utter lack of the ability for critical thinking? Was it cowardice? Dishonesty? Recklessness?<<<
A bit of all of it. There was also, I think, a safety for mainstream journalists by the fact that all of them were the same, not investigating the hard news on Covid. When I criticized pharmaceutical companies for prior vaccine history in a March 2020 OpEd, one of the NYT editorial columnists wrote a piece that said just as there were no atheists in foxholes during a war, there should be no Pharma haters during a pandemic. I answered that in a letter to the NYT (link below). Many of my colleagues, however, told me privately they thought it was not a battle in which they wanted to be engaged. I never understood that. It was only a battle for the truth, isn't that what we are supposed to do as journalists?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/26/opinion/letters/coronavirus-drug.html