We Need to Get This: The Media Lies....Constantly!

By Rich Kozlovich

Editor's Note:  This was originally published on Saturday, July 21, 2012.  I've decided to post it again as we see this crisis with the media is only getting worse.  The real difference is the public has now become aware of just how bad it was in the past, and how much worse it is now.

The media has had its way for so many years that they have begun to believe their own lies and distortions. Yet their proven “offenses include lying and fabricating, doctoring photos, plagiarism, conflicts of interest, falling for hoaxes, and overt bias.”

The media has for years been displaying righteous indignation over what they started calling the pajama media. Marvin Kalb in 1998 said that "Matt Drudge's role in the Monica Lewinski scandal] strikes me as a new and graphic power of the Internet to influence mainstream journalism. And I suspect that over the next couple of years that impact will grow to the point where it will damage journalism's ability to do its job professionally, to check out information before publication, to be mindful of the necessity to publish and broadcast reliable, substantiated information."

So according the Kalb…and the rest of them…..their concern is one of facts, factual reporting and responsible behavior. Yet if they performed this disreputably in any other field of endeavor, other than politics or law….they would be fired.

Today I received a daily up date from Open Market, one of the services I subscribe to, with this article. Scaremongering ABC Reporter Brian Ross Blames Innocent Man For Colorado Shootings, Leading To Death Threats Against Him, with this comment. "When a 24-year-old shooter killed at least 12 people in a Colorado movie theater, ABC’s Brian Ross was quick to suggest that the murderer was a harmless, 52-year-old Hispanic Tea Party member who shared the same first and last name as the killer. Ross did so even though news reports had already made clear that the killer was young, not middle-aged; the killer’s last name was so common that many people shared it, not just the Tea Party member; and it was obvious that the Tea Party member did not physically resemble the killer. The innocent Tea Party member is now, predictably, getting death threats."

It turns out that this isn't the first time Ross has been involved in such reporting. The article goes on to say that:

"Ross was rewarded by his journalist peers and given a coveted journalism award for deliberate scaremongering and deceptive reporting that created needless fear and anxiety among Toyota owners: “Brian Ross of ABC News repeatedly used footage of Sean Kane criticizing Toyota over sudden acceleration without telling viewers that Kane was being paid by plaintiffs’ attorneys pushing bogus product liability claims; he also faked footage of a tachometer speeding out of control to push the “deadly Toyota” meme."

"All of these scare tactics and hysteria turned out to be utterly false, and refuted by a NASA/NHTSA report finding nothing wrong with the electronics in the automobile. Ross and ABC News haven’t retracted their scare-tactic stories or even apologized, much less slunk off in disgrace. Rather, ABC News submitted Ross’s quack reports for an Edward R. Murrow Award — and got the award, doubling the scandal.” He pushed this theme in spite of the fact that is was known that none of this happened as a result of some problem with the car itself."

They point out that he has a “documented history of shamelessly hyping cooked stories” stretching back to “the 2001 anthrax attacks.”

But Ross isn’t alone in this. What is recognized as ‘the media’ are full of people with a leftwing agenda. They constantly spew out how outraged they are about the ‘vast rightwing conspiracy’ that they have yet to identify as something other than average people fed up with the outrageous behavior of government bureaucrats along with corrupt tax and spend elected officials. All of whom they could care less about as long as they can keep fleecing them. Yet we have clearly had a massive ‘vast left wing conspiracy’ since before WWII. The VENONA intercepts clearly showed that the state department, the CIA, the media, the unions, the universities and any other organization that could influence public opinion had been thoroughly infiltrated by American citizens who were in reality Soviet agents.

"This same pattern of false reporting occurred with the Duke Lacrosse players and what was the response from left-leaning journalists? “Evan Thomas of Newsweek defended the media’s rush to judgment about their supposed guilt, after having been falsely accused of a racist gang-rape (by a woman with a criminal record and history of false allegations, who recently stabbed to death her boyfriend). “The narrative was properly about race, sex, and class,” he said. “We went a beat too fast in assuming that a rape took place. We just got the facts wrong. The narrative was right, but the facts were wrong.”

They just got the facts wrong, but the narrative was right?

That’s the answer?

What does this remind you of?

Do you remember the Dan Rather fiasco of false reporting about G. W. Bush’s military record…..with his constant reminder…. "questions remain”.  For whom?

As this story unfolded it became clear that the so-called records he touted were phony... and it was obvious they had to know it.  As far as they were concerned….even if the facts were wrong the story was right. This is the theme that we constantly see.

In 2005 I ran these comments regarding an interview with Dan Rather’s producer, Mary Mapes.  And who was the interviewer?  You won't believe this...Brian Ross!

“To help those that think the press or more importantly the Main Stream Media is concerned with “truth” there is a web site that called “Notable Quotes” which listed the Best Notable Quotes of 2005. The site also has “The 18th Annual Awards for the Years Worst Reporting” with a Q and A between Mary Mapes (the behind the scenes producer for Dan Rather that got all of them into so much trouble at 60 minutes dealing with the Bush military records story.) and reporter Brian Ross listed under “Quote of the Year”.

Ross asked Mapes , "if she believed the story was true. She stated “The story? Absolutely.” the interviewer found it incredible that she found “this story to be up to your standards”. (Editor's Note: This is an important point) Mapes stated "I’m perfectly willing to believe those documents are forgeries if there’s proof that I haven’t seen."

Does this take you aback? It should. Ross asked “"But isn’t it the other way around? Don’t you have to prove they’re authentic?" Mapes responded by saying that “they haven’t been proven false.” Ross asked what most of us would consider obvious, “ Have they proved to be authentic though? Isn’t that really what journalists do?” Now the quote of the year…….Mapes said; "No, I don’t think that’s the standard."

In short…..the narrative is far more important than the facts. Just like they say in Hollywood; “If it didn’t happen that way, then it should have.” But we know that Hollywood is a fiction factory; that’s their job! We expect the news to be non-fiction.  After all; isn't truth supposed to be "their" job?

“Former ABC News correspondent Bob Zelnick, (this was in 2004) now chairman of the Boston University journalism department, told HUMAN EVENTS that what Rather and Mapes did was "borderline deception of the American people." He called that “borderline deception”? I wonder what he thinks is real deception? Media Research Center President L. Brent Bozell added, "This story was a political hatchet job, based on forged documents, and it was broadcast to the American public because of the liberal bias entrenched at CBS."

These few cases are by no means isolated. Please allow me to introduce you to Mr. Randall Hoven’s media fraud list as of August 16, 2007. If you had any delusions as to the integrity of the main stream media I would think this would put those delusions to rest.

His final question?"If this the tip of the iceberg, how big is the iceberg?"