Fake News and the Narrative

January 25, 2019 By John Kinsellagh

Back in 2004, The Boston Globe published, on its front page, sexually graphic images that purported to show U.S. soldiers raping Iraqi women. The images were abhorrent and unleashed a torrent of criticism of American soldiers in Iraq.

The only problem was, the photograph was a fake. Then-editor Marty Baron said, "There was a lapse in judgment and procedures." The much touted editorial firewalls and protections for reporting integrity were completely ineffectual.

 The reason the photograph made it through the editorial safeguards was that those charged with ensuring reporting integrity accepted the photograph as true, because they wanted it to be true.

Authentication was unnecessary because the image comported with their view that U.S. soldiers were engaged in acts of barbarism and torture.

Fifteen years later, editorial poor judgment within the mainstream media abounds. In the span of three days, journalists proceeded to surpass their already rock-bottom approval ratings for credibility by abandoning fundamental tenets of journalism, all for the necessary and noble.............

An incomplete summary of some of the spurious premises underlying the gospel of The Narrative can be summarized as follows:

• America as an irredeemably racist society.
• Those who voted for Trump are deplorables and shall be treated as such.
• There is a nationwide sexual harassment crisis occurring at the highest levels of corporate America. As such, sensitivity training for all men shall be encouraged. Any man who might have a legitimate objection is a misogynist and not "all that a man can be."
• There is a rape crisis engulfing the nation's colleges and universities. As such, kangaroo courts must be established. Procedures shall favor the allegations of the victim – due process protections for the accused shall be discarded.
• White men cannot accept their diminished role in society because the inexorable rise of the "coalition of the ascendant" is going to knock them from their perch of White Supremacy and oppressive White Privilege. ..............Read more