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If anyone looks at you askance when you say “I don’t believe a word I hear from the mainstream media”…

This video from Daily Caller is a stunning example of why people need to realise the mainstream media are not in the fact-reporting business: the first minute shows a Q&A session as the media reported it; the next two and a half minutes show exactly the same Q&A session – without their edits.

And do not think for a moment that the UK media are materially more reliable.

34 comments to If anyone looks at you askance when you say “I don’t believe a word I hear from the mainstream media”…

  • John Lewis

    Two cheeks of the same arse but sadly as always the lie is half way round the world before the truth gets its pants on – and try finding a mainstream media outlet on either side of the pond willing to tell the truth in such cases.

  • Exasperated

    I’ll be surprised if urban areas in the USA don’t pay a heavy price over the Chauvin trial.
    Not that I have any idea of what a jury will do, but based on what I’ve heard so far and if reasonable doubt is a factor, I think an unbiased juror would have a hard time convicting for negligence or reckless endangerment let alone any of the murder charges. The girlfriend blew up the narrative and the black hat could very well fit the drug dealer.
    As for the media, like a commenter wrote on “Small Dead Animals”, they are McBeth’s hags stirring the cauldron with glee; it is their revenue stream after all. The media will be largely responsible for the aftermath. We know that the media withholds inculpatory or exculpatory evidence based on race, but don’t give their audience a pass, they are tuned in to hear what they want to hear.

  • Natalie Solent (Essex)

    Regarding the video, may I suggest that it might be a good idea to add a note to the post to give the background for the benefit of Samizdata readers who are unfamiliar with the story. In a nutshell, “60 Minutes” used selective editing to smear Ron De Santis, the Republican governor of Florida. The first minute of the video is what was aired by 60 Minutes. It makes it appear as if De Santis refused to answer legitimate questions asked by Sharyn Alfonsi. The remaining two and a half minutes of the video are the uncut version of the same events. It shows De Santis giving detailed and reasonable answers to Alfonsi’s questions; answers that were cut out of the edited version broadcast by CBS.

    Reason magazine has a good summary, and even better links to a transcript of the whole thing showing what was edited out by CBS.

  • Dr. Chaotica

    Natalie is correct. This video is two different versions of the same exchange glued together without any explanation. After some initial confusion, I was able to guess what it probably meant, but should I really have to do that? A little context would help a great deal.

  • lucklucky

    “And do not think for a moment that the UK media are materially more reliable.”

    You jut have to read the Telegraph “news” about Chauvin trial.

  • Johnathan Pearce (London)

    As some people know, I am a financial and business journalist (I have specialised in the wealth and financial services sectors for about 26 years, and before that, was a crime reporter.) I like to defend my trade – there remain a lot of good, hard-working people out there doing important, sometimes dangerous work gathering the news – but the sort of nonsense that goes on in parts of the “mainstream” news is a disgrace. This particular episode is one part of it.

    I am hoping that some channels such as CNN go out of business (the channel that employs Andrew Cuomo’s brother.) Some Schumpeter-style “creative destruction” is needed.

  • Snorri Godhi

    People need to realise the “mainstream” media are not in the fact-reporting business, not just for the sake of truth, but also because failing to do so can endanger their own lives.

    People who trust the establishment media are not just delusional: they are, effectively, borderline suicidally insane.

    Having said that, i think that it is still necessary to know what the establishment narrative is. But you don’t need to read the establishment media to know that: you can just follow Instapundit and Samizdata. Although you won’t know what the narrative is outside the Anglosphere.

    And do not think for a moment that the UK media are materially more reliable.

    I should think that they were more reliable in the last century, but i can’t say for sure.

    Just today i read an article on the BBC, fact-checking the Georgia voting law dispute, that i found more fair than i expected.

  • bobby b

    Re: Chauvin.

    I spent the morning helping some friends move out of their home which is inside the George Floyd Memorial Wasteland on Lake Street in Minneapolis. They’re getting out – it’s been intolerable for over a year. Not a fun place for this old white guy to wander around in – even though all of the masked soldiers patrolling the area for BLM and Antifa are white too. Funny how the predominantly black population in that area now hates BLM and Antifa, to the point of getting in screaming arguments with them telling them to go home and wreck their own neighborhoods.

    I have friends in the crim-defense business who have been watching the trial, and what they tell me is completely at odds with what the media are telling us. Prepare for riots, is the big takeaway.

    Attorney Mark Geragos and Adam Corolla (sp?) have been doing a great podcast on the trial days ( https://www.podcastone.com/episode/Beyond-A-Reasonable-Doubt—April-6-2021 ) and if you want to know how it’s going, start listening to some of the older episodes and work your way forward.

    Oh, and, buy guns and ammo.

  • APL

    Snorri Godha: “People who trust the establishment media are not just delusional: they are, effectively, borderline suicidally insane.”

    Which would be consistent with your theory that we are all, to a greater or lesser extent insane, due in large part to our diet.

    Who, or which organisation has been attempting to dictate our diet, frequently giving advice that is plain wrong and injurious to long term health. Isn’t that the state?

  • bobby b

    “Who, or which organisation has been attempting to dictate our diet, frequently giving advice that is plain wrong and injurious to long term health.”

    Beet and cane growers, honey producers, HF corn syrup processors, corn growers . . .

    The state just says what it’s been paid to say. A good state is one that stays bought?

  • Snorri Godhi

    APL:

    Which would be consistent with your theory that we are all, to a greater or lesser extent insane, due in large part to our diet.

    Yes indeed, and i am gratified that there are people who remember my theory, and maybe some day will act on it, at least as an experiment.

    In fact, the way people trust the media when they know the media’s track record, and in addition can read obvious critical-theory BS every day on the media, is one of the factors that led me to my theory.

    The primary factors, though, are
    1. my own experience of changing diet;
    2. the fossil evidence of shrinking human brains after the adoption of agriculture (nearly everywhere in the world);
    3. the experimental evidence of decreased aggression and decreased self-harm/suicidal thoughts with administration of omega-3 supplements.

  • Snorri Godhi

    APL:

    Who, or which organisation has been attempting to dictate our diet, frequently giving advice that is plain wrong and injurious to long term health. Isn’t that the state?

    Yes, but on this issue the Swedish state has actually been sensible, from what i read: recommending a low-carb, high-fat diet.

    The problem remains that some people might eat omega-6 fats. I don’t know whether Swedish diet advice warns against it.

    I myself eat about a kg of baked potatoes (and nothing else) for dinner, at least once/week, and have had no problem. I think it’s only cereal products and refined sugars that create problems.

    bobby:

    Beet and cane growers, honey producers, HF corn syrup processors, corn growers . . .

    Don’t forget seed oil producers.
    A major source of funding for the American Heart Association iirc.

    But i am sure that meat, egg, and dairy producers are also in the funding business.
    They just happen to be right.
    And they also happen to have lost the argument; but i don’t know whether that is a coincidence.

  • Jim

    “I myself eat about a kg of baked potatoes (and nothing else) for dinner, at least once/week, and have had no problem. I think it’s only cereal products and refined sugars that create problems.”

    I have come to the same conclusion. I eat potatoes like they are going out of fashion, and I’m fine on them. If I eat more than a small amount of sugar or refined carbs everything goes to pot. Digestion plays up, I wake up in the morning aching and feeling more tired than I went to bed, generally feel run down.

  • Snorri Godhi

    Jim: last evening, i had processed cheese and rye crispbread instead of my usual baked veggies for dinner, and slept poorly.

    This evening, i had a good sauna (with some mineral supplements beforehand to compensate for the sweat), and a thick broccoli soup afterwards.
    I anticipate a good night’s sleep.

    I’ll have a steak for lunch tomorrow.

  • bobby b

    Few things can make you feel so healthy and vital as a good hot (preferably dry) sauna interspersed with dives into icy water. Follow up with a grilled ribeye, maybe a little shiraz, and all is right in the world.

  • Sam Duncan

    I remember British TV used to show 60 Minutes years ago (I think it was in the early days of ITV’s 24-hour programming, in the late ’80s or early ’90s). I was always suspicious of the way they would insert voiceovers into interviews. It just looks as if they’re trying to hide something. Of course, the technique subsequently found its way into our own media.

  • GregWA

    bobby b: I would love to buy guns and ammo. Any tips on where I can buy them?

    I can find guns to buy, but not guns I want: no Glocks, nothing in 9mm, no riot shotguns, etc.

    The only ammo I can find is odd 40+ cal and not 40SW, 45 auto! Maybe some very light varmit loads.

    I’m getting ready to break down and buy a used Mossberg 88 from a gun auction site and have it shipped to my neighborhood FFL. I’ll probably have to pay $500 for a$230 Mossberg! But it’ll be worth it when the Zombies come over the wall. That thing will hold like 12 rounds of 1.75″ “shorties” which come in everything from birdshot to 00buck. Cant wait to try it out.

    But let us know if you find a stash of 9mm anywhere!

  • John Lewis

    This morning, via word of mouth as obviously the bbc wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole, I read the initial Daily Mail article on the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop. It will be a telling indictment of US media if they still ignore the deeply troubling details of Biden seniors knowledge of and interaction with his sons activities. I’m not holding my breath.

  • I am gratified that there are people who remember my theory … (Snorri Godhi, April 8, 2021 at 2:35 pm)

    As regards remembering commenters, let’s remember bobby b on Floyd and Chauvin, without whose early information we might all have been much more duped for much longer.

    … fossil evidence of shrinking human brains after the adoption of agriculture

    To see that carnivores tend on average to be more intelligent than herbivores, you have only to compare the various species roaming the African savannah today. Comparing modern people in the US or UK on this axis can prompt a similar thought. 🙂

    It should however be noted that these early civilisations were the mothers of invention. In the Iliad, the heroes eat an ox every 400 verses and to eat fish is evidence of extreme destitution, but the classical Greeks who so admired Homer lived on cereals, fish and olive oil – meat was rare.

  • Paul Marks

    Yes CBS (Viacom) are lying scumbags.

    This is another branch of the organisation which tells the world that STD (Star Trek Discovery) is a popular and successful show – of course they lie about the Governor of Florida, they lie about everything.

    ABC and NBC (and, of course, CNN and PBS) lie about everything as well – they all have a leftist agenda (yes some of the largest Corporations on the planet, Viacom, Disney, Comcast, Time Warner) hate, indeed detest, free enterprise – and do everything they can to undermine liberty.

    Why?

    Why are they so leftist? And why are they so DISHONEST in the tactics they use to push their totalitarian statist agenda?

    Complex answer to do with the leftist domination of the education system and-so-on – but reality it is what it is.

    Nearly all media corporations, and most of the other corporations as well, have a totalitarian “Woke” agenda – and they are willing to lie their heads of (about everything – and everyone) in order to push their totalitarian “Woke” agenda.

  • Snorri Godhi

    Paul Marks:

    yes some of the largest Corporations on the planet, Viacom, Disney, Comcast, Time Warner) hate, indeed detest, free enterprise – and do everything they can to undermine liberty.

    Why?

    The easy answer is that, if you are the top corporation in your sector, then competition can only bring you down from the top.

    I do think it is more complex than that; but the above should never be forgotten.

  • Snorri Godhi

    Niall:

    As regards remembering commenters, let’s remember bobby b on Floyd and Chauvin, without whose early information we might all have been much more duped for much longer.

    I admit that i do not remember bobby’s comments on this, but i do remember that you were the first to make me doubt the official narrative.
    But i should have been more skeptical from the start. I’ll try to do better in the future.

    To see that carnivores tend on average to be more intelligent than herbivores, you have only to compare the various species roaming the African savannah today. Comparing modern people in the US or UK on this axis can prompt a similar thought. 🙂

    Of course carnivores have to be more intelligent than herbivores, otherwise the former would be outwitted by the latter 🙂

    As for people in the US and UK, and indeed the rest of the world: my opinion is that it is not so much a matter of eating meat, more of NOT eating cereal products (which ‘we’ have been doing for millennia), sugar (which we have been doing for centuries), seed oils (which we have been doing for a period coinciding with rising levels of insanity), and soy products (which few people eat, except for soy sauce which is probably safe; but one pretty much has to eat them if one is vegan).

    Conservatives do tend to eat more meat, butter, and potatoes. They probably also eat too much (i.e. some) seed oils and refined sugars. But on the balance they perhaps eat less of them; and probably less cereal and soy products.

    PS: too much iron is also dangerous!

  • Snorri Godhi

    It should however be noted that these early civilisations were the mothers of invention. In the Iliad, the heroes eat an ox every 400 verses and to eat fish is evidence of extreme destitution …

    In Laxdaela Saga, there is a story about Kjartan being the first Icelander abstaining from meat for Lent. People were visiting him because they could hardly believe that someone could survive without meat for so long.

    but the classical Greeks who so admired Homer lived on cereals, fish and olive oil – meat was rare.

    I myself think, in my arrogance, that Homer is overrated.
    Fish and olive oil are probably good for mental health, indeed omega-3 is apparently essential. Too bad about the cereals.

  • bobby b

    Niall Kilmartin
    April 9, 2021 at 3:44 pm

    “As regards remembering commenters . . . “

    Thanks, Niall, but in fairness, I threw out some paragraphs about what I was seeing down the street, and you followed up with several lengthy well-researched-and-considered treatments of what it all meant. I think you had the laboring oar there.

  • Snorri Godhi

    I threw out some paragraphs about what I was seeing down the street

    This line suggests that bobby actually watched the event, which seems unlikely.

    Anyway, if it was just a few paragraphs, that explains why i don’t remember reading it. Maybe Bobby or Niall will kindly tell me what the former actually saw “down the street”?

  • I threw out some paragraphs about what I was seeing down the street

    This line suggests that bobby actually watched the event, which seems unlikely. (Snorri Godhi, April 10, 2021 at 4:41 pm)

    No, bobby b’s comments never suggested that in the slightest. AFAICR, this was his very first comment on the Floyd events – and could well have been seen ‘down the street’.

  • Mike Gilding

    “And do not think for a moment that the UK media are materially more reliable.”

    We have the BBC. Enough said. No further proof required.

  • BenDavid

    The one thing that most First World residents must eat to improve their health is… Less.

  • bobby b

    Snorri Godhi
    April 10, 2021 at 4:41 pm

    “This line suggests that bobby actually watched the event, which seems unlikely.”

    If what I wrote seemed to imply that I watched the death of Floyd, I apologize, because I surely did not.

    But I don’t think it did.

  • bobby b

    Snorri Godhi
    April 10, 2021 at 4:41 pm

    “Anyway, if it was just a few paragraphs, that explains why i don’t remember reading it. Maybe Bobby or Niall will kindly tell me what the former actually saw “down the street”?”

    You imply that I’m lying about this. Well, first, what’s “this”?

    To me, “this” is the experience Minneapolis has had beginning with the police stop of Floyd all through the buildup to trial and now trial of Chauvin. If you thought “this” meant that I was claiming to have witnessed Floyd’s arrest, you read wrong.

    My creds for discussing “this”:

    – Lake and Chicago have been amongst my haunts for five decades, through today. I know the place and the people. I know the cops. I know the procedures.
    – I have several sets of friends who live in the affected area – the FG Memorial Wastelands, as I now think of it. I have visited them often, and I have helped one couple move out in despair, their multi-decade fight to make a life and a business finally quashed by BLM and Antifa. In my efforts, I have repeatedly encountered and clashed with the BLM/AF asshats currently occupying the area.
    – I have friends amongst the MPD, the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, the Chauvin defense team, the Hennepin County District Court bench, and the MN prosecutors, who talk to me (in confidence) because I used to be a lawyer in the same courthouse and I’m a nice guy. 😉
    – I’ve been watching the trial prep and trial. I’ve prepped for trials. I’ve tried cases.
    – I know the applicable law.

    It’s all very local to me, some of the affected persons are my friends and so I’ve dealt with those affects daily, it’s all occurring in my area of professional expertise, I’m getting nonpublic information from behind closed doors from friends and guardedly sharing that here, and your reaction to my colloquial use of “down the street” triggers you to imply that I’m lying? That it might not actually be the specific little suburban street I’m living on?

    The thrust of what I wrote – to which you insultingly object – was that I commented on a few things that I saw here, and then Niall gave us several very cogent and well-thought-out analyses of the situation. I was agreeing with you.

    Disappointing.

  • Snorri Godhi

    Bobby: i am surprised and sorry that my comment could be taken as implying that you might have lied.

    What seemed unlikely was, really, that i had interpreted what you wrote correctly.

    In fact, if you had said explicitly that you witnessed the event, i would have believed you. Not just because i have come to know you a little bit, but also because i think it even more unlikely that anybody would lie about that. (Some people would, for sure, but such people are, i believe, hard to find, especially on Samizdata…)

  • bobby b

    Snorri Godhi:

    I have a long-standing Note To Self that says, don’t comment while drinking. Now I need to add “Don’t comment while in a bad mood.”

    Sorry. My overreaction.

  • Snorri Godhi

    Bobby: your reply is much appreciated.
    I suspected that you were in a bad mood and/or mentally exhausted after a hard day’s work (and perhaps inebriated as well), because i myself wrote comments like yours, only much worse!

  • I am surprised and sorry that my comment could be taken as implying that you might have lied. (Snorri Godhi, April 11, 2021 at 1:55 pm)

    You had no business being surprised. I am glad you are sorry.