Fox primetime "not news" entertainers are preying on this country's worst instincts.

[AU9377 4,930]

https://www.businessinsider.com/tucker-carlson-attacked-covid-19-vaccine-again-on-show-2021-5

This is an example of taking a topic and presenting it in a way that causes division and harm to this country.  I know, everything is about race at CNN.  That is also true and annoying.  However, the push by Fox by using inaccurate information is beyond anything imaginable.

[AUApostle 7,651]

He's likely using the VAERS data posted by both Newsweek and Epoch Times.  Roughly a thousand deaths after receiving the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.  We just don't know if the vaccine was the cause or not...(kind of similar to how Covid deaths are reported). You can come to any conclusion you want if you only look 1 or 2 layers deep.

Still gets me that people still watch Fox, CNN or any of the major outlets...they're set up to scare and enrage to get you to keep watching.  They will find the smallest bit of truth and twist it for personal gain.  Right, left, doesn't matter - but people get attached to their trusted sources and their personalities and don't want to admit they're being conned.

[McLoofus 35,182]

9 minutes ago, AUDevil said:

Still gets me that people still watch Fox, CNN or any of the major outlets...they're set up to scare and enrage to get you to keep watching.  They will find the smallest bit of truth and twist it for personal gain.  Right, left, doesn't matter - but people get attached to their trusted sources and their personalities and don't want to admit they're being conned.

Flaming libtard, here. Please thrown CNN on the same burn pile as Fox. I'm surprised more people on both sides don't resent these outlets for perverting that side's respective values. 

As for your last sentence, it's evidently human nature. There's a scene in John Wayne's The Alamo where he, Davy Crockett, reads a letter to his Volunteers allegedly sent from Santa Anna where he more or less challenges their manhood. They get all fired up and they decide to stay and fight Santa Anna's army. Then Crockett tells them that the letter was fake, that he made it all up. They want to stay and fight anyways because "Well, that's what he would have said."

[AUDub 11,148]

1 hour ago, AUDevil said:

...Epoch Times...

Oof. Falun Gong. Careful of them. They spin heavily. 

[AUApostle 7,651]

1 minute ago, AUDub said:

Oof. Falun Gong. Careful of them. They spin heavily. 

Balance.  When you know what a source's agenda is it helps give clarity to the reporting and facts of a certain subject.  If you only look at one side's sources it's easier to be duped.  It's always interesting to see what basic things both sides can't even agree on...and that highlights what, in fact, you should be researching more in depth.  Requires venturing into some deep dark slimy areas.  BTW, Epoch has claimed twice now, with video footage, that the CCP has ransacked their overseas printing operations...legit or fake? 

[AUDub 11,148]

2 minutes ago, AUDevil said:

Balance.  When you know what a source's agenda is it helps give clarity to the reporting and facts of a certain subject.  If you only look at one side's sources it's easier to be duped.  It's always interesting to see what basic things both sides can't even agree on...and that highlights what, in fact, you should be researching more in depth.  Requires venturing into some deep dark slimy areas.  BTW, Epoch has claimed twice now, with video footage, that the CCP has ransacked their overseas printing operations...legit or fake? 

It's a good thing to avoid a sense of false balance. If you read two extremely skewed sources you're unlikely to end up in the center.

The Epoch Times is a special brand of crazy. Not that the Communist Party of China doesn't persecute Falun Gong. That absolutely happens. But one can be a victim and batshit insane simultaneously. 

[TitanTiger 20,482]

50 minutes ago, AUDevil said:

Balance.  When you know what a source's agenda is it helps give clarity to the reporting and facts of a certain subject.  If you only look at one side's sources it's easier to be duped.  It's always interesting to see what basic things both sides can't even agree on...and that highlights what, in fact, you should be researching more in depth.  Requires venturing into some deep dark slimy areas.  BTW, Epoch has claimed twice now, with video footage, that the CCP has ransacked their overseas printing operations...legit or fake? 

mediabiasfactcheck.com

Rates it not just on right/left bias, but on a track record of factual accuracy.  Epoch is bad not just because of severe bias, but because they post a lot of completely made up garbage.  It's one thing to have "balance" in terms of political leanings.  But I don't need balance between accuracy and bull****.

[AU9377 4,930]

I can handle a network showing a bias, but they should have a responsibility to, at the very least, report facts.  Sometimes they will get those wrong.  When they do, they should correct the record.  This isn't hard.  Fox spent a week telling their viewers that Joe Biden wanted to limit their consumption of burgers.  There was no factual basis for that claim.  It was based on an opinion piece in a British rag.

To be honest, comparing what Fox does with what CNN does is a false equivalency.  CNN is left of center, but there is nothing near the lovefest for Biden that we saw Fox lavish Trump with for 4 years.  That said, CNN will find a racial motivation because toilet paper is white if you give them the idea.  The difference is that when they do that, it is obvious that opinion is driving the narrative, not the other way around. 

[AU9377 4,930]

2 hours ago, AUDevil said:

He's likely using the VAERS data posted by both Newsweek and Epoch Times.  Roughly a thousand deaths after receiving the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.  We just don't know if the vaccine was the cause or not...(kind of similar to how Covid deaths are reported). You can come to any conclusion you want if you only look 1 or 2 layers deep.

Still gets me that people still watch Fox, CNN or any of the major outlets...they're set up to scare and enrage to get you to keep watching.  They will find the smallest bit of truth and twist it for personal gain.  Right, left, doesn't matter - but people get attached to their trusted sources and their personalities and don't want to admit they're being conned.

While true, it is a large part of the problem with political discourse in this country.  Once upon a time, elected representatives would correct the record.  That has been thrown out the window and many simply want to please the network that will give them airtime.  Never have I seen that more than in the reporting on the last general election.  The reporting on the Senate runoffs in Georgia was a sad continuation of the general.  My family has been involved in Georgia elections for decades.  But for a Secretary of State that was intent on doing what was right over what was asked of him, anyone that watched Fox would have believed the bull**** that they were being told.  Some still do.

[McLoofus 35,182]

8 minutes ago, AU9377 said:

My family has been involved in Georgia elections for decades. 

I'm sorry to hear that.

J/k, but seriously, you must come from hearty stock.

[AU9377 4,930]

3 hours ago, McLoofus said:

I'm sorry to hear that.

J/k, but seriously, you must come from hearty stock.

Most of us could definitely stand to lose a couple pounds... 

In all seriousness, thanks.

I thought about this topic while driving yesterday in Atlanta.  I was in traffic for a while at two different points.  The first time in the car, I found myself listening to news talk radio, which was followed by Hannity. Hannity has his callers, every one of which seem to be living in a fantasy world unlike the one I know to exist.  Their common themes could not be more in line with what they have been instructed to think.  All public education is bad due to teacher unions, Biden is a vegetable that doesn't like meat and concerns over Covid are really about mind control.  I got out of the car not knowing whether to scream or laugh.  I chose to laugh. 

On the way home, a local call in show, the name of which I don't recall, was all buzzing about the Atlanta mayor not seeking re-election.  To be honest, they were almost as bad on the other extreme.  They seemed to want to discuss nothing other than what could be done for them, whether it be by reparations or other govt programs.  They went to the extent of calling former Atlanta mayor, Kasim Reed, a Republican who cannot be trusted because he is too business friendly.  The rest of the world knows him to be a very left of center Democrat.  I decided that any music was preferable to either.

Until and unless everyone rediscovers the necessity of everyone pulling in the same general direction, I fear that this country will be mired in useless games.  I'm starting to believe that without an external enemy, we are destined to eat each other alive. 

Edited May 7, 2021 by AU9377

[SLAG-91 1,483]

This seems fitting for this thread...Don Henley was a prophet.

 

 

[AUFAN78 3,895]

Another media ruse. Damn shame.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1392967014109650944.html

[DKW 86 7,423]

On 5/7/2021 at 5:00 PM, SLAG-91 said:

This seems fitting for this thread...Don Henley was a prophet.

 

 

Bro, You cant play that here. So many are about to facepalm and thumbdown you over this. I have used the song several times and got trashed by 95% of the board. If the media says it, we are supposed to act like sheep and just take it at 100% fact. The media is too important to question..... lmao.

In my world, you question EVERYTHING said by POLS and MEDIA people. The media people these days just say what their viewers want to be told. It is confirmation bias all day long. 

Edited May 16, 2021 by DKW 86

[DKW 86 7,423]

14 hours ago, AUFAN78 said:

Another media ruse. Damn shame.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1392967014109650944.html

https://reason.com/2021/05/13/rebekah-jones-floridas-covid-19-whistleblower-seems-like-a-fraud/

Rebekah Jones, Florida's COVID-19 Whistleblower, Seems Like a Fraud

The media fell in love with her. But there's little to her claims.

ROBBY SOAVE | 5.13.2021 12:05 PM

 

 

(Rebekah Jones/TNS/Newscom)

Rebekah Jones, the former dashboard manager for the Florida Department of Health website, became a celebrated mainstream media hero after alleging that the state had undercounted COVID-19 deaths. In January, police raided her home and charged her with computer crimes relating to her efforts to publicize this wrongdoing. She later turned herself in, and reportedly contracted COVID-19 while in custody.

But it turns out that the vast conspiracy Jones has alleged—including that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) was trying to silence her—does not exist.

That's according to National Review's Charles C.W. Cooke, who writes at length about the wide gap between Jones' claims and actual reality:

Specifically, Jones claims that, while she was working at the FDOH last year, she was instructed by her superiors to alter the "raw" data so that Florida's COVID response would look better, and that, having refused, she was fired. Were this charge true, it would reflect one of the most breathtaking political scandals in all of American history.

But it's not true. Indeed, it's nonsense from start to finish. Jones isn't a martyr; she's a myth-peddler. She isn't a scientist; she's a fabulist. She's not a whistleblower; she's a good old-fashioned confidence trickster. And, like any confidence trickster, she understands her marks better than they understand themselves.

Cooke disproves many of her claims, which have evolved substantially over time: Jones lacked the power to alter the "raw" numbers and was never asked to do so; indeed, by her own admission, the data she cites on her separate dashboard are identical to the government's. Initially, Jones had "not alleged any tampering with data on deaths, hospital symptom surveillance, hospitalizations for COVID-19, numbers of new confirmed cases, or overall testing rates—core elements of any assessment of the outbreak and of federal criteria for reopening," according to the Associated Press. "And Jones acknowledges Florida has been relatively transparent—for which she herself claims some credit—and relatively successful in controlling the pandemic." But over time, her story became dramatic and elaborate: She accused Shamarial Roberson, Florida's deputy secretary for health, of being a "liar, fraud, and murderer."

 

"There is an extremely good reason that nobody in the Florida Department of Health has sided with Jones," writes Cooke. "It's the same reason that there has been no devastating New York Times exposé about Florida's 'real' numbers. That reason? There is simply no story here." Cooke continues:

By all accounts, Rebekah Jones is a talented developer of GIS dashboards. But that's all she is. She's not a data scientist. She's not an epidemiologist. She's not a doctor. She didn't "build" the "data system," as she now claims, nor is she a "data manager." Her role at the FDOH was to serve as one of the people who export other people's work—from sets over which she had no control—and to present it nicely on the state's dashboard. To understand just how far removed Jones really is from the actual data, consider that even now—even as she rakes in cash from the gullible to support her own independent dashboard—she is using precisely the same FDOH data used by everyone else in the world.

It's important to note that Jones is not just some crazy person whose ideas were never taken seriously: The media fawned over her. MSNBC's Joy Reid interviewed her repeatedly. She was the subject of a glowing profile in Cosmopolitan: "Rebekah Jones Tried To Warn Us About COVID-19. Now Her Freedom Is on the Line." We know why this is the case: Mainstream journalists have been eager to portray DeSantis' Florida as a unique COVID-19 failure, contrasting with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's supposedly steady leadership. What has resulted are numerous, flawed stories that try—and largely fail—to find something dramatically wrong with Florida, even as the narrative about Cuomo's sterling reputation falls apart.

In the race to mint new pandemic heroes, media partisans keep looking in all the wrong places.

[DKW 86 7,423]

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/rebekah-jones-the-covid-whistleblower-who-wasnt/

Cliff Notes Version: She uses the same data source on her website that she used while employed by FDOH. She has nor ever had any access to the raw data at all. NONE. She was a low level website master, and CERTAINLY NEVER an EPIDIMIOLOGIST NOR A DOCTOR.

****** hell how do the Blue Maga folks get stuff so ****** wrong?

The former dashboard manager alleges a vast data conspiracy in Florida; not a word of it is true.

 

Jones’s central claim is nothing less dramatic than that she has uncovered a massive conspiracy in the third most populous state in the nation, and that, having done so, she has been ruthlessly persecuted by the governor and his “Gestapo.” Specifically, Jones claims that, while she was working at the FDOH last year, she was instructed by her superiors to alter the “raw” data so that Florida’s COVID response would look better, and that, having refused, she was fired. Were this charge true, it would reflect one of the most breathtaking political scandals in all of American history.

But it’s not true. Indeed, it’s nonsense from start to finish. Jones isn’t a martyr; she’s a myth-peddler. She isn’t a scientist; she’s a fabulist. She’s not a whistleblower; she’s a good old-fashioned confidence trickster. And, like any confidence trickster, she understands her marks better than they understand themselves. On Twitter, on cable news, in Cosmopolitan, and beyond, Jones knows exactly which buttons to push in order to rally the gullible and get out her message. Sober Democrats have tried to inform their party about her: “You may see a conspiracy theory and you want it to be true and you believe it to be true and you forward it to try to make it be true, but that doesn’t make it true,” warns Jared Moskowitz, the progressive Democrat who has led Florida’s fight against COVID. 

Edited May 15, 2021 by DKW 86