Methods and Manner of Manipulation
The motto of the Washington Post is “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” It is perhaps as witty as it is dishonest. In traditional vernacular the opposite of darkness is brightness, but in newsroom parlance, it would be fairness, impartiality, and transparency. Thus, in the case of the overly-discriminatory Washington Post, democracy must have died quite some time ago.
America’s most prominent newspapers including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and to a lesser extent USA Today, all sail in the same censor-prone, obstructionist ship.
Tim Groseclose is an author and Professor of Economics at George Mason University. He wrote a book called “Left Turn” and as you can imagine it’s all about politics, social science, and the media and not the multitudes that refuse to use turn signals while driving.
In the book, he estimates, using mathematical “qualitative analysis”, the number of people in the media who are biased to the left and those to the right. His analysis suggests it’s approximately 93% to 7% in favor of the left, roughly the same percentage as it is in upper academia. No one really questions the validity of these values – many surveys have quantified and conceded to these numbers.
In his subject book, Groseclose writes, “What happens when our view of the world is filtered through the eyes, ears, and minds of such a liberal group. As I demonstrate using objective, social science methods, the filtering prevents us from seeing the world as it actually is. Instead, we see only a distorted version of it. It is as if we see the world through a glass - a glass that magnifies the facts that liberals want us to see and shrinks the facts that conservatives want us to see.
He continues, “Perhaps worst of all, media bias feeds on itself. That is, the bias makes us more liberal which makes us less able to detect the bias, which allows the media to get away with more bias, which make us even more liberal and so on. All of this means that the political views that we currently see in Americans are not natural views”.
Groseclose also cites that while at one time journalists endeavored to conceal their bias, it’s no longer the case, and more often opinion, view, and ideological deliberation rules the day. In another case, he states that journalists with varying points of view from the leftist majority often conceal that view for fear of co-worker reprisal, significant ostracization, or more often in the current age, loss of employment. Cancel culture is another form of removal from social or professional circles whether in-person or online.
I often denounce the legacy media and internet autocrats for censorship, omission, and selective suppression, but that’s only because my criticism is totally accurate and warranted. Most people should be totally appalled at censorship since it is essentially articulating that you are too dumb to hear the other side or any side, so we’ll simply make up your mind for you. Wistfully, it’s all too often successful.
So, why censorship, why omission, why suppression? The reality certainly from the age-old idiom is truth hurts. Or, let’s look at it from another common expression, “What you don't know won't hurt you”, but instead twisted around a bit to “What you don't know won't hurt them” – them being the political party, eco-politicians, the ideological multitudes in the media or the majority of pompous professors that have never known a real job, a callous or a coherent concept in actuality.
Once in a while, I will place a climate change article or two on Facebook. Immediately, Climate Feedback, hired by Facebook as ‘fact checker’ will place the following image and link underneath the post. They have been doing this for several years.
The link takes the reader, not to a location that challenges any facts of the originator’s post, but simply to advocate climate change propaganda and has nothing really to do with average temperatures in any specific area. Since they place the image within seconds or minutes of a posting there is auto-search software that flags posts and positions the placard.
In relation to many, my writing toils away in the bush leagues of distribution, even still, I know I have been shadow-banned at times. This is where a writer or contributor is unaware that they have been partially censored and their posts, articles, or commentaries are not reaching their full audience potential.
However, there are the larger ‘kahunas’ of penmanship and dissemination that have seen the spoils of their work fall into the hands of the obscurantists and for no justifiable reason other than not following a host’s ideology and restrictive creed. John Stossel is one such kahuna. I link his video here. He has the resources to sue.
As they gaslight the public, leftist politicians use moralistic and compassionate-sounding words purporting to care for humanity. Gaslighting refers to a method of manipulation where the manipulator, in this case, progressives, try to get people to question their own reality or perceptions. Yet the actuality is that if climate change was truly real and scientifically supportable, why is there a need for mind control, censorship, and authoritative marketing?