From columnist Ray Hanania:
News nedua abd sicuak nedua all trying to control the message
Social media like Facebook, Twitter, Google’s Youtube and TikTok are all at the forefront of censoring users, and blocking opinions on issues ranging from the presidential election to Middle East politics.
These social media giants are merely following in the footsteps of the major mainstream news media, which today has evolved clear biases in their “news reporting” when it comes to former President Donald Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein
There is no objective news media today.
Why would anyone think Social Media would be any different.
The political corruption of the mainstream media is a cancer that is undermining America, not just domestically but in the eyes of the world.
Media corruption has short term election gains for the politicians but the foreign tyrants see the long term deterioration that media bias causes fueling societal dissent and extreme polarization.In the old days, media bias was simple.
The major newspapers controlled the spin.
Reporters who were corrupt for a living, did it for money.
Tribune Reporter Alfred “Jake” Lingle, gunned down by the Chicago outfit that he secretly worked for overseeing beer costs, dog racing and beer distribution.
During the Capone era, Tribune reporter Alfred “Jake” Lingle was gunned down at the Illinois Central Randolph Street underpass in broad daylight.
Glorified at first as a journalism martyr, it was later determined that Lingle was on the mob’s payroll involved in setting the price of beer, dog racing and beer distribution.
Paid only $65 a week reporting, he had earned the equivalent of $1 million in mob payoffs. Lingle apparently got greedy, and died on the cement on June 9, 1930.
Chicago reporters knew from their contacts in 1960 that the Chicago “Outfit” — the term “mafia” is a New York label — had stolen votes to help elect John F. Kennedy in the November 8 Presidential election.
Don’t tell me that politicians in corrupt states like Texas or Illinois haven’t always stolen rr tried to steal votes to swing elections int heir favor.Corruption existed at every level and the media often allowed it to happen.
Many people believe the Dallas police were lax in protecting President John F. Kennedy because of political bias and that the man accused of the assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, was shot dead and silenced while in Dallas Police custody by a well-known police and mob associate, Jack Ruby.
What reporter was going to write that story in a way that would embarrass the powerful Texas politician, Lyndon Baines Johnson, the vice president who was sworn in to take JFK’s place?
The same reporters who knew and hid JFK’s sexual infidelity had to know about these stories, too.
There were things they didn’t write about because it suited their newspaper barons.
The journalism point-of-influence has steadily shifted from print to television.
Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne once observed the TV media is “the new precinct captain” influencing voter preferences.Instead of influencing voters by giving garbage can lids to homeowners in exchange for their votes, as they did under the old Chicago Machine in the 1960s, politicians shifted to influencing the news media directly, with favoritism and exclusive stories.
The road to corruption was paved in media coverups, favoritism and political collusion so much so that it progressed to the next generation of media, consuming Cable TV Talk Shows and then Social Media.
I exclude opinion columnists like myself because many of us identify our writing as “Opinion,” which is not objective journalism but rather subjective analysis. (There is alot of opinion written by anonymous unnamed writers.)
Done right, my experience is presented to you to consider and accept or reject.
At least you know it’s my Opinion!
But when Opinion is classified as “News Reporting,” that’s corruption at its worst.
The difference with Social Media is they operate in the shadows of obscurity.
There are no bylines or clearly defined “editors” to answer the public concerns that previously plagued TV and print media.
Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and TikTok used computer algorithms and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to identify favored viewpoints from unfavorable viewpoints, and then imposing a process called “throttling” to automatically suppress unfavorable opinions.
Foreign countries influence Facebook to suppress videos that expose their warcrimes and mass murder, while augmenting their propaganda and lies.
Twitter is controlled by a political activist, Elon Musk, who took control on the premise that he would make Twitter services fair to everyone.
That’s far from the case, today.
Tiktok is under pressure from Congress to suppress videos that Congress doesn’t like that contradict their policies and foreign favoritism.
And Youtube says that it won’t promote anything that has a “political agenda.”
Although Youtube, which is owned by Google, has no problem promoting pornography and sexual addictions, and even violence.The worst part isn’t just the corruption.
Where there is money and greed, there will always be corruption, bribes, favoritism and silent partisanship.
The real problem is that as the corruption expands through the mainstream news media, especially involving politics, public confidence on the media erodes.
It’s a tsunami spreading to every level of society. It’s hard to believe anything that is reported in the mainstream news media any more because partisan opinions are today presented as “facts.”The public isn’t stupid.
They can see the media slanting reporting against Trump, favoring Harris and ignoring Stein.
And I think they are more upset with the media bias for Harris than they are with the pettiness of Trump.
The media says Harris and Trump are in a dead heat.
I think they are lying, like they always do.
The mainstream media favors Harris and believes it needs to do everything to help her get elected, not do everything to get the public the facts so the public can decide on its own.
Sadly for Harris, media bias is actually undermining her because, like I said, the public isn’t stupid.
They see through the lies and the spin and the exaggerations and the hypocrisies.If the edia were fair, Harris might have been pressured to change her campaign and be more specific in detailing her programs.
Right now, the media is pretty much escorting her empty programs hoping their influence will influence votes.It is influencing votes, I think, but not in the way they want.
Where do I go for news about American elections? I listen to the BBC.
When it comes to American politics, they do a better job of presenting it factually and objectively.
