Episode 6 A critique of the media

 The Listening Tube Episode Six: Media

Hello! Welcome to this edition of the Listening Tube! I’m your host, Bob Woodley. This time, we’ll talk about some social media memes that are out to get you. We’ll also examine news media, social media and propaganda. I’m sorry, was I just being redundant? I’ll try to shed some light on media bias, and we’ll even take a look at my own. But first, not the headlines! 

There’s a new trend when it comes to saying “I do!” or “I will.” depending on how the question is asked. Oddly enough, the new trend only seems to be catching on with women. Turns out “Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue” doesn’t fulfill the requirements anymore, she also needs “not you!” Women are marrying themselves! Not just the marriage, but the engagement is also a big deal, as women declare a commitment to themselves. “Insider” reports that sologamy, or marrying oneself, is on the rise. The story quotes a Phycologist as saying that with increased time spent at home alone, individuals have opted for new methods to appreciate themselves and enhance self-compassion. Here’s what I want to know: What happens the first time you cheat on yourself? Which one of you has to sleep on the couch? And if you get divorced, who gets the kayak? This new type of self-indulgence is just another way to get attention that will ultimately lead to heartbreak and disappointment. You know you’re not good enough for yourself! Who are you kidding? On the other hand, you can do better! You know you’re not going to be happy with somebody who eats peanut butter right out of the jar! Fine, go ahead. Marry yourself. Just don’t come running to me when you find your clothes out in the front yard and your playstation smashed to pieces in the driveway. Some say that marrying yourself is a sign of independence, and that’s a good thing. But I don’t think that’s it at all. What it is is a sign that you’ve given up on yourself. Being single is one thing. You can be independent and confident in yourself, but not make what mimics a legal barrier to your love and affection. You’ve disallowed yourself to be in a relationship with another person by marrying yourself. Instead of building a life, you built a wall. A wall that will eventually fall, and then you’ll realize what a flimsy wall it was to begin with.

Unfinished Business/China Edition/gong

This week, the Justice Department charged five men, acting on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party, to stalk and harass Chinese dissidents in the United States. See, one of the things that makes America great; our freedom, is being used against us by governments that don’t allow the same freedoms in their own countries. Chinese people are free to come to the US in a variety of capacities, and we give them the benefit of the doubt that they’re here for legitimate and legal reasons. That’s not always the case! In this case, the Justice Department claims an operative of the Chinese Communist Party was working to undermine a Chinese dissident living in New York who was running for congressional office. The operative is accused of seeking out or even making up derogatory information in hopes of making him lose the race. Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division Matthew Olsen was quoted in an Associated Press story as saying, “Authoritarian states around the world feel emboldened to reach beyond their borders to intimidate or exact reprisals against individuals who dare to speak out against oppression and corruption.” Chinese operatives of the government are charged with what are described as brazen ad wide-ranging schemes that have gone on for long periods of time. The cases were filed in federal court in Brooklyn. They allege schemes to dig up dirt on dissidents, then use the information to intimidate them and stifle their right to free speech here in America! The details of one case say a China-based international technology company hired two men in New York to spy on pro-democracy activists, tried to illegally get a copy of a dissident’s tax returns, and conspired to destroy artwork created by another dissident. Two of the men have been arrested, while a third, and purported ringleader, is still on the loose. The charges include conspiring to commit interstate harassment and Criminal Use of a Means of Identification. In another plot, a man who started a pro-democracy organization was secretly collecting information about Chinese dissidents, Uyghurs, Tibetans and people supportive of Taiwanese independence, and then passing the intelligence on the the Chinese Ministry of State Security. He’s been arrested and released on 300,000 dollars bond. The man who wanted to derail the congressional candidate hired a private investigator to “dig up anything since 1989, which as you may remember, was the year of the Tiannenmen Square uprising. He asked the investigator for the candidates phone number, address and vehicle information, and told the investigator that “violence would be fine, too,” adding that he could be beaten until he could no longer run for office. Well, that’s one way a foreign government can influence an American election, isn’t it? Just beat the candidate you don’t like until he can’t run...Luckily, the investigator was also an FBI informant. American officials say efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to find, intimidate and silence pro-democracy people in other countries is becoming increasingly aggressive. This isn’t the first time this has happened, either. Two years ago, eight people were charged in a pressure campaign to coerce a Chinese man living in New Jersey to return to China to face charges. He was wanted in Beijing, and the Chinese Communist Party hired people to browbeat him into capitulation. I don’t know what he was wanted for, but the Chinese government must’ve thought it was pretty bad, while the New Jersey government didn’t. As it turns out, the congressional candidate that the Chines targeted was, in fact, a student leader during the Tiannenmen Square uprising, but he’s live in the US for 30 years. He says he doesn’t know why the Chinese Communist Party is interested in him anymore. “I have nothing to do with them,” he says, “I’m a purely American citizen.” As I’ve pointed out on this program before, China has a long history, and a long memory, too.

Phone liner

So last week, we talked about teachers, and wouldn’t you know it, a meme about teachers shows up in social media. It’s a challenge to the public, and says, “I bet nobody remembers their 5th grade teacher!!!” By the time this one got to me, it had 634-thousand comments and 9,100 shares. I was happy to see that some of the comments called out the meme for what it is, but I was sad to see somebody I know, a retired teacher, actually answered the question. Maybe she was proud that she could remember all the way back to when she was ten years old. I can, too. I remember all of my elementary school teachers: Kerstetter, Guessner, Sanders, Hines, Belski, Dunkin, and Weaver. Not necessarily in that order. But this meme is just fishing for password information or the answers to security questions. Don’t answer these memes, and don’t share them. You’re only helping criminals steal information that could lead to even greater losses.

Here’s one that likely won’t lead to any personal harm, but it’s another example of how memes are designed to make you do what they want you to do by trying to fool you, or by simply lieing to you. This one uses the disdain many people have for the founder of facebook, Mark Zuckerberg. It says, “After hearing Mark Zuckerberg saying that posting the Lord’s Prayer goes against their policies, I’m asking all Christians to please follow my example and post the Lord’s Prayer. I am announcing my aith publicly. Then he follows with a quote from the New Testament, Matthew 10:33, which quotes Jesus as saying, “Everyone who denies me here on Earth, I will also deny before my Father in Heaven.” The writer goes on to say that this is the best challenge he’s ever seen on facebook. So if you love Him and you’re not ashamed, please join me in this challenge of faith. Then the Lord’s Prayer follows and he created a hashtag faithchallenge. Now I’m’ not picking on religion here, I’m criticizing a social media meme. The first thing this meme says is, “After hearing Mark Zuckerberg saying that posting the Lord’s Prayer goes against their policies. Did he actually say that? 

Gonna look that up!!

As it turns out, Mark Zuckerberg never said that, and facebook does not have a policy against posting the Lord’s Prayer. Rueters, USA Today and others have written about this myth, which started in 2020 and has been revived this year. So when the writer of the meme asks you to follow his example, I guess he’s asking you to lie. Because that’s what he did when he said he heard Mark Zuckerbergs say that posting the Lord’s Prayer is against their policy. Then he tries to make you feel guilty if you don’t share the meme by using a Bible verse. Then he says this is the best challenge he’s ever seen on facebook! Of course it is! You made it! But the author knows most readers won’t think of that. Then he takes one more swipe at your conscience by suggesting that if you don’t share the meme, you’re ashamed of your faith. The person who wrote this meme isn’t just a liar, they’re also evil, hiding behind a prayer. Can I get an Amen?

Here’s one more that tries to get information out of you by making a game out of it. It says, “December has Christmas. January has New Year. February has Valentine. Your birth month has ______. Obviously, the creator of this meme wants to know your birth month. Why? Because it’s a piece of the puzzle that leads to somebody making their way into your online accounts. By the time this one got to me, it had 1.3 million comments and 22-thousand shares. Another treasure-trove of information for hackers. It seems like an innocent game to play, and let’s you make a connection to something good about the month you were born, as if being born wasn’t good enough.

Liner

There’s a lot of talk these days about the mainstream media, the news it delivers, and weather or not we should trust it. When I was a young man learning about broadcasting, there was a simple definition of the news: Information about current events the public wants or needs to know. Information about current events the public wants or needs to know. It’s a simple definition that covers a lot of ground with the “wants or needs to know” part. Yet it keeps a narrow scope by restricting itself to information. So, perhaps it’s most notable for what’s not in it more than for what is. This definition of news does not include anybody’s opinion about said current events. News is different today. The 24-hour news networks have a lot of time to fill. Just doling out the facts doesn’t fill the bill. Hence, the void is filled with expert opinion and panels of talking heads with opinions and analysis of whatever “news”, and I use that term loosely here, topic is chosen as the focus of the day. Now, you might be thinking, “but Bob, you’re always expressing your opinion on this program.” And you’d be right. But I don’t claim to be a news organization. I’m just one guy. I try to find something that may be of interest to people and write about it and record what I wrote and make it available to the public for free. I don’t have a staff of writers, or an editor who tells me what to write about. I’m not representing somebody else, or telling you what I was told to tell you. Do I have a media bias? Probably. I do think I’m fortunate to have journalism training today, because it helps me recognize the bias in today’s newscasts. But there is certainly a bias in my reporting to you, as I choose which stories I will bring to you, and those decisions are the result of my personal viewpoints. My personal viewpoints are a result of my experiences, and my experiences are what make me who I am. But I don’t consider myself as a solidly conservative or solidly liberal. I have both liberal and conservative viewpoints, depending upon the subject matter. I’m not defined by the Democrats or the Republicans, which is why I’m a registered Independent. I’ll be honest with you about the stories I tell here. The stories I choose to tell and how I tell them will reveal enough about me for you to form your own opinion of me. I’m just glad you’re listening! But enough about me. There’s a serious problem with the news media today, and it doesn’t matter what political bend you are, or even if you vote or not. All, and when I say that, I mean ALL network and cable news is biased and agenda-driven. Internet-based news sites are even worse. There was a time when you could trust the news. All of the news. TV news, newspapers, radio news, newsreels in movie theaters. Well, maybe not so much movie theater newsreels. Those were before my time, but I believe they were filled with propaganda. When it comes to trustworthy sources of local news, small-town newspapers are still the best. The larger the paper gets, the more its editorial slant reveals itself. Most larger newspapers lean liberal, with notable exceptions. Geography plays a major role in a newspaper’s political stance, as appealing to the local population is vital for survival. Most radio stations don’t have local new-gatherers anymore, but rely on other sources of news like broadcasting stories from the local paper or using services like network feeds of national news. Those network feeds are also subject to political bias. The political bias and opinion-based news is the reason our country is so divided. Each side now has a megaphone to scream at people who already agree with the bias. The large media organizations have discovered that they can appeal to a large group of people who want validation of what they already believe, and there are enough of them that they can charge a lot of money for commercials to pitch products to the believers. It’s not about informing you. That’s just the candy that gets you in the door. Then the opinion people fill you with content that riles you, makes you mad, and evokes an emotional response just before they show you the product that will make your life better. It’s not news. It’s manipulation. There’s some news in there. That’s the cover. They claim to be news programs, but the actual news content is small compared to the opinion content, which is often disguised as “analysis” or “discussion.” The discussions have already been pre-planned and talking points highlighted before the conversation even begins. Editors and Producers lead the way with the stories the dole out to the reporters and with how the stories are ultimately edited to make the right point. Allow me to give you an example of media manipulation from the Washington Post, which once it’s pointed out to you, is easy to spot. It begins with a labored headline, “More than two dozen Senate Republicans demand Biden do more for Ukraine after voting against $13.6 billion for Ukraine.” First of all, that’s not a headline. “Dewey beats Truman!” That’s a headline. “Man bites Dog!” That’s a headline. “Too hot to fish!” That’s a headline. “More than two dozen Senate Republicans demand Biden do more for Ukraine after voting against $13.6 billion for Ukraine” is a summary. Then they follow it up with a sub-headline that states, “Thirty-one Senate Republicans voted last week against the $1.5 trillion spending bill to fund the government, increase U.S. defense spending and provide humanitarian and military assistance to Ukraine. In recent days, many of them have clamored for more weapons and aid.” When you combine that headline with the sub-headline, it’s as if you already know the whole story. There’s really no need to read any further, because you already don’t like Republicans and now you have another reason to assume you’re correct about your assumptions. You read the extra-long headline, and you thought that summed it up pretty well, but then the sub-headline got even more specific, defining “more than two dozen” more accurately as Thirty-one Republicans. The sub-headline also gets more specific about the cost of the bill, which is 1.5 trillion dollars, of which 13.6 billion will go to Ukraine. But that’s not why they voted against the bill, like the headline is designed to make you believe. If you go past the headline and the sub-headline and read the actual story, which many people don’t, you’ll find out a little more about why said Republicans voted against the bill. One said he voted against it because it wasn’t “really about Ukrainian aid,” but a “whole bunch of schlock.”

“Ukrainian aid was a little bit of sugar on the larger medicine of a $1.5 trillion bill that nobody would actually want to go home and to defend to the voters, and to the taxpayers of America, as well thought out.” Something else you might not get out of the headline and the sub-headline is that the bill was signed into law a week earlier by President Biden, regardless of who voted for it or against it. This story was written for the sole purpose of advancing an agenda. I doesn’t fall into the definition of news, but was written entirely for the sole purpose of criticizing Senators for representing their constituents. There may have been a number of different reasons these Senators voted the way they did, and they voiced their support for aiding Ukraine, but voted against a bill they thought was full of pork. The Washington Post headline and sub-headlines were meant to keep you from reading the whole story, and the story itself was written in a way as to confirm your disdain for the subjects. It’s not an accident.

As an observer of news coverage and a self-professed news junkie, I couldn’t help but notice how much news reporting changed when Donald Trump became President of the United States. Just like everyone else, I didn’t know what to expect when a political newcomer suddenly held the most important office in the land. But to me, Donald Trump becoming President wasn’t the most surprising thing that happened. What caught my attention was how quickly news reporting changed. I’ve always been sensitive to news bias, because I was taught that it was wrong. I was taught that newscasters and reporters are supposed to be unbiased, just state the facts. Give people the information they need to understand the event. As a news junkie, I was fascinated by upstart CNN back in the 1980’s and was thrilled to have a source like that. I was always a fan of CNN and it’s sister station Headline News. In 2001, I was introduced to Fox News Chanel by the guy who came to hook up my cable when I moved. I watched if for awhile until I realized that Steve Ducie was just a mouthpiece for the Republican Party. Their might have been more, but I only needed to see one for me to abandon that ship. I tried some of the other all-news channels here and there, but I was always able to rely on CNN. That is, until Donald Trump became President. Suddenly, the CNN I knew was gone, replaced by a steady stream of criticism and negativity. It was like a switch had been flipped and all of the nice news anchors I’d been watching turned into vitriol-spewing megaphones intent on reducing our President to a shriveled-up pile of hair. It was sad for me to watch what was once a great news organization devolve into hit-piece conspiracy theorists. Jim Acosta became a joke, getting kicked out of the White House press corps only to have CNN sue to get him back in. By then he’d rendered himself useless as a reporter in that capacity, but CNN kept him there anyway. 

Let me tell you a story about a woman who wasn’t interested in politics at all. At one time, if you Googled her, it said that she was apolitical. She didn’t care about politics, and didn’t think politics effected her enough to get interested. Then Donald Trump became President. An associate of hers always had the news on, mostly on CNN. She began to listen in, then began to pay attention. Eventually, she became so enraged by what she was seeing and hearing on CNN everyday, that she finally decided to get involved in politics. She started reading political stories and listening to our elected representatives when they made comments. Ultimately, she decided that it was time she made her voice heard. She went to the County Administration office and registered to vote. As a Republican. Watching CNN’s continual bashing of the President created a Republican. Probably not what they were trying to accomplish. Sometimes media manipulation can backfire.

Let’s go back liner

It was just about a year-and-a-half ago that the New York Post ran a story about a laptop computer that was taken to a Delaware computer repair shop and never picked up again after being serviced. The person who dropped off the computer was none other than Hunter Biden, the son of the President of the United States. It was one of three laptops brought in by Hunter. The other two were resolved and picked up, the third was in more critical condition. While the owner of the repair shop was transferring files from the laptop to an external hard drive for preservation, he noticed a few things that bothered him, but kept it to himself. After the laptop was never picked up, following the shops guidelines, it was considered abandoned. But the owner of repair shop was still bothered by what he saw during the transfer, and wondered what he should do. He consulted with his dad, a retired Air Force colonel. The dad attempted to turn the hard-drive over to the FBI in the summer of 2019, but the FBI turned him down, according to a timeline of events by the World Tribune. The FBI eventually took possession of the original laptop in Delaware in December of 2019. That means that the laptop in question was in the hands of the FBI for a year before the public was made aware of it just prior to the November 2020 election. In the meantime, the man who owned the computer repair shop is left wondering why the information he saw about the President’s son has not been made public. He contacts several congressmen who don’t give him the time of day, then gets in touch with Rudi Guliani. We’re still not sure how, but the New York Post gets a hold of the contents of the laptop, and publishes what they say are e-mails that show Joe Biden was aware of and possibly making money from the activities of Hunter Biden, who’s using his father’s influence to cut deals with companies in Ukraine and China. If this information had come out prior to the election in 2020, some statistics indicate that Joe Biden would have lost up to 8 percent of the votes he got, which would have given the election win to the incumbent, Donald Trump. But this isn’t about Joe or Hunter Biden, or Donald Trump. This is about the legacy and social media. When the New York Post broke the story about the laptop and the information contained thereon, other news organizations shut the story down. The legacy media practically declared the computer repair shop owner to be a Russian operative, working to discredit Candidate Biden. Fifty former intellingence officials, some of whom now work for those same media outlets, signed a letter stating that the contents of the laptop, “had all the hallmarks of a Russian operation” even though none of the signers had access to the information itself. The media touted this letter as proof that the contents of the laptop were planted. Social media sites like facebook and twitter treated the New York Post story as if it were a conspiracy theory, all in an attempt to keep the story from ruining the chances of their chosen candidate, Joe Biden. Now, just this week, the New York Times admitted, perhaps accidentally, that the New York Post story was true. It wasn’t a headline, of course. The telltale sentence was buried deep in a story about the current investigation into Hunter Biden’s possible criminal violations concerning taxes, foreign lobbying and money laundering. Even now that the cat’s out of the bag as far as the laptop is concerned and that the New York Times has admitted reviewing the e-mails as part of the research for the story, the Legacy media is still ignoring the elephant in the room. Since the New York Times spilled the beans about the laptop and it’s contents, ABC, NBC, CBS kept silent on the subject in their newscasts on Thursday and Friday. Not a word. I’m sure they were caught off guard, and needed more time to craft way to save face. But I’m afraid it’s too late. We always knew the legacy media hated Donald Trump, but now we also know that they deceived the American public to intentionally put their candidate of choice in the Oval Office. They killed the story about the Hunter Biden laptop and all of its contents. They discredited anyone who believed the New York Post story, and prevented, as much as they could, the dissemination of the truth about Hunter Biden, his shady business deals, and how his father, President Joe Biden knew about, and may have even benefitted from the way Hunter peddled his father’s influence. The people who run these news divisions for the networks, and the people who control the content on social media conspired to overthrow the sitting President of the United States by manipulating what the American public could learn about the opposing candidate. In the days leading up to the 2020 election, the talking heads on CNN, MSNBC, CBS and NBC all downplayed the Hunter Biden scandal while ABC News completely ignored the story, according to a study. The New York Post and the Washington Times were the only major newspapers interested in telling the truth. The New York Times took every opportunity it could to discredit the laptop story right up to the 2020 election, referring to the “purported laptop” and falling back on the bogus letter signed by Democratic officials that called it Russian disinformation. The New York Post says, "Readers of the Times have discovered in March 2022 that Hunter Biden pursued business deals in Europe and Asia, and may have leveraged his father’s position as vice president to do it. Hunter also may not have properly registered with the government or declared all his income. All legitimate topics of discussion about a presidential candidate’s family, no?… Readers of The Post have known this since October 2020." And just to make sure the New York Times got the message, the New York Post editorial board wrote: "Forgive the profanity, but you have got to be s---ting us."

Now, with the President’s poll numbers falling well below anything desirable, the press is reluctantly admitting that maybe what they’ve done was a mistake. Inflation is out of control, gasoline prices are at historic highs, major cities are mired in rising crime rates while liberal prosecutors are undoing the work of the police. The media has tried to protect the President they chose to put into office, but they’re finding it more and more difficult. And that’s just domestic policy. Foreign policy hasn’t fared much better, from the tragic exit from Afghanistan to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the folly of sending the Vice-President to central America to try to discover the causal effect of overwhelming illegal migration across our southern border. You can blame Joe Biden or not. It really doesn’t matter. The legacy media chose him over Donald Trump because they didn’t like Donald Trump, and it really didn’t matter who the media appointed President they would just be a mouthpiece for the agenda other put into place. He’s kind of like Zaphod Beeblrox, President of the Galaxy in the book, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglass Adams. Zaphod’s job as President was to distract you from where the power actually lies. It’s starting to look like that’s Joe’s job, too. Even if Joe Biden is pulling most of the strings (no President pulls all of them), regardless if you’re glad he’s President or not, it looks like the people didn’t put him in that position. The press did. 

A free press is vital to our Constitutional Republic. It’s the fourth estate. The watchdogs of our government. Or at least it’s supposed to be. A CNBC reporter recently said on live television that it’s their job to control how people think. That’s a far cry from the definition of news that I was taught. The definition that I still believe in: New is information about current events the public wants or needs to know. Most of the legacy media no longer subscribes to that definition. They will tell you the stories the want you to hear in a way that supports their views and desires and outcomes. They won’t tell you the stories that don’t. SO what’s the answer, Bob? Well, all I can tell you is be critical of what you hear and see on the news. Think about the way a story is told. Did it actually have useful content, or was it just being suggestive? Was it something you wanted to know? Was it something you needed to know? Can it be verified by another source? The people in Russia right now are being lied to by their newsmedia. The Kremlin controls nearly everything they tell the people. Many of them know they’re being lied to, and many don’t. So, a state-run media isn’t the answer, but a free press has taken advantage of its power to control the people, just like a Communist government might. When we can’t trust the New York Times, the old gray lady, the paper of record, then we’re in a position we’ve never been before.

The Listening Tube is written and produced by yours truly. Copyright 2022. Thank you for being a part of the Listening Tube. I’m your host, Bob Woodley for thou ad infinitum.