The White House has been pressuring Fox News in public and through back channel communications to stop spreading misinformation about the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines. This sounds innocuous but there are frightening implications, not least the question of whether anyone can believe something simply because the government says that it is true. Then there is the question of whether there should ever be this sort of collaboration between government and the media that is supposed to be its watchdog.
From the Same People Who Brought You WMDs
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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the Fox who cried “Wolf!”……
Even more dire, however, are those situations in which the media source “knows” not to discuss something in the first place and thus never needs to be brought to heel. You don’t whip a well-behaved dog. Look at the New York Times. Right now (under the Olympics coverage — what a holdover from the Cold War is getting such noncritical coverage for, in the middle of a pandemic, is one example), the Times is reporting, in a very gwown-up fashion, on how “Democrats See Infrastructure Deal as First Step on Climate Promises” with a subhead that dutifully offers the Times’ kind of “fair and balanced” coverage: “However, the money for provisions to cut pollution is a fraction of the $2 trillion that President Biden once vowed. Here’s the latest in politics.”
Sure sounds like they’re giving it to Hunter Biden’s dad. But they aren’t. Step back. Look at the big picture. Biden’s “plan” wasn’t enough to begin with. Never was. Even if he got everything he asked for. But the Times will not scream “fire” truthfully in a crowded theater. Mustn’t alarm the people. Mustn’t validate the cra-cray hysterics of the environmentalists.