June 8, 2009

MSM Tactics

Every conservative knows that the mainstream media (MSM) has a liberal bias. Every conservative knows that they will run interference for the Obama administration, and any Democrat in Congress, the Senate, court justice or any governor so as to ensure that the liberal agenda can continue to advance. Every conservative can also see that while they might be trained journalistically, they aren't following the tenets of their training, because they are guided by 'the struggle' and not the truth. They are no longer journalists. They are a JournoList.

And further, it is apparent to most conservatives that the training of journalists beyond their chosen field is typically pretty slim - economics, geo-politics, history, religious studies, science, military tactics, or anything else that might be relevant to the topics they might cover. Normally that would be okay, as long as it was not a pervasive problem. It also would not be a problem if the topic-uneducated chose to educate themselves in the area they were going to be covering. And by educating, it does not mean "The Liberal Handbook Of ________".

But that doesn't seem to happen. Instead, the liberal media seems to learn from the Alinsky Playbook. They learn or develop tactics that they use to help forward that liberal agenda.

Ignore

If a fact gets in the way of your desired narrative, ignore it. For example, NewsBusters has this story;


We also shouldn't ignore what we ended up with the last time a nominee mentioned race and gender influencing decisions. However, the most disturbing reflection of Sotomayor's character is the company she keeps. According the American Bar
Association, Sotomayor is a member of the NCLR, otherwise known as "La Raza".

As President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee comes under heavy fire for allegedly being a "racist,” Judge Sonia Sotomayor is listed as a member of the National Council of La Raza, a group that’s promoted driver’s licenses for illegal aliens, amnesty programs, and no immigration law enforcement by local and state police.

According the American Bar Association, Sotomayor is a member of the NCLR, which bills itself as the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the U.S.

Meaning “the Race,” La Raza also has connections to groups that advocate the separation of several southwestern states from the rest of America.

.... La Raza was condemned in 2007 by former U.S. Rep. Charles Norwood, R-Ga., as a radical “pro-illegal immigration lobbying organization that supports racist groups calling for the secession of the western United States as a Hispanic-only homeland.”

Norwood urged La Raza to renounce its support of the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan – which sees “the Race” as part of an ethnic group that one day will reclaim Aztlan, the mythical birthplace of the Aztecs. In Chicano folklore, Aztlan includes California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and parts of Colorado and Texas.
Maybe it's an outlandishly wrong story. But it doesn't even get mention as that, if that's what it is. So how do you know they're ignoring it and not reporting falsehoods? Because if it was wrong, they'd vehemently report it as such because it fits the narrative of Republicans and conservatives as bad guys.

Ignoring a contention of that narrative is the preferred approach. You can't be called on factual errors or misrepresentations. More importantly, you don't even expose an alternative viewpoint for consideration. It's that type of approach that allows liberals to feel they can make claims like 'the debate is over, there's a consensus.' (Way to go Al Gore.)


Spin

If you can't ignore something, then you'd better spin it to your own narrative if you can.

Sean O'Donnell has a great example of it;

In today’s New York Times, a front page article detailed the CIA’s use of torture during interrogation methods. The article elaborated on the memos the Justice Department released yesterday on CIA interrogation techniques. The NYT called the methods the CIA used “brutal” and “graphic.”

Before discussing torture further, it must be defined. Black’s Law Dictionary, an authority in the legal world, defines torture as the “infliction of intense pain to the body or mind to punish, to extract a confession or information, or to obtain sadistic pleasure.”

Do the CIA interrogation techniques described in the recent memos fall in line with the definition of torture?

One technique that was used was sleep deprivation. Detainees were shackled in a “standing position” and kept awake for days, some times as long as 11 days. The excerpt printed in the NYT about sleep deprivation said:

It is clear that depriving someone of sleep does not involve severe physical pain… Nor could sleep deprivation constitute a procedure calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses.

Clearly, sleep deprivation is not torture, yet the NYT called it “brutal.” Go to any college campus during mid-terms and you’ll find plenty of students on Adderall, staying awake for days studying. Are they being tortured?

Good question Sean. And the article is an accurate observation of the New York Times and their continual 'spin mission'.

Ridicule

The next option in the arsenal of the mainstream media is ridicule. While it smacks of desperation, it seems to work, and it adheres to Alinsky's rulebook, so they continue to do it. Everyone has seen this one in action. If something poses a threat to your narrative, and you can't ignore it - ridicule it.

Their low bar ridiculing of the Tax Day Tea Parties was beyond petty, it was disgraceful.


Deny

Finally, if nothing else works, deny reality. Deny, deny, deny. Deny the truth. Deny the argument. Deny everything.

Check out Joe Klein at 32 seconds;



Repeat

Those are the four weapons they use to promote their agenda as the one true agenda. So when they've run their course, they just repeat them. Maybe in a different order or a different balance, but the playbook is the same.

How long before outright lies become part of the repertoire? Or other things like legally silencing the opposition? No, I'm not paranoid. I don't think it will happen...quickly. But look at the Fairness Doctrine. It's not that far fetched that the march in that direction is underway.

The good news is that regular people, conservatives, moderates and even liberals who don't like the way the debate is shaping up and turning out, have time to put a stop to it.

For now.

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