This week, in an update its style guide, the Journal states that while it will allow reporters to continue using the term “illegal immigration” to describe the process of illegal aliens arriving and staying in the U.S., it will no longer permit reporters to describe individuals as “illegal” or “illegal immigrant” in an effort to stop “labeling people.”
I collect Soviet newspapers. Years ago, I used to travel to Moscow’s Izmailovsky flea market every few weeks, hooking up with a dealer who crisscrossed the country digging up front pages from the Cold War era. I have Izvestia’s celebration of Gagarin’s flight, a Pravda account of a 1938 show trial, even an ancient copy of Ogonyek with Trotsky on the cover that someone must have taken a risk to keep.
These relics, with dramatic block fonts and red highlights, are cool pieces of history. Not so cool: the writing! Soviet newspapers were wrought with such anvil shamelessness that it’s difficult to imagine anyone ever read them without laughing. A good Soviet could write almost any Pravda headline in advance. What else but “A Mighty Demonstration of the Union of the Party and the People” fit the day after Supreme Soviet elections? What news could come from the Spanish civil war but “Success of the Republican Fleet?” Who could earn an obit headline but a “Faithful Son of the Party”?
Reality in Soviet news was 100% binary, with all people either heroes or villains, and the villains all in league with one another (an SR was no better than a fascist or a “Right-Trotskyite Bandit,” a kind of proto-horseshoe theory). Other ideas were not represented, except to be attacked and deconstructed. Also, since anything good was all good, politicians were not described as people at all but paragons of limitless virtue — 95% of most issues of Pravda or Izvestia were just names of party leaders surrounded by lists of applause-words, like “glittering,” “full-hearted,” “wise,” “mighty,” “courageous,” “in complete moral-political union with the people,” etc.
Some of the headlines in the U.S. press lately sound suspiciously like this kind of work:
— Biden stimulus showers money on Americans, sharply cutting poverty
— Champion of the middle class comes to the aid of the poor
— Biden’s historic victory for America
The coronavirus pandemic was the best thing to happen to CNN since Donald Trump.
What drama! What fear! What potential for ratings! Rarely has the old journalism aphorism “if it bleeds, it leads” gotten such mileage.
When the virus first came to the United States, CNN was dismissive. There were bigger, sexier stories to worry about, including Trump’s impeachment trial.
Then, as COVID-19 infections and fatalities ticked up, CNN suddenly became interested in the viral outbreak, focusing its attention almost entirely on the Trump administration’s sluggish and unfocused response. CNN went all-in on hysteria, death counts, and social distance scolding. Now, CNN’s programming is dedicated largely to squeezing the last few drops of panic from the pandemic, its guests and hosts warning viewers repeatedly that, even with the creation and distribution of new vaccines, things are far from “normal” and that you should stay frightened.
It’s still dangerous out there! Tune in tonight to learn what you can do to protect yourself!
CNN was blasted by social media users after posting a tweet Monday that seemed to suggest that Americans’ constitutional rights and civil liberties now flow through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and are directly related to their vulnerability to, or protection from, COVID-19.
“What’s the other side going to say? They’re going to say, ‘Of course we’re not racist,’ or whatever … We have only heard from one side, but that one side at this point rings very true.”
New polling indicates that Americans massively overestimate the number of incidents involving unarmed black men being killed by police, with mainstream media fixation on a handful of incidents creating a false impression that thousands of unarmed black men are being killed every year.
Over the last four years, countless anti-Trump stories in the news relied on anonymous sources. The term ‘according to sources’ has become a punchline, and people in media are the only ones who don’t get the joke. They used this dishonest tactic to push the debunked Steele dossier, the Russia collusion lie, and more.
Most notably, Trump’s first post-presidency address, at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, included his usual lies about the 2020 election. He continued to falsely insist he was the legitimate winner and continued to falsely insist the election was “rigged.”
Okay, I understand no one likes CNN. We don’t like CNN either, and rarely use their articles. If we do, it should be obvious to regular BCF readers that there’s a very good reason. Additionally, we archive the article so 1) CNN can’t revise the archive and 2) so when you visit the link, you’re not actually going to an insane lefty site.
There is knowledge to be gained from knowing your enemy – a la Sun Tzu – and I hope you realize we sort through a huge number of articles trying find ones you’ll find interesting. Please don’t give a kneejerk rejection, and thank you all for reading.
When is a hate crime not a hate crime? It apparently depends on the ethnicity of the victim and the perpetrator as well. Or at least that’s the message coming from NBC News in an “explainer” they published this weekend. If you’re a white person hanging a noose outside a Black person’s house or painting a swastika on a synagogue, you’re obviously going to be tagged with a hate crime. But what about random attacks on Asian people in the middle of a pandemic that most of the world blames on China? Not so fast there, partner. NBC wants you to know that you need to slow your roll and examine all of the evidence carefully. We wouldn’t want to unjustly accuse somebody, would we?
According to a press release on the matter, the initiative was formed to “address the prevalence of disinformation, misinformation and online content fraud through developing technical standards for certifying the source and history or provenance of media content.”
A Wall Street Journal exclusive revealed that Biden’s allies were “preparing to create a new nonprofit advocacy organization, with the White House’s approval, that will be funded by donors and seek to build support for his policy agenda, senior administration officials said.” The Feb. 17 report noted that the new group, named “Building Back Together,” will “be a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, which would allow it to operate without disclosing its donors.” ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News ignored the news altogether during their Feb. 17, Feb. 18, and Feb. 19 broadcasts.
The media continue to promote any number of fabricated storylines intended to bolster the laughable narrative of an “insurrection” occurring at the Capitol. The concocted account of the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick recently fell apart; the New York Times, after pressure from outlets including American Greatness, effectively retracted its January 8 article claiming Sicknick was killed by a fire extinguisher at the hands of Trump “loyalists.”
Did you know that you can see The Great Wall of China from outer space? Is that not absolutely incredible? I heard this cool little fact from a friend some time ago and began telling everyone I knew about this cool trivia nugget.
What really blew me away was how almost everyone I told had already heard this and agreed with me that it is a very cool fact. A man-made wall you can see from outer space. That is just incredible.
I mean, it would be incredible, if it were true. You see, it is not true—not even a little. NASA and multiple individual astronauts have debunked this myth. Yet much of the general public believes it to be a fact, as NASA points out.
But why? The narrative. That is why. There is nothing more powerful (and destructive) in today’s world than the narrative.
h/t Marvin
In a quiet but stunning correction, the New York Times backed away from its original report that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was killed by a Trump supporter wielding a fire extinguisher during the January 6 melee at the Capitol building. Shortly after American Greatness published my column Friday that showed how the Times gradually was backpedaling on its January 8 bombshell, the paper posted this caveat:
“UPDATE: New information has emerged regarding the death of the Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick that questions the initial cause of his death provided by officials close to the Capitol Police.”
They held out until after the impeachment was over.
h/t Mauser98
The stakes are high: Officer Sicknick’s death is the only purported death by a largely tourist crowd that was let into the building by police, stayed inside the velvet ropes, seemed at least partly there out of confusion, for social media clout, or just for the memes, and that even the New York Times conceded caused limited property damage.
