Spinning Media Monkeys
From the Intercept
The numbers don’t lie. The journalism industry is in deep, deep trouble.
From 2008-2020, nearly two-thirds of the newsroom jobs at U.S. newspapers vanished. Then the pandemic hit, and the floor really dropped out.
More than 90 local newsrooms have shut down completely during the pandemic. Other newsrooms were gutted with layoffs, and few if any went entirely unscathed.
And then, in an additional blow, public interest in the news cratered after Donald Trump left office, with ratings at cable TV news channels like CNN crashing by as much as 50 percent after Trump’s departure.
There’s no sugarcoating it. The core business model that the journalism industry relied on for the last 100 years is dying.
FBI raid on Project Veritas founder’s home sparks questions about press freedom
Politico: By JOSH GERSTEIN
The action against James O’Keefe has prompted concern about the Biden administration’s commitment to the First Amendment.
The Biden administration’s effort to establish itself as a committed champion of press freedom is facing new doubts because of the Justice Department’s aggressive legal tactics against a conservative provocateur known for his hidden-camera video stings.
A predawn FBI raid last weekend against Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe and similar raids on some of his associates are prompting alarm from some First Amendment advocates, who contend that prosecutors appear to have run roughshod over Justice Department media policies and a federal law protecting journalists.
Adding to the drama surrounding the brewing court showdown: It stems from a politically sensitive investigation into the alleged theft of the diary of President Joe Biden’s daughter Ashley.
That document made it into the hands of O’Keefe’s organization, Project Veritas, which never published anything on the subject and eventually turned the document over to police.
An ensuing federal investigation resulted in the FBI raid on O’Keefe’s home in Westchester County, N.Y., at 6 a.m. last Saturday to seize his cell phones pursuant to a court order. O’Keefe says he stood handcuffed in his underwear in a hallway as almost a dozen agents — one carrying a battering ram — searched for the phones.
The politically fraught episode is shaping up as an early test of the vows from Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland to show greater respect for the media and to back away from the confrontational, often hostile approach favored by former President Donald Trump and his administration.
…At the center of the gathering legal storm is a pivotal question: Is O’Keefe a journalist in the eyes of the law?
O’Keefe’s attorneys insist that despite his evident political bent and his unorthodox — sometimes deceptive — tactics, he qualifies as a journalist under a federal statute and Justice Department regulations aimed at sharply restricting the use of search warrants and similar steps against members of the media.
Prosecutors insist they’ve complied with those requirements, but have thus far been cagey about whether or not they’re treating O’Keefe as a member of the press.
“The Government hereby confirms that it has complied with all applicable regulations and policies regarding potential members of the news media in the course of this investigation, including with respect to the search warrant at issue,” prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan wrote Monday in a letter to O’Keefe’s lawyers obtained by POLITICO.
At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last month, Garland was asked who qualifies as a journalist under Justice Department policies. “It’s very difficult to make that kind of definition,” he said.
O’Keefe is certainly not a typical journalist. Indeed, several of his outfit’s major hidden-camera exposés have been directed at employees of major news organizations such as CNN and NPR, seeking to paint them as left-wing activists. (At least one such attempt was foiled in 2017 when Washington Post reporters suspected they were being set up and effectively turned the tables on O’Keefe’s operatives.)
While many of O’Keefe’s tactics are unsavory, they are far from unknown in the mainstream press. Hidden-camera stings and undercover reporting have fallen out of fashion at most traditional news organizations, but they were once a staple of network television news magazines.
…Emails obtained by POLITICO show prosecutors declined to tell Calli whether the Project Veritas searches were approved by a Justice Department committee that oversees investigations impacting the news media.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan declined to comment on the office’s handling of the inquiry. A Justice Department spokesperson also declined comment.
Uh oh…
Findings Of The Corona Investigative Committee - Dr. Reiner Fuellmich
Mama Called the Doctors and the Doctors Said: No More Jabbing Kids, People, Deer, Otters and Other Creatures Just Because Big Bird Said, All That Bread Has Gone To Your Head
No More Jabbing Four More Dead
Over a 60X increase in pro sports adverse events since the vaccines rolled out
Nobody can explain that. Some poo-poo these events saying that they happen all the time. True, they do. But not at this rate. Something happened in 2021 that changed things. I wonder what...
The Argument Over Natural Immunity is Over. It's Time to Update Policy.
Science shows robust and durable T-cell immunity to variants. Now, CDC admits no record of unvaccinated person who had COVID-19 spreading.
https://popularrationalism.substack.com/.../the-argument...
What On Earth Will It Take to Rewrite the Story?
watch as "epidemic of the unvaccinated" becomes "booster refusal killing the double jabbed"
at the risk of saying "i told you so..."
The new narrative : “it’s your fault for not boosting”
they’ll create authorities to validate this and make up new claims to support their new demands, but it’s all just spin and manipulation.
what’s really going on is a sorcerer’s apprentice that has lost control and the fact of this is going to become MUCH too big to hide in the next 6-8 weeks.
the propaganda and gaslighting is going to get stretched too far and the whole edifice will collapse.
the true believers, like any doomsday cult when the world fails to end, will double and triple down and lose their minds in paroxysms of piety and rage.
many inhabit that increasingly miscalibrated dystopia known as “the media.”
we’re seeing it already.
the attacks are getting desperate and shrill.
“we must do as we’re told!” see the media clowns worried that the circus might be on fire and what remains of their meagre status in jeopardy. “obedience is bravery!” “submission is freedom!”
“i’ll take any number of shots to prove my faith and it you fail to kowtow it must mean you are afraid!”
…the brainwashed are ALWAYS the ones most likely to accuse others of having been brainwashed.
it also makes for great propaganda.
…it’s totalitarian tyranny that demands you send it a thank you card.
…the big lie relies upon suppressing the truth. but this truth is bigger still. everyone is seeing with their own eyes what’s going on. the most devout 20% will go down on this ship engulfed by icy water while still shrilling that icebergs are a conspiracy theory, but the middle has had more than enough.
the so called “mainstream media” has been dying by inches and has used tribal hatred of cheeto colored presidents and wet pants covidian night terrors to desperately cling to relevance, but this is doomed to ignominious failure. their days as arbiters of truth and style and taste are over.
and everyone but them knows it.
people are rising all over the world, and we should ALL rise with them.
Australia Rising
you’re being sold a pack of lies by a pack of liars whose story has changed more times than gwenneth paltrow’s dietary restrictions.
you’re literally being sold a celebrity diet of toxic trash under the guise of public health.
…be a part of the solution.
the society you save may be your own.
the crimes and the criminals
by Kyle Young
Regular readers know I’ve been talking about these issues for many months. I’ve recently learned that Dr. David Martin has been doing even more work pointing all of this out. Whereas, I’ve merely been pointing out the obvious criminal aspects, the exceptional research by Dr. Martin verifies the criminal conduct by correlating the laws and court decisions of the land.
What follows are but a few highlights of his work.
Six treasonous acts - felonies - committed by many under the guise of the covid pandmeic and the covid vaxx program. Punishable by up to 99 years in prison and up to 100 million dollars per incident.
18 U.S.C. §2339 C et seq. – Funding and Conspiring to Commit Acts of Terror
Over the course of his career Anthony Fauci has funneled 191 billion US taxpayer dollars to finance terror on the American people via vaccinations. He and the organizations that have taken that money and used it to create bioweapons are all guilty of “funding and conspiring acts of terror”.
First, thanks to Dr. Martin for his incredible research. Second, thanks Celia for reposting.