How do I know that the mainstream media is biased?
Look at how fixated they are at the crowd size of Trump's inauguration. Look at how relentlessly hostile they are about Donald Trump. They are the only collective that continue and persist that he is lying. All CNN wants to do is call Trump a liar; racist; white-supremacist; misogynist; whatever other now-politicized terms they can come up with, and by their math because they say it is so, it is so. No one of the controlled-media ever called out Clinton for being a liar (or anything else she truly was), even when she's more blatantly demonstrated that she is a liar more so than Trump ever has with his supposed lies; that are actually just rather bold statements that are taken with extreme offense to by the media and those who follow their reality. The media is colluded and in a partnership with the alt-left radical movement. They're only in it to report what they see as helpful to their cause, not for (f)actual information to be told of what happens, as it happens, behind closed doors. Bullshit like crowd size is the media's attention - not what actually matters, like all of the immense progress that Trump's made within the first five days of his presidency; they've not said a word about it as of now, but they'll 'talk' about how Spicer lied when he only pointed out how dishonest and irresponsible the AP (Associated Press) were in how they reported their information to us. Or they'll 'talk' about how Trump was divided in his speech instead of united in its message - which was its message. You'd have to be living in an alternate reality to see his speech as 'dark, depressing and divided' instead what anybody with common-sense could take away from its point. Or they'll 'talk' about how in his speech insulted people on stage, when he wouldn't have any reason to if they weren't involved in shady shit and instead did their jobs like they say they do.
They themselves - Clinton, Obama, most politicians, etc are only in it for their own interest, cause, and benefit. Not to the American people's interests. Not to serve and protect us and our drive for a prosperous lifetime, only to serve and protect themselves. Their oh so very credible media are in secret supportive of that cause, by how they control what's released and what goes out, and the intentional effect it will have, as well as referral to the White House and places like InfoWars as 'fake news' when it's the exact opposite and such has been spoken for a very long time, which is a definitely longer bout than when the media began deflecting that argument to the opposite side. They too, benefit from supporting their cause as they're paid for doing it. They're lazy, they don't do their jobs, they don't research what they report on Trump's doings; they're instead told what to say and how to say it, and, typical handling and behavior of their false claims consist of being overly dramatic and disproportionate on the smallest points that they've made out of bigger spectacles, and little trivia that they make the biggest deal out of. They don't employ investigative journalism - because journalism doesn't work to their enterprise; there's no money in it. They only employ misrepresentation, exaggeration, and distortion of facts in their method of reporting, using what they call journalism, and a tactic of repeating a lie often enough for it be deemed believable. Because of their high stance within the media, long establishment as a respected business(s), and credibility, they're allowed to do this. They are fake news. People will believe that crap because 'it's from CBS!'. Further explanation and elaboration (
https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2017/01/23/reporters-tell-me-the-truth-off-the-record-the-fake-news-business/), and example;
“Reporters in my business have two choices. They can lower their IQs and become cynics, or they can maintain their intelligence and get booted out. That’s what it comes down to. Anybody with an IQ over 90 can see we have agendas. The whole business is agenda-driven. The main job of a reporter who wants to keep working is developing a cover—pretending he’s speaking the truth. This is a cover for his real identity. A guy who pleases his bosses. Several of us had the whole Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky story before it was published. We wanted to go with it, but we were told to sit on it. So it was our job to agree with that assessment. We had to pretend we didn’t have enough proof yet. We had the proof, but we had to make it seem like we were responsible journalists and needed more. That was a bunch of crap. The agenda was to protect ourselves from the wrath of the White House. That’s what the editors and the publishers were talking about among themselves. Sure—protect the president. But the real thing was the fear that he and his people would strike back at us and do us damage.”
They're biased as all hell.
And the fact of the matter is, they have to be, or they'll lose their job. It's something they fall in to, and others stay in because they want the money. And these quotes are from people who sooner or later realized it, and made the decision to get out of that deceptive void; the business of where your doing your job is based upon whatever headlines will make the money and sell the stories - even if they must fabricate the material in such a way to make it believable, rather than being based upon fact, truthful reporting on fact, and being honest about it. They're entirely agenda-driven, not truth-driven.
Does that make sense? Or is it just coming from my slanted conservative-based value table?
Oh, and guess what? Donald Trump is not a liar. Nor is his staff. He's already, within the first seven days of his presidency, fulfilled and made good on the promises that he'd made a point of during his campaign.
He's already reiterating those many promises that he continually made. He's signed a total of five (more, as I speak) executive orders thus far, (such as for Keystone XL Pipeline, or sanctuary cities) and he's also been transparent about it. Like even going as far as to put a camera up to his signing basically indicating; "Look, I signed this. This is what it's about." That cannot be disputed.
He's cracking down on the urgency and importance of border security (don't tell me the wall shouldn't be built; Mexico is and should be held both accountable and responsible for whoever crosses(ed) over that border, and despite recurrent affirmations from the Mexican president that they will not be paying for the wall; they will end up paying for the wall, in some form, one way, or another.) It's an attribute essential to our sovereignty.
He, within the first hour, withdrew us from the Trans-Pacific-Partnership - another campaign promise.
He's eliminated Obamacare, which he said he'd do, and which he's had a replacement plan for, and he's already nearly or completely reversed and eradicated all of Obama's foreign policies, amnesties. and (illegal) acts he's committed as a president that have proven to be detrimental to the nation's government, as well as it's financial status. Donald Trump has erased all of the crap that Barack Obama has 'done for the American people' and practically destroyed his reputation.
He's made progress in his claims that he can establish and maintain a positive relationship and peaceful negotiations with foreign countries, and has already met with various Prime Ministers and other world leaders, and has other planned meetings (with Prime Minister of Great Britain, for example). This is another affair that he was insistent in how he could straight up ace it.
The country is overall benefiting from what he's accomplished. For example, the Dow hit 20K for the first time in history just recently. Another example, job creation; Ford cancelled plans for moving to Mexico and invested $700 million in a plant in Michigan, and as a result about 700 jobs were saved that would've instead shifted to Mexico. This ties in with Trump's championing that he could create jobs for the American people. It's on behalf of Trump influencing policies and laws to a certain direction by means of all of what he was allowed to do within the jurisdiction as a president-elect. Similar happenings with Sprint and OneWeb occurred as to how they announced they would be adding thousands of jobs to the US within their respective companies. Once again a result of what Trump had already done to make that possible. Before he even took office, he proved to be quite the job creator - as he promised.
And I don't believe we've ever seen a president tackle and run through a checklist of promises as persistently, effectively, and steadily as he has this past week. These were all fundamental promises; immigration, unnecessary regulations, corporate tax cuts, providing of American jobs, extreme vetting of refugees, the appointing of an (most likely) originalist justice on the supreme court, border security (building the wall), energy independence, giving education back to the states, and, at that, the government back to the people. It's like watching an executive work in contrast to how a politician will work, an executive will role up his sleeves and get the work done. Trump is and always has been more than willing to do just this. He's a hard worker. He's working faster than the speed of light, it's utterly amazing. I was confident that he could do it, and I was right, and so was he. Donald Trump is simply not a liar. At least not where it really counts. If anything whatsoever, he's only ever made a quite small amount of very trivial mistakes that are irrelevant to the main cause, and the media takes these and unjustifiably expands upon them as news, on a regular basis, and that's how they've made him look bad to half the population. They've gotten everything about him wrong - go and ask anybody who personally knows him.
And what reason does Trump have to lie in the first place? He doesn't, because he's coming into the political arena without ever having set foot within it; therefore no crookedly-biased or slanted political standpoint to 'broadcast lies' from.
On the inauguration and it's debate; the photographic evidence is most definitely deniable, and here's the why, and the how;
http://ijr.com/2017/01/784781-the-highest-quality-photograph-of-trumps-inauguration-yet-has-been-released-guess-what-the-crowd-looks-like/
The photo being passed around in 'comparisons' was deliberately taken before the whole of the audience arrived, and that was one of the easiest stunts that could've been pulled in the attempt of lying about it's attendance, or basically saying "See? no one cares for this Trump guy. Now give up." Sean Spicer's point was that, beforehand, the media intentionally framed Trump's inauguration crowd size as an unrealistically significant measure smaller than Obama's; purposely demonstrating what could technically be considered 'immature' evidence that was passed off as the comparison between Trump's and Obama's inauguration attendance. The 'gigapixel' of Trump's inauguration that CNN provided proves Trump's and Spicer's claims that the audience did reach nearly all the way back to the Washington Monument; space that was seen completely empty in "clear, undeniable photographic evidence" presented before, which this gigapixel also disproves, and simultaneously proves that the precedent photographic evidence provided as comparison was taken before the whole of the audience arrived, and was in fact used to discourage and distort real enthusiasm for the inauguration and President Trump himself.
I think this was most surprising and quite rare on CNN's part to have brought forth a clear, extremely detailed, high resolution photo of the inauguration area, and believe they did so because, if they dragged out the claims of insignificant attendance at the inauguration any longer, while there exists a photo that can potentially be utilized as proof for Spicer's and Trump's claims, (and therefore cannot be further disputed) they would indeed lose their credibility and it would become even more perfectly obvious what they're trying to do.
And Spicer's claims that it was the largest audience an inauguration has ever drawn still hold true as he's forthrightly made that statement with total and collective of the physical attendance, the digital streaming and viewership of the web and television, tallied with even the protesters who continually blocked any possible entry way, and as a result, made a lot of people afraid to try to attempt to get into the inauguration, without being attacked.
Sean Spicer insists that 'our intention is never to lie to you', and this is kept up by how he's openly and admittedly corrected any unintentionally-mistaken information that was reported, and by how the claims that they persist to stand by, are proven by what I explained above; something that will still probably be ignored so that they can justify their reporting on how Trump, Spicer, and the White House are lying and that their alternative facts are lies.
There's no reason why Donald Trump's presidential inauguration wouldn't attract the largest audience, considering Trump's status as a wealthy, famous, well-respected businessman, and who he is, Donald J. Trump; a businessman who was fed-up with the demeanor that politics have taken over the cumulative of a couple decades (so was half the population, obviously; they voted him in), and how politicized the collective of the media, government, and politicians have made everything, decided 'not anymore', and that he would run for president to make a promise to bring change that he's already delivered upon. And as a bystander watching the country's decline for so many years, as well as being an expert in negotiation and many other business tactics; things that he's very well educated on, he knows exactly what he's doing, and how to do it, and how to get it done. His transparency of his activities is purposed to the effect to let America know that's he's determinedly getting shit done, at an astonishing rate, that is exceeding most of all of the previous administrations.
So guess what? The 'Trump Train' has left the station, and we, as a nation not divided upon itself, need to unite behind him and accept that he was elected as and is the President of the United States, just as we all did when Barack Obama was elected twice. "Not my president" my fucking ass. Protesters like that and people of the alt-left belief system (leftists), as well as the alt-left itself (which consists of the media's majority) are entirely detrimental to the alt-right's (conservative's) and Donald Trumps's cause to undertake a course of actions to improve America and our quality of life; ultimately to 'Make America Great Again', and what the controlled media reports on the Trump administration is taken without regard by Trump and his cabinet themselves, and they're going to do what they need to do to get desired the result anyway. All the while ferociously fighting the media, exposing them for the profoundly-biased and slanted sources that they are, and holding them accountable for every lie that they make. It's going to be a fun ride. Strap in, we face plenty of opposition at every turn. ;)
Once again, TK, I'm not going to persist to argue a fact that a clear basis of understanding and comprehension, as well common-sense, is required to be able to contend and demonstrate those fundamentals and concepts in the first place, because that would be foolish on my part, as well as a waste of time on both of ours.
Alright, let's talk about the inauguration numbers first. I've seen the interactive CNN photo in the post you linked to. It's a good way to get a look at the event, but there is a reason for the specific comparison photos people have been using to look at the two inaugurations: they are taken from exactly the same place, at approximately the same time, right around (slightly before, as I understand it) noon. It was at noon that Trump was sworn in as president, and presumably Obama as well.
When comparing crowd sizes you can't use pictures that are taken from completely different angles. Notice that the CNN gigapixel shot is from a low angle. Because of its perspective, gaps in the crowd are obscured. If you want to understand how big of an impact this has, go back to the Earthcam photo I posted, here:
Note how from that perspective, you can see that the crowd size looks very much like it does in the photo from the Washington monument. Note that the higher the perspective the smaller the crowd looks. This is the normal way perspective works: when you look out across a large space from the ground, because it goes back into the distance it appears vast. It will disappear over the horizon. If you can fly up above it and look down, you can see its actual size in comparison to its surroundings much more accurately.
Again, keep in mind that ALL of these photos, including the gigapixel one, are taken at approximately the same time. How do I know when the Gigapixel one is taken? Easy, it's clearly taken while Trump is giving his address since you can see him speaking at the podium. The address was given immediately after he was sworn in at 12 noon. So there is very little time difference in any of these three photos.
Thus, there is absolutely nothing dishonest about the media reporting the crowd size. In fact, if they'd made a comparison using this gigapixel image, it actually would have been less informative because we can clearly see that it does not give as accurate an impression of the crowd size.
There is then also the evidence of the Metro ticket sales which corroborates the impression given by the photo comparisons. The figures were given by Metro itself, there is no ambiguity about them. They make it abundantly clear that Metro use during Obama's inauguration greatly exceeded Trump's, blatantly contradicting the absolutely false claim made by Spicer that Trump's were greater. Look them up, they're published everywhere.
Now let's talk about Trump's campaign promises. Most people do not doubt his honesty about his intentions there, including the media. No one has doubted that he wants to build the wall, though obvious concerns have been raised about its practicality (and I really don't think Mexico is going to pay for it, but believe what you wish). No one has doubted that he really wants to deport undocumented immigrants and separate children who were born in this country from their parents. No one has doubted that he wants to repeal Obamacare (you are jumping the gun on that, by the way -- the work of actually repealing it falls to the Republican congress, not that there is any doubt they will do so). Quite the opposite: we all believe quite strongly that he plans to do these things, and it's a large part of the reason why there is such enormous opposition to him. There may be one significant campaign promise he doesn't keep though -- cutting Medicare and Social Security. I sincerely hope that he does stick to his word and veto any attempts by the Republicans to do this. We shall see.
What Trump lies about are facts, not his own intentions. Since you don't like the lies about the inauguration, how about when he denied he ever said climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese government? See the very Tweet where he said it right in the video. He clearly said during the debate, "I did not say that." Easily provable lie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEgV9QFZUMg
How about the fact that he claimed that 3 million people illegally voted in the general election? That is a blatant lie. He has never even attempted to give a source for it, because there is no source beyond his ass. It's a load of shit and it's indefensible. If you want to tell me that Trump doesn't lie, show me evidence that 3 million people illegally voted for Hillary.
There are too many examples of this for me to go through, so here. If you dare, just watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ7_bo74VMA
Literally a thirteen minute compilation of him lying, on video, with incontrovertible evidence showing that he's wrong, often contradicting himself directly. The first example is him at the Republican primary debate saying "I can't believe they said I was in favor of invading Libya, I never said that" and then an older clip of him talking to a camera about how we should immediately go in and invade Libya. It goes on and on. If you can watch this video and then tell me with a straight face that Trump isn't a liar you're legitimately delusional.
Ultimately, the really telling line in your whole post, for me, was this: "And what reason does Trump have to lie in the first place? He doesn't, because he's coming into the political arena without ever having set foot within it; therefore no crookedly-biased or slanted political standpoint to 'broadcast lies' from."
I'm sorry but I can only call this naive. What reason does he have to lie? The reason is very obviously to deflect criticism, try to make himself look good and his opponents look bad. Most of the time when people lie they're not doing it as part of a crooked political scheme. They're doing it because they want to appear a certain way, hide things about themselves or otherwise obtain something they want.
One more note. You like the fact that Ford decided to invest in the Michigan plant (even though Trump did not actually arrange anything with them, but I'm fine with loosely attributing it to his influence). Well, guess who accurately reported that news? The apparently malevolent CNN:
http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/03/news/economy/ford-700-jobs-trump/
If CNN just tells constant lies about Trump, why would they report this when it appears to reflect favorably on him? There's no slant there. It's just the facts. This is what I think you aren't understanding. The mainstream media does, for the most part, have a lot of opposition to Trump, yes. In my opinion that's warranted, in yours not; fair enough. But you claim the fact that they publish so many op eds that are anti-Trump is evidence that their reporting is dishonest. And that is where you're allowing yourself be taken on a ride by Trump and his cronies.
In news reporting the mainstream media has ethical standards for accuracy. Does this mean they always get everything 100% accurate and that no one ever publishes something false? Of course not. But it does mean that, for the most part, they get things right, and the vast majority of the time when they do get something wrong they issue retractions and corrections. There are plenty of examples of this on a regular basis from the NYT, CNN, and anyone else you guys love to lump into the apparent conspiracy against Trump.
In op eds these media outlets will publish opinions -- like that Trump is a fascist -- and they will make reference to facts while keeping those separate from the opinions. Again, if such facts are discovered to be incorrect, corrections are normally made. A good example is a recent op ed by Ben Jacobs in the Guardian in which he made wildly inaccurate claims about what Julian Assange had said in an interview with an Italian journalist about Russia. After these inaccuracies were pointed out, the Guardian revised the article to remove them. Contrast with Trump who almost never admits to being wrong even when caught in a lie. And it was actually a reporter very much on the left, Glenn Greenwald, who drew most of the attention to how wrong the Guardian article was. Frankly, I personally still don't consider them entirely forgiven -- it was enormously irresponsible that the original version of that article got past editorial. There are many legitimate things to criticize about the way the mainstream media works, and the link you posted to Mr. Rappoport's blog, though I have not invested the time to read all of it, certainly appears to detail some of them. But you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You're participating in a demonization of the press that allows Trump to say whatever he wants and you and others will automatically defend him because you feel the media simply must be wrong whenever they criticize him.
Trying to reverse my accusations against me doesn't work. For a recent example, I've been extremely critical of the way the media handled everything in relation to the allegations of a Russian connection. I've been arguing since the day that stuff came out that both the media, and many of my friends and family, have been far too eager to jump on it and believe it with far too little evidence. I'll give you my facebook and you can add me to dig through my status history if you want - you'll find me engaged in some pretty lengthy debates on this subject. There are many voices that spoke up on the left saying the same thing. Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! had guests on the show who fiercely criticized the eager acceptance of the allegations by progressives with no critical thought. Greenwald ran many articles on The Intercept pointing out how unreliable the reports were and accusing Democrats of using them as a scapegoat for their own failures in the election. Matt Taibbi wrote a widely shared article for Rolling Stone calling the reports into question and demanding more evidence from the intelligence agencies. These are all overtly left sources which are overtly anti-Trump, and I agree with them on all those points.
See, there is a middle ground, one which relies on what some psychologists refer to as integrative complexity in thinking. Integrative complexity is the ability to consider many points of view on an issue without dogmatically sticking to one overarching principle or belief; high-IC thinkers have been found to be much better at understanding and predicting world events than low-IC thinkers, who tend to think of everything they see in terms of a few guiding principles that always determine the outlook. When you adopt the conspiracy theory view that the media is all actively engaged in an intentional scheme to spread outright falsehoods, you're using low-IC thinking: you've taken an impression you have and applied it to an entire group of people uncritically. You've got a story and you're sticking to it. But I analyze these issues on a case-by-case basis. In the case of the inauguration numbers, I look at all the available evidence. I find out the times that the photographs were taken. I consider the different perspective of each photograph. I consider supporting evidence like the Metro tickets. I don't just find one source I agree with and then defend it. In regards to the Russia allegations, I did the same thing. I examined the claims of the CIA, the private security agency reports and the evidence they claimed they had for the Russian hacker connection, and the Buzzfeed dossier on Trump. I found all of these things to be wholly unconvincing. Note, of course, this doesn't mean I dismiss the possibility of Russian involvement in the Trump campaign - but it means that the evidence on offer is not sufficient to approve it, and I absolutely felt the media was irresponsibly overeager to report it instead of demanding more evidence. But the difference between you and me is that I don't therefore assume that the media is intentionally lying or trying to spread misinformation. I think they're committed to accuracy and they sometimes mess up on that because they are human beings.
So am I saying all this is just you following your alt right narrative? Yes, that's what I'm saying. But believe it or not, I am not trying to call you an idiot, or accuse you of dishonesty. I believe that you genuinely believe what you're saying, and I would not bother to argue these points with you if I didn't think you are intelligent enough to see facts for what they are - if you choose to. I don't expect you to come out of this and say, "gee, I guess I was wrong." But someday, down the line, you might think more critically as a result of it. If not, at least I tried.
