All Episodes
Previous Next
Aug. 28, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
19:33
Poor Poor New York Times!
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Oh dear, dear, dear.
The poor, poor New York Times.
By gosh, it's really, really terrible.
And I'll sort of get into what's going on there.
Full disclosure, the New York Times put three pictures of me above the fold in the Sunday edition and prominently online recently for radicalizing...
Some dude that I never talked to said radicalization included the fact that he went from unemployed to employed and he went from lonely and single to actually having a girlfriend.
But you see, his girlfriend was Christian and apparently for the...
Editors of the New York Times, that was a big problem.
Anyway, I have my issues and beats with the New York Times, but nonetheless, let us look at what they find absolutely egregious and horrible at the moment.
So here's an article, I'll link to it below.
Trump allies target journalists over coverage deemed hostile at the White House.
Now, what is all of this storm and vrang, smoke and steel and panic, what is it all designed to cover up?
Okay, so... There has been for a long time a group called Media Matters, and they comb through the internet history of conservatives and then try to get them, I don't know, they publish this kind of stuff, I assume, with pretty negative intent.
People have gotten fired, people have been handed out of public life, and so on, right?
And, you know, the left, of course, has had no problem because it's attacking or revealing, really.
The enemies of the left. So they're fine with that.
So now, what's happening?
Well, you see, there's a group, a couple people, who are going through the public statements of reporters and other people who work for the media.
I'm going to say reporters because, I mean, I know it's not just reporters, but in reporters in general.
So they've gone through what reporters have publicly posted for the past decade or so and have archived and compiled a list of it, right?
Now, when the media reports on me, they almost never quote me directly.
What they do is they apply a bunch of horrible labels to me, right?
You've probably seen them if you put on the hazmat suit and waded into the cesspool of the modern-day prostitutes.
But yeah, I am a cult leader, a white supremacist, far-right, like all this kind of stuff, right?
It's all garbage and it's all nonsense, but you know, They don't give me a whole bunch of accurate quote space, let's say.
I mean, they interview people who dislike me and then this is somehow news, right?
The New York Times now is absolutely appalled, appalled that someone has gone through and is going to quote what reporters have said over the years publicly.
Which is literally like punching a mirror and calling it bad because it was held up to your face and showed you who you really are.
No, I get it. I get it.
Look, for the New York Times, it's had the power to make or break people for many, many, many years, decades, right?
So the New York Times, there's an old saying that says, never get into a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel full, right?
They've had a lot of power and a lot of authority, and they've been able to intimidate and scare and push out of public life and get fired and get into trouble a lot of people.
By combing through what they've done and said, by quoting people who dislike them, by insinuation, and blah blah blah, right?
So they've had a lot of power, and it's not fun when you lose that power, or when there's even a slight bit of balancing in the world, right?
As the old saying goes, just allegorical, you understand.
As the old saying goes, regarding hunters, it ain't so much fun when the rabbit's got a gun.
So the New York Times has been combing through mainstream media, CNN, all these people.
They've been combing through. When they dislike someone, they'll just comb through.
They'll quote mine.
They'll whatever, right? And now that it's happening back to them, it's egregious!
It's an attack! It's terrible!
Of course, right? I get it.
It's no fun when someone else gets to do...
Or gets to deploy the power that you've enjoyed virtually unchallenged for decades.
I get it, right? Okay, so there's the article list.
I won't go through the whole thing.
I'll link to it below. But it's important to know how this kind of propaganda works and just how ridiculously hypocritical these ethical standards are.
So, a loose network of conservative operatives allied with the White House is pursuing what they say will be an aggressive operation to discredit news organizations deemed hostile to President Trump by publicizing damaging information about journalists.
It's quite a mouthful. It's quite a mouthful.
Even the title, right? Trump allies target journalists.
So when you...
Like a journalist put out a tweet, right?
There's been anti-gay ones.
There's been anti-Semitic ones.
A journalist puts out a tweet and you point out the journalist has put out this tweet publicly.
Is the journalist being targeted?
If accurately quoting someone who said something publicly is targeting that person...
Sorry. Well, it's journalism when we do it, you see.
But when you do it, you're targeting people for political problem.
Okay, anyway. A loose network of conservative operatives.
They're operatives, which sounds kind of sinister, right?
Allied with the White House. Of course, the White House denies having anything to do with these guys, but you know, whatever, right?
It's pursuing what they say. An aggressive operation.
To discredit news organizations.
So apparently, if you accurately quote people on what they've said, and the article admits that the quotes are accurate, if you accurately quote what people say, you're discrediting...
You're discrediting them.
It's like saying that if I hear a playback of my own karaoke singing saying that, oh my gosh, that microphone has turned me into a bad singer.
Feelings. You see, if you accurately quote back reporters, it discredits the news organizations, you see.
It just discredits them.
Publishing damaging information about journalists.
See, that sounds like it's doxing, or it's their private therapy notes, or it's their MRIs, or their health records.
Publishing damaging information about journalists, also known as re-quoting what journalists have publicly said.
Sorry. Oh my gosh.
It's like dealing with a borderline X to try and get your puppy back.
Okay. It is the latest step in a long-running effort by Mr.
Trump. Dudes! It's President Trump!
It's not Mr. Trump.
It's actually President Trump.
I know you don't like that he won the election, but he kind of did.
All right. And his allies to undercut the influence of legitimate news reporting.
It's legitimate news reporting to falsely call people white supremacists and far-right.
It's legitimate news reporting.
To help instigate a war in the Middle East that kills half a million people.
It's legitimate news reporting to threaten to dox a guy who makes an internet meme if he doesn't back down and stop doing that.
It's all legitimate news reporting, guys!
Legitimate! Four people familiar with the operation described how it works, asserting that it is compiled dossiers.
See, dossiers are no problem, you see.
When a dossier is fake put together by British spy Christopher Steele dealing with paid, shadowy, third-party, unverified informants about salacious details about Trump and the Russia collusion hysteria and so on, that's totally fine.
You see, that's totally fine to make up a potentially coup-inducing replacement for the legitimately elected president of the United States.
Russia collusion, two years, that whole paranoid conspiracy theory and incredibly divisive set of nonsense that was pushed by the mainstream media, that's totally fine.
That's legitimate reporting, man.
That's legitimate. But quoting back reporters about what they actually said in public?
That's an attack, man.
They've compiled dossiers of potentially embarrassing social media posts and other public statements by...
Hundreds of people who work at some of the country's most prominent news organizations.
The group has already released information about journalists at CNN, The Washington Post and The New York Times.
Three outlets that have aggressively investigated Mr.
Trump. See, it's good when they aggressively investigate people.
It's bad when they, the reporters themselves, are investigated.
You see how this works? These are the people who claim to know something about reality and have integrity.
Operatives have closely examined more than a decade's worth of public posts and statements by journalists.
Oh no! They're quoting back journalists about what journalists have publicly said.
How sinister.
How evil.
Here's your gift. The research is said to extend to members of journalists' families who are active in politics, as well as liberal activists and other political opponents of the president.
See, it's fine for the media to attack, undermine, and very often mischaracterize and misquote people who are supportive of the president, you see.
But if you do it to people who are not supportive of the president, it's bad.
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
It's not possible to independently assess the claims, blah blah blah.
Some involved in the operation have histories of bluster and exaggeration.
Bluster and exaggeration.
Boy, I wonder if any of those operatives involved in this, looking at tweets, sinister KGB-style organization, I wonder if those operatives have ever done anything like, I don't know, Push for a war in Iraq that has killed about half a million people?
See, that seems to me kind of like bluster and exaggeration.
Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.
He's tried to buy yellow-cake uranium from Niger.
He's got centrifuge tubes that could be used in the production of weaponry.
Mass destruction. We don't want the smoking gun to be in the form of a mushroom cloud.
We've got to go and invade that country that just happens to be in the desert in the Middle East.
Now here's the kind of kicker in the middle of this whole thing.
But the material publicized so far, says the New York Times, while in some cases stripped of context or presented in misleading ways, has proven authentic.
And much of it has been professionally harmful to its targets.
Honestly saying what you said is professionally harmful to you for these very credible news organizations.
So anyway, then they put out a whole bunch of bat signals, right?
So they start talking about who's involved, right?
Arthur Schwartz. He's combative.
He's an informal advisor to Donald Trump Jr., right?
You want these crazy flags to go off in leftists' head, right?
And he's also worked with Stephen K. Bannon, right?
So they just want to...
So what happened was, last week I think it was, they revealed that a Times journalist had put out anti-Semitic social media posts.
It's not newsworthy that a Times reporter put out some pretty nasty anti-Semitic social media posts.
That's not newsworthy. Of course, it's the New York Times.
They don't want to look in the mirror.
They'd be monstrous. No, it's important to try and figure out the, to fantasize about the malicious motives of people who are doing exactly what, to the reporters, what the reporters have done to pretty helpless and small, unpowerful people for many decades, right? So then, of course, they've got to talk about Breitbart News, right?
They've got to talk about Katrina Pearson.
They've got to talk about Stephanie Grisham, right?
Just like, oh, bad people, people you hate, so it's all got to be wrong.
The Trump campaign said it was unaware of and not involved in the effort, but suggested that it served a worthy purpose.
We know nothing about this, but it's clear that the media has a lot of work to do to clean up its own house.
Could be true.
Could well be true.
Actually, I wonder if you clean up your own house.
If there's then no house left.
I guess it's cleaned. I guess it's cleaned, right?
So, the operation has compiled social media posts from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram and stored images of the posts that can be publicized even if the user deletes them, said the people familiar with the effort.
One claimed that the operation had unearthed potentially fireball information on several hundred people.
Of course, so the New York Times reporters are nervous.
Oh, what did I tweet five years ago or ten years ago or whatever, right?
Crazy. So the guy said, two can play at this game.
The media has long targeted Republicans with deep dives into their social media, looking to caricature all conservatives and Trump voters as racists.
Ah, now here comes the kicker.
Are you ready for this brain-bending, twisty logic?
But you use it in the New York Times.
But using journalistic techniques to target journalists and news organizations as retribution for, as a warning not to pursue, coverage critical of the president, is fundamentally different.
From the well-established role of the news media in scrutinizing people in positions of power.
This is kind of an old joke, right?
It's like, I'm right because reasons, right?
Okay, using journalistic techniques to target journalists.
So, apparently, you see, when people who don't have power are investigating people who do have power, or let me put it another way, when people who have some power are investigating people who have more power, it's perfectly valid, you see, to comb through their own social media posts.
Perfectly valid. It's absolutely right.
It's absolutely fine. Now, who has more power?
This couple of people going through Twitter posts or, I don't know, say, the New York Times?
New York Times reporters have a lot of power in this world.
A lot of power. They're well paid.
They have a lot of power, a lot of influence.
They can make or break people.
They can get people fired.
They can really harm reputations.
They can cause a lot of damage.
So they have a lot of power.
They have more power than the people going through their social media posts of the reporters at the mainstream media outlets, right?
So you see, for the reporters to target people who have power by going through their old social media posts is good.
But for people to target reporters who also have power by going through their old social media posts, that's just terrible, you see.
It's just awful.
It's so wrong.
Oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh.
It's clearly retaliatory.
It's clearly an attack. It's clearly not journalism, said Leonard Downey Jr., who was the executive editor of The Post from 1901 to 08.
Tension between a president and the news media that covers him is nothing new.
Actually, it kind of is.
Well, it is whenever there's a Republican in power, right?
I mean, the fact that just about all the reporters lubed themselves up in order to dry hump Barack Obama's leg for eight years, well, that seemed pretty...
There wasn't a lot of tension there.
I mean, it actively covered up all the garbage that Obama was responsible for.
Oh, it was a scandal-free administration.
Yeah, right, right.
Come on. But an organized, wide-scale political effort to intentionally humiliate journalists and others who work for the media outlets is...
So you see, if you target people...
No.
If you go through people's social media posts and accurately quote back what they said, that's an intentional humiliation.
But you see, it's fine when the journalists do it.
It's fine when they do it. It's not just fine, you see.
It's really, really good when they do it.
A.G. Sulzberger, the publisher of the Times, said in a statement that such tactics were taking the president's campaign against the free press to a new level.
So you see the way it works is...
If you accurately quote what reporters have published on social media, it's an attack on the free press, you see.
You shouldn't be able to publish what reporters have previously publicly published.
Sounds like a tongue twister. Well, all of this is a tongue twister and a brain twister.
It's an attack upon the free press to accurately quote reporters' public statements.
I mean, this is the world that you live in when you just abandon all principles and try and win at all costs through endless amounts of manipulation, right?
Mr. Salzburger said they are seeking to harass and embarrass anyone affiliated with the leading news organizations that are asking tough questions and bringing uncomfortable truths to light.
See, it's really, it's absolutely essential for democracy and freedom that people work to bring uncomfortable truths to light unless, unless those uncomfortable truths are what reporters publicly posted in the past.
Then it's an attack and it's really, really bad.
God, I don't know, it's amazing.
They want to clearly intimidate journalists from doing their job.
So you see, if you go through people's old posts and accurately quote them, then you're trying to intimidate those people from doing their job.
So let's say that you publish illicitly obtained material about Billy Bush's interview with Trump, right?
This NBC thing, the women want you to grab them if you're rich and famous stuff.
Let's say that you make up this whole Russia collusion stuff and all that.
Well, you see, if you accurately quote reporters, you're trying to intimidate them into not doing their job.
But if you inaccurately characterize the entire Trump administration, well, you must be trying to intimidate Donald Trump into not doing his job, which is, of course, my belief about what the whole thing was about.
Oh, my gosh.
In a statement, a CNN spokesman said that when government officials, quote, and those working on their behalf, threaten and retaliate against reporters as a means of suppression, it's a clear abandonment of democracy for something very dangerous.
Reporters are powerful people, and if you post publicly, it's fair game.
It's completely fair game. It has been for reporters, and they've...
This is a lot more fair to the reporters than the reporters have ever been to, say, me or other people.
A lot more fair. All they're doing is accurately quoting back what the reporters have tweeted and have posted.
It's all they're doing. It's all they're doing.
But apparently, you see, it's a vicious attack.
It's a threat to democracy.
It's a retaliation.
It's aggressive.
Come on. Yeah, I get it.
I mean, it's more fun when you get to hold the power and you get to hold the whip.
And when other people start scrutinizing you, yeah, I get it.
It's not a lot of fun.
It's not a lot of fun.
And I guess you can talk about it.
You can get all kind of haughty and high-handed and, you know, retreat to some ridiculously wobbly ivory tower.
Oh, it's a threat to democracy to accurately quote me about things I said in the past.
It's an attack. It's an assault.
It's trying to discredit me by quoting me accurately.
See, good people get angry when you lie about them.
▲
Export Selection