Originally posted Dec 15, 2016 as “News That Makes Us ALL Furious… PROPAGANDA!”, Updated Aug 27, 2020 and Feb 16 2024
(NOTE: This was first written as part of our “News To Make You Furious” column in the Tom Dwyer Newsletter. Although the “Furious” column is gone (archives here), the frequent mentions of furious news in conjunction with Propaganda still seemed appropriate, so we kept them.)
It’s easy to recognize propaganda in the media of North Korea or Russia, but the closer it gets to home the harder it gets to identify. What is propaganda? It’s very much in the eye of the beholder, but it’s also more than a pejorative for information you don’t like. Propaganda exists and is definitely bad, so how do we recognize it, how do we tell others when they’ve been influenced, and how do we avoid its influence ourselves?
There is no cut-and-dried answer, but in this article (for good or ill, the longest we’ve ever published) we’ll try to give resources you can use to find your own answers. Whether it’s the existence of propaganda itself or the frustration you’ll feel at the slipperiness of it, we guarantee you’ll find more than enough to make you… Furious.
With all the fake news in the news, an article about propaganda seems a timely fit for “News To Make You Furious”. After all, what is there about a targeted pattern of lies and distortion focused on changing your behavior like you’re a rat in a lab test wouldn’t make you Furious? But propaganda is difficult to put into a box. It’s like obscenity… it’s impossible to define, but everyone knows it when they see it and for months we’ve been seeing it in everything. Rather than focus on just one aspect of such a huge issue we decided to bring you samplers from a full buffet of outrage, from what propaganda is to (most importantly) how to defend against it. We even have a little bit about our own encounters with propaganda here at the shop! So join us now for a buffet of bile, a cornucopia of conniption, a deluge of disgust on the perennial perversion of propaganda, and take our word for it… all of it is true! Like we said, this is the longest article we’ve ever written, and though there’s not a table of contents, we do have it grouped into these sections…
Know your enemy- Definitions and methods to spot propaganda
Living under Propaganda States- Examples of life behind the propaganda curtain.
How Does It Work? Sometimes it’s just as blatant as it seems.
Climate Denial- The clumsy propaganda about Climate Change.
“Dishonest” Media- Most media tries to be honest… but not all
FAUX News- Today’s gold standard of propaganda
No Such Thing As Facts- NOT EVERYTHING is true but SOME THINGS are.
Facts don’t just exist, they matter- New facts can change fact-based positions
Fake News- Includes an interview with a Fake News writer
Fake Enemies- The creation one of today’s biggest fake enemies.
Everyone does it… right? Yep. But it’s not all the same.
US Propaganda- Guess what? We’re propagandists too!
Tom Dwyer Propaganda- Our own dealings with propaganda
Fighting Back- Ways to beat the OmniDirectional Sludge Pump
Know your enemy- Definitions and methods of spotting propaganda
Since we can never know for sure what is or is not propaganda, we may have to settle for the idea that it might not matter. Propaganda can be used in service of “good” or “bad”, the specific information in it may be accurate or not, the distortion of reality it creates may be useful or not… we may think of it as bad, but propaganda may be value-neutral in itself.
Truth is what differentiates propaganda from communication. If hearing the message leaves you with a less accurate, more distorted, or less useful view of the world then it was propaganda. If it leaves you with a more accurate and useful view, then it was communication. Most communication exists on a spectrum between these two extremes. In either case our obligation is the same… determine the truth through multiple sources then take intelligent action on the reality-based content. This may be one case where being Furious can be helpful… once you’ve determined whether you were being propagandized, you’ll know the appropriate reaction to the people who were dehumanizing you!
The only way to defeat it is to know it’s there, so we first have to define it. Let’s start where everyone does today, with Wikipedia…
“Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.” More comprehensive is the description by Richard Alan Nelson: “Propaganda is neutrally defined as a systematic form of purposeful persuasion that attempts to influence the emotions, attitudes, opinions, and actions of specified target audiences for ideological, political or commercial purposes through the controlled transmission of one-sided messages (which may or may not be factual) via mass and direct media channels.””
Wikipedia notes propaganda on the left, right, and middle, in religion, political, and corporate settings, in peacetime and wartime, in workplace adults and schoolyard children. It advances many theories of propaganda and particularly notes the difficulty of separating propaganda from real education. But one thing that was consistent across all theories was that while there was no definition of propaganda, there were ways to spot it…
From The Institute for Propaganda Analysis…
PROPAGANDA – the use of a variety of communication techniques that create an emotional appeal to accept a particular belief or opinion, to adopt a certain behavior or to perform a particular action. There is some disagreement about whether all persuasive communication is propagandistic or whether the propaganda label can only be applied to dishonest messages.
NAME CALLING – links a person, or idea, to a negative symbol. Examples: commie, fascist, yuppie
GLITTERING GENERALITIES – use of virtue words; the opposite of name calling, i.e., links a person, or idea, to a positive symbol. Examples: democracy, patriotism, family
The next two are ways of making false connections:
TRANSFER – a device by which the propagandist links the authority or prestige of something well respected and revered, such as church or nation, to something he would have us accept. Example: apolitical activist closes her speech with a prayer
TESTIMONIAL – a public figure or a celebrity promotes or endorses a product, a policy, or a political candidate. Examples: an athlete appears on the Wheaties box; an actor speaks at a political rally
The following three constitute special appeals:
PLAIN FOLKS – attempt to convince the audience that a prominent person and his ideas are “of the people.” Examples: a prominent politician eats at McDonald’s; an actress is photographed shopping for groceries
BANDWAGON – makes the appeal that “everyone else is doing it, and so should you.” Examples: an ad states that “everyone is rushing down to their Ford dealer”
FEAR – plays on deep-seated fears; warns the audience that disaster will result if they do not follow a particular course of action. Example: an insurance company pamphlet includes pictures of houses destroyed floods, followed up by details about home-owners’ insurance.
The next two are types of logical fallacies:
BAD LOGIC – an illogical message is not necessarily propagandistic; it can be just a logical mistake; it is propaganda if logic is manipulated deliberately to promote a cause. Example: Senator X wants to regulate the power industry. All Communist governments regulate their power industries. Senator X is a Communist.
UNWARRANTED EXTRAPOLATION – making huge predictions about the future on the basis of a few small facts. Example: If the U.S. approves NAFTA, thousands of jobs and factories will move to Mexico.
What is Propaganda? by Ralph D. Casey, University of Minnesota, 1944, published online by the American Historical Association
Defining Propaganda Enemy Propaganda
Democratic vs. Enemy Propaganda
War Propaganda The Story of Propaganda
What Are the Tools of Propaganda?
Some Limitations of Propaganda News and Propaganda
Defining Propaganda II How to Size Up Propaganda
To the Leader Suggestions for Further Reading
50 Powerful Examples Of Visual Propaganda And The Meanings Behind Them by Caitlin Jordan on Canva.com, Oct 2015
Deceitful, manipulative, persuasive or informative? However you perceive it, propaganda has been used to change the way the world thinks and behaves for thousands of years.
Living in Propaganda States- Examples of life behind the propaganda curtain
We may not always recognize propaganda, but it really exists and has been the conscious base of governments for hundreds of years. Here are a couple examples of life behind the propaganda lines.
They eat ice cream and read ‘Harry Potter,’ but these North Korean YouTubers aren’t what they seem
North Korean propaganda isn’t new; previous campaigns have featured Soviet-style posters, videos of marching troops and missile tests, and images of Kim Jong Un on a white horse. But experts say the YouTube videos, and similar North Korean social media accounts on Chinese platforms like Weibo and Bilibili, illustrate a new strategy: Relatability. “North Korea is striving to emphasize that Pyongyang is an ‘ordinary city,’” Park said, adding that the leadership “is very interested in how the outside world views them.” Ha, the research professor, said North Korea could be trying to portray itself as a “safe country” to encourage greater tourism for its battered economy – especially after the toll of the Covid-19 pandemic. While it has not yet reopened its borders to tourists, “the pandemic is going to end at some point, and North Korea has been concentrating on tourism for economic purposes,” Ha said.
PBS.ORG Investigative Assets- Propaganda In The Propaganda State
When the Bolshevik party came to power in the October 1917 revolution it immediately began creating the world’s first modern propaganda state. This is not at all surprising. Before 1917 many Bolsheviks lived the life of underground agitators. As underground men they devoted their days and nights to propaganda…
What was it like to live in the Soviet Union? In Pravda.RU, Mar 2016
(interviews with Russians who lived under the Soviets, conducted by Pravda and appearing in Pravda) Many people in Russia say these days that they miss the times of the Soviet Union, that life in the USSR was great, all food products were high quality products and so on and so forth. Interestingly, such remarks can most often be heard from young people, who were not even born in the USSR. Those who were born in the Soviet Union may have a different opinion…
How to Deal With the Lies of Donald Trump: Guidelines for the Media by James Fallows in The Atlantic, Nov 2016
“…Being back in China in the U.S.-election aftermath naturally leads to thoughts about how societies function when there is no agreed-on version of “reality,” public knowledge, or news… The United States is seeing both a chronic and an acute new version of this public-information problem. The chronic version, recognized but nowhere close to being solved, is the rise of separate fact-universes into which different segments of society silo themselves—occurring at the same time as the “normal” news media are struggling against economic and other pressures.”
How Does It Work? At least parts are conscious and direct
When people think about propaganda they sometimes imagine it coming from a sinister cabal in a back room pumping out lies. That’s not always the case, but sometimes it is. Here are several examples of our current propaganda state and how it works in government and the Corporatocracy.
The Powell Memo- Because every road starts somewhere by Charles Letherwood on TomDwyer.com, Feb 2012
If you look around at our media/political/corporate landscape, it seems obvious (as Mr. Snydor will say below in his memo, “to any thoughtful person”) that there is an overriding pro-business, pro-corporate, anti-worker, authoritarian fascist agenda. That same thoughtful person may conclude this agenda could be the result of conscious intent. But wouldn’t that be paranoia? Isn’t someone who says there’s a “vast right-wing conspiracy” just giving in to tin-foil hat theories? The 1971 Powell Memo is a smoking-gun argument otherwise.
Noam Chomsky: This is the propaganda system that corporate media uses to dominate society by Andrew Smolski on CounterPunch, Apr 2016
Some Examples of Corporate Influence in the Media by Anup Shah in Global Issues, Dec 2004
The following are just a small set of examples of corporate influence in the media on issues that have been highlighted elsewhere on this web site. However, over time, more will be added. This web page has the following sub-sections:
Some general observations Creating Fake Citizens on the Internet
Ridiculing and Discrediting Scientists on Health and Environmental Issues
Influence on Media Coverage of the Kyoto Conference Chiquita’s Influence
McDonald’s Influence Monsanto’s Influence Disney’s Influence
General Electric’s Influence
Military Industrial Complex and Military Contractor’s Influence
FlackCheck.org’s Detecting Patterns of Deception
Welcome to FlackCheck.org’s Detecting Patterns of Deception, the beta version of a new page designed to help viewers spot and debunk slippery moves in politics to see patterns of deception in contemporary debates. On the page, we parse misleading political communication into six main categories.
Misunderstanding the Process identifies ways in which misleading assumptions about the nature and extent of executive or legislative power drive problematic promises, attacks and self-congratulatory communication. So, for example, the complexity of the legislative process makes it possible for bills and votes to be misconstrued.
Misleading Use Of Language features ways in which politicians exploit the ambiguities and connotations in words to prompt unjustified conclusions.
Misleading Audio/Visual Cuing illustrates how pictures and sound can be manipulated to elicit false inferences.
Misleading By Not Telling The Whole Story focuses attention on the process by which political sins of omission, including selective uses of evidence, deceive.
False Logic covers common errors in argument that lead audiences to faulty conclusions.
Hypocritical Attack examines statements that apply a different standard to one candidate than to another or imply a difference between candidates where none in fact exists.
Climate Denial
The existence and mechanisms of global warming have been known for over 100 years, but in the early years the scientific understanding was incomplete. Back then, there was much room for debate. Our understanding of the subject has grown since and there are still many parts we don’t yet fully understand, but there are many parts we now do. The debate on these is over, and when Senators stand up and deride Climate Change using a snowball you know you’re seeing golden, intentional, pure, and very clumsy propaganda. It’s being employed for a purpose, and the news shows it’s working…
Priebus Confirms That Climate Denial Will Be The Official Policy Of Trump’s Administration by Joe Romm on ThinkProgress, Nov 2016
Turns out that Breitbart article the House Science Committee tweeted out is a con job by Walter Einenkel on Daily KOS, Dec 2016
News To Make You Furious- Global Warming Lies in Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal Tom Dwyer Automotive Newsletter- The Wall Street Journal op-ed “In Defense of Carbon Dioxide” was so brazen that it wasn’t just an insult to our intelligence, but an insult to our stupidity. So we covered it in our News To Make You Furious column.
“Dishonest” Media
Donald Trump has become President in part by attacks on “dishonest media”. Imagining a conspiracy to smear him may be wrong, but the Media is dishonest in many ways and sins through both commission and omission.
Project Censored– The Top Censored Stories Of 2015–2016
The presentation of the Top 25 stories of 2015-2016 extends the tradition originated by Professor Carl Jensen and his Sonoma State University students in 1976, while reflecting how the expansion of the Project to include affiliate faculty and students from campuses across North America has made the Project even more diverse and robust. During this year’s cycle, Project Censored reviewed 235 Validated Independent News stories (VINs) representing the collective efforts of 221 college students and 33 professors from 18 college and university campuses that participate in our affiliate program.
Corporate Media Is Just As Dangerous As Fake News Sites, Farron Cousins on Ring of Fire, Dec 2016
There is no question that fake news, conspiracy theory news outlets in the United States are causing very real harm. This whole Pizzagate nonsense story promoted by Breitbart proves that. Fake news in the United States almost had a death toll from the crazy gunman who went in that pizza shop and shot it up because he thought it was some sort of pedophilia ring. That’s the damage that fake news can do in the United States. It is a very real threat and it’s a threat we have to take seriously, and one that frankly needs to be investigated and taken to court. But there is another threat from the news industry. That is the threat that the corporate media poses to our health and safety…
FAUX News
Citizens of the Soviet Union read Pravda, but they knew what they were getting. US citizens don’t seem as perceptive, since FOX News is still described as a “news channel”. As the inspiration for MSNBC and the destruction of intelligent debate and journalism, we thought it deserved special focus in any story about propaganda…
Fourteen Propaganda Techniques Fox “News” Uses to Brainwash Americans by Dr. Cynthia Boaz on Truthout, Jul 2011
How Rupert Murdoch and Fox Created the Fake News Industry by Juan Cole on TruthDig, Dec 2016
Fox Pundits Try To Mainstream Neo-Nazi Racists By Pretending There’s An ‘Alt Left’ by News Hound Ellen on Crooks and Liars, Nov 2016
How The F*ck Can Fox News Report On Trump With These Glaring Conflicts by News Corpse on Daily KOS, Nov 2016
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance Kindle Edition- In “Fox Nation vs. Reality” you will find a compilation of articles originally published on the media analysis web site News Corpse. They provide an eye-opening look into the lengths that committed propagandists will go in order to fabricate an alternative political reality. And remember that Fox Nation is not some remote outpost on the Internet Superhighway. It is an integral part of Fox News whose executives are wholly responsible for the stain it produces on journalism.
No Such Thing As Facts
The phrase “reality-based community” first appeared in a October 17, 2004 New York Times article by Ron Suskind titled, “Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush.” It was apparently meant to be a derisive term, and was used by a member of the Bush administration (later identified as Karl Rove) to refer to the community of people who did not buy into the notion that Bush and his team were able to create their own reality. Unsurprisingly, the term was instantly embraced by its intended targets as a badge of honor who began to describe themselves with the phrase “a proud member of the reality-based community.” The full quote is…
“The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” … “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” —Unnamed White House aide
There Are No Such Things As Facts” Says Trump Surrogate On NPR by ursulafaw on Daily KOS, Nov 2016
Reporting On Nasty Demagogues, We Have No Idea What Works Anymore by Steve M. on Crooks & Liars, Dec 2016
But facts don’t just exist, they matter. Example…
This is just one of the most trivial, easily disprovable facts from a heap we could point to. Donald Trump’s electoral college margin was 46/58, and he lost the popular vote by 2.5 million people as of the latest count. These are facts. Yet he and his supporters claim a “landslide” victory at direct variance with these facts. It’s not even that “there’s no evidence he’s wrong” it’s that there’s PROVABLE FACT THAT HE’S WRONG. It’s not a matter of debate; to maintain otherwise is to lie. Yet he is now using a false landslide to fake a mandate to institute policies that the majority of the people don’t want.
Donald Trump’s ‘Mandate’ Is Historically Terrible Both Popularly And Electorally by Walter Einenkel on Daily KOS, Nov 2016
Fake News
We all used to call it “lies”, but “Fake News” has a much better ring. (Which is propaganda in itself!) Fake News is a subset of propaganda, but it’s also bigger. Fake news can include pranks that are taken seriously and develop by themselves without any support from an organized propaganda campaign. These stories may later serve as the basis for an organized campaign. While Fake News is sometimes no more than rumor, sometimes it’s much more…
Video: How Fake News Preys On the Uninformed by Sydney Robinson on Ring of Fire, Dec 2016 Interview with Trump supporters
We Tracked Down A Fake-News Creator In The Suburbs. Here’s What We Learned by Laura Sydell on NPR’s All Tech Considered, Nov 2016
A lot of fake and misleading news stories were shared across social media during the election. One that got a lot of traffic had this headline: “FBI Agent Suspected In Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead In Apparent Murder-Suicide.” The story is completely false, but it was shared on Facebook over half a million times. We wondered who was behind that story and why it was written. It appeared on a site that had the look and feel of a local newspaper. Denverguardian.com even had the local weather. But it had only one news story: the fake one
The Most Dangerous Thing About Fake News Sites Is Not What They Say, But How They Say It by Adam Peck on Think Progress, Dec 2016
Readers aren’t waiting for stories to be proven right, they demand to be proven wrong. In journalism, the credo imparted upon cub reporters is simple: “Trust, but verify.” Sources are an important part of any story, but what they say should be subjected to close scrutiny and verified whenever possible. In other words, the impetus is on the reporter to provide hard evidence and authoritative confirmation of a story before publishing — an intentionally high bar for any journalist to clear. Fake news sites, which spin innuendo, rumor and conspiracy into digestible, shareable headlines, has inverted that obligation.
Trump’s National Security Advisor sent 16 fake news (propaganda) stories on social media by Jen Hayden on DailyKOS, Dec 2016
Flynn under fire for fake news
A shooting at a D.C. pizza restaurant is stoking criticism of the conspiracy theories being spread by Donald Trump’s pick for national security adviser.
Off-the-Record Jake Tapper Stands Up to Dangerous ‘Fake News’: “Does Someone Have to Die Before You Take this Sh*t Seriously” Sydney Robinson on Ring of Fire, Dec 2016
Pizzagate
One of the most stark examples of Fake News having Real Implications is the recent swamp of lies revolving around a child porn ring operating out of the basement of a DC pizza parlor.
Chuck E. Sleaze- A detailed conspiracy theory known as “Pizzagate” holds that a pedophile ring is operating out of a Clinton-linked pizzeria called Comet Ping Pong.
How Pizzagate went from fake news to a real problem for a D.C. business By Joshua Gillin on PolitiFact, Dec 2016
Did Trump Adviser Stephen Bannon and Breitbart News Inspire Pizzeria Gunman? By Juan Cole on TruthDig.com, Dec 2016
Fake Enemies
Hitler turned the Jews into a threat that motivated an entire empire of evil. Propagandists know that an enemy unifies a population; a threat makes them less deliberative in their decisions. The bad thing about enemies is that when they’re defeated a new enemy must be found. The good thing about FAKE enemies is that they can never be defeated, so they never need to be replaced.
Political correctness: how the right invented a phantom enemy by Moira Weigel in The Guardian, Nov 2016
Donald Trump claimed that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were willing to let ordinary Americans suffer because their first priority was political correctness. “They have put political correctness above common sense, above your safety, and above all else,” Trump declared after a Muslim gunman killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando. “I refuse to be politically correct.” What liberals might have seen as language changing to reflect an increasingly diverse society – in which citizens attempt to avoid giving needless offence to one another – Trump saw a conspiracy…
It’s hard to tell if that sound you hear is George Orwell turning over in his grave or laughing his head off. A hyper-conservative group is fixing God’s mistakes in the Bible by rewriting the whole thing to fit Conservative doctrine. And that’s just the start. Run, do not walk, to http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page, where you will encounter… Conservapedia. Andy Schafly, son of Phyllis, started Conservapedia to fight the liberal bias in places like Wikipedia and the rest of Western Civilization. The Bible Retranslation Project is just one of their activities. The whole thing is propaganda in the worst tradition of Pravda, but you’ll get unending hours of jaw-dropping entertainment as you surf through the 33,784 pages in this Conservative view of the world.
Everyone does it… right?
Well, sort of. If you go by the loosest definition, just speaking positively or making the best case for something, then yes, everybody does it. In the tightest definition, where the propagandist is intentionally manipulative and distortive, everyone still does it. There’s no such thing as purity; propaganda is still found everywhere on the political, religious, and social spectrums. It’s a matter of perception; a matter of degree, intent, and severity. And when you factor those in everyone still does it, but not everyone does it in the same amount or the same way.
Here’s a good example of non-political propaganda around the idea that 9/11 was an inside job. Whether it was or not, this widely-circulated article offered little proof. The headline asks a question instead of making an assertion, and then goes to great lengths to paint the ‘Europhysics News’ article it centers around as a peer-reviewed journal article when it is definitely not. The debunk of the article goes into detail.
Is there Scientific Proof that 9/11 was an inside job? On Skeptical Science, Sep 2016
The European Scientific Journal Did NOT Conclude 9/11 Was A ‘Controlled Demolition’ Stephen Knight on the Godless Spellchecker, Sep 2016
Here’s a good example of some prime propaganda targeted at Leftys. The Trans-Pacific Partnership may be dead, but there was a lot of mud slung back when it looked more viable. We wrote an article about the lies and distortion called “Winning Dirty on TPP- Corporatists are pulling out a familiar, ugly playbook”. From our article…
“A PR firm called 270 Strategies, headed by two Obama campaign veterans, has just created a website in support of TPP called the “Progressive Coalition for American Jobs”. The website touts “More jobs, protections for workers, and free and fair trade” as benefits of the TPP. That wasn’t enough to convince Dave Johnson at Campaign for America’s Future, so he called up the “Progressive Coalition” to ask a few clarifying questions. He wanted to know: 1) Who is in the coalition? 2) Who is funding the campaign? and 3) Has anyone at 270 Strategies read the TPP agreement?
None of his repeated calls or messages resulted in a reply, but digging a little on his own he found a few answers. The Washington Post’s Fact Checker had already given the Jobs claim “4 Pinocchios”. No other members of the “coalition” were listed on the website or anywhere else. “Progressive” went down in flames when Dave found a letter from actual Progressives Raul Grijalva and Keith Ellison (leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus) expressing their doubts both about the substance of the deal and the emphasis on Fast Track authority. His last question is answered by the news each day… no one but the negotiators and the roughly 500 CEOs who had input on the deal have read it. Interestingly, when we went to the site ourselves the “Get the Facts” link was a dead end when we clicked it.”
Another prime example of Lefty propaganda… there’s a lot of pushback (for obvious reasons) from the fossil fuel industry on renewable energy sources, but that’s no excuse for lying about it. There have been many stories (some more true than others) of people being dissuaded from solar, wind, front yard gardens, rain capture, or other activities that eco-conscious Progressives would care about. However, digging deeper, one frequently finds that the story isn’t as cut-and-dried as expected. Here’s one example, along with its debunk…
A man from Minnesota has been sentenced to six months in prison for installing a wind turbine in his own backyard. By Sean Adl-Tabatabai on YourNewsWire.com, Nov 2016
Tilting at Windmills- A story about a man purportedly arrested over his efforts to use wind power on his own property is inaccurate and misleading. By Kim LaCapria on Snopes.com, Nov 2016
Again, while everybody does it, not everybody does it the same way. We found several sources for debunking of all kinds from all directions, but there was a clear difference. While most of the Lefty sources were at least broadly concerned with factual information, most of the Righty “fact checkers” were little better than propaganda themselves. If Snopes or PolitiFact set the standard for centrist fact checkers, then Media Matters would be a left-leaning but still nominally objective source. We could find no equivalent to Media Matters on the Right. We aren’t saying there isn’t one, but we couldn’t find it and we would gladly examine any alternatives people would care to submit. Lest you think this is our own Lefty bias showing, it’s not a new observation. Here’s a chatroom conversation that describes the problem beautifully…
Thread in Lavender Room, Apr 2016
Original Post
Is there a conservative equivalent of Media Matters? (Rahzel, Apr 23, 10 10:25 Post #1 of 8 (1587 views))
Media Matters is a non-profit progressive organization whose sole purpose is to fact-check conservative media. They spend most of their time pointing out when Fox News and Republican Party members tell a falsehood or spread misinformation. Even though I’m a liberal, I realize that conservatives do not have a monopoly on lying and manipulating the media. There’s THREE sides to every story: the Right’s, the Left’s and the facts.
That’s why I want to know: is there an organization out there whose sole purpose is to fact-check liberal media? Is there a right-wing equivalent of Media Matters?
Lastly, conservatives, I’m doing you the respect of trying to obtain a balanced viewpoint over here. Please do me the respect of not responding to this post by saying, “duh, just go watch Fox News!!” You and I both know that that’s not what I’m looking for here. Let’s not get into that, please.
Followup Post- [In reply to readers who suggested newsbusters.org and MRC]
Rahzel, Apr 23, 10 10:46 Post #7 of 8 (1563 views)
Thanks for posting this. This is close to what I’m interested in (and certainly worth reading), but the MRC’s purpose is subtly different from that of Media Matters. MRC highlights instances of liberal bias in the media, whereas Media Matters highlights instances of conservative misinformation in the media.
What I’m looking for is an organization that posts stuff like: “Nancy Pelosi said Statement X today. This is false because X contradicts Statement Y, and we know Y to be true.” Whereas, MRC seems to take the slightly different approach of: “MSNBC reported that Nancy Pelosi said Statement X today, but completely ignored Newt Gingrich saying just-as-important Statement Y today. This illustrates MSNBC’s bias in favor of Pelosi.”
To make your own side-by-side the comparison of exactly how “everybody does it” please take a few minutes to surf to these sites; one a Lefty fact-checker, the other three the best the Right had to offer as an equivalent. And again, give us a better example of Righty fact-checkers and we’ll use them instead! (Note: We found the TownHall Factchecker at the last minute, but they still don’t hold up well against Media Matters.)
Media Matters For America, or their fact-check project Mythopedia
VS
Media Research Center, NewsBusters, or TownHall Fact Check
Is there a difference between “point of view” and “propaganda”?
This is another yes/no answer. If you have many information sources and can compare between them, you at least have the possibility of being an informed information consumer. If you only have one point of view available, then there’s no difference at all. Once you’re thinking critically for yourself, it’s vital to have a range of opinions and subjects to check each other against.
Media consolidation has crippled our access locally and nationally to alternative views from Corporate media owners; an issue that hit us very specifically in Portland with the loss of KPOJ. Even though it’s harder, seeking out alternative viewpoints is still possible. Supporting progressive community outlets like KBOO and XRAY are ways we can stem the tide.
The KPOJ Debacle- Death comes to Progressive Talk in Portland
When KPOJ died listeners called us to find out why. We fielded almost 150 calls about the loss, so we decided to put everything we knew (or suspected) about the closure into one article. From politics to backstabbing to cold hard cash, it’s all right here.
When Carl Wolfson came on the air to fill the KPOJ void, we were there for him. Tom cut a new radio spot specifically to welcome him back, and it has a few thoughts on propaganda.
Does being limited to just one opinion REALLY cripple your view of the world? FOX is famous for putting its opinion stamp on news, and this humorous look at history from FOX’s point of view shows you how different history can look through their set of glasses.
Media Consolidation – One stop shopping for ideas
The opening of XRAY-FM is a small victory for the free flow of information, but why? Why should a small, community radio station matter at all? It’s because the overwhelming trend in media since 1996 has been consolidation… six companies now control almost all the information we receive through all media. They’ve taken a vibrant, chaotic marketplace of ideas and forced it through a single spigot as a putrid slurry of corporate propaganda. Why, it’s enough to make you Furious, if you check out these stories or even just the chart below on MEDIA CONSOLIDATION!
US Propaganda
Don’t settle for inferior propaganda from foreign sources! You have a choice… BUY AMERICAN! We produce some of the finest propaganda in the world right here at home. People of goodwill may argue about whether we propagandize for good or bad, but no one can argue that we do it. And our efforts over the years have had mixed success…
Relations Between US And UN Strained Over Afghanistan War Reports by Sune Engel Rasmussen in The Guardian, Dec 2016
The US military in Afghanistan is increasingly trying to control public information about the war, resulting in strained relations with western organizations offering different versions of events to official military accounts. In a recent incident, the most senior US commander in Afghanistan, Gen John W Nicholson, considered banning or restricting the UN’s access to a military base in Kabul, according to informed sources in both organizations. The dispute followed a UN report in late September claiming that a US drone had killed 15 civilians. Washington insists it only killed members of Islamic State…
The CIA and the Press: When the Washington Post Ran the CIA’s Propaganda Network by Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn on CounterPunch, Nov 2016
In a propaganda war against ISIS, the U.S. tried to play by the enemy’s rules by Greg Miller and Scott Higham in The Washington Post, May 2015
As fighters surged into Syria last summer, a video surfaced online with the grisly imagery and sneering tone of a propaganda release from the Islamic State. “Run, do not walk, to ISIS Land,” read the opening line of a script that promised new arrivals would learn “useful new skills” such as “crucifying and executing Muslims.” The words were juxtaposed with images of the terrorist group’s atrocities: kneeling prisoners shot point-blank; severed heads positioned next to a propped-up corpse; limp bodies left hanging from crosses in public squares. The source of the video was revealed only in its closing frame: the U.S. Department of State.
Tom Dwyer Propaganda
Google “Tom Dwyer” and “Propaganda” and you’ll come up with over a million results. We’ve been called out as a propaganda pump in the past, in jest and in seriousness, but there’s a difference between propaganda and opinion. Here’s a sampling of some of our stories and columns dealing with propaganda in a variety of venues…
Am I just a shill for Saddam? Tom’s Tidbits, Tom Dwyer Newsletter, Mar 2012
I’m not afraid to take strong stances on political and social issues. Today’s environment usually finds me in the camp of the Progressives, but does that make me a shill for Progressive positions? Do I mindlessly parrot propaganda, or do I choose logical positions based on the general welfare? Thanks to an article in this month’s newsletter, that’s more than just a rhetorical question…
Winning Dirty on TPP- Corporatists pulling out a familiar, ugly playbook Tom Dwyer Newsletter, Mar 2015
Richard Berman, lobbyist and political consultant, was secretly recorded during a speech to oil and gas industry executives in Colorado. He explained that the industry “…must be willing to exploit emotions like fear, greed and anger and turn them against the environmental groups”. Then he summed up his philosophy in one cringeworthy sentence- “you can either win ugly or lose pretty”. People have complained for years about propaganda techniques that give the illusion of grassroots support for policies that only benefit corporate interests. But it seems these Orwellian strategies may be perfectly acceptable if they’re pushing the “right” policy. In the looming fight over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Corporatists are once again rolling out the same strategies that they’ve used for decades. With apologies to Mr. Berman… win or lose, it won’t be pretty.
News To Make You Furious- Global Warming Lies in Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal
In September of 2001, “News To Make You Furious” took an unbiased look at the global warming debate in an article titled “They’re not wrong, they’re lying.” (If that doesn’t sound unbiased, think again. It’s entirely possible to come to the unbiased conclusion you’re being lied to. Richard Nixon springs to mind.) But these industry-spawned lies have been a constant “rain” on our necks for years… is there anything new to make you Furious? Yes. The pestilent prevarication in the recent Wall Street Journal op-ed “In Defense of Carbon Dioxide” was so brazen that it wasn’t just an insult to our intelligence, but an insult to our stupidity…
News To Make You Furious- Wendell Potter and health care
This month’s Furious is all about one book. One book that can make you mad enough to last for years. Have you ever heard the phrase “Government takeover of health care”? It comes to you from a gentleman named Wendell Potter, a retired PR executive for the health insurance industry. He, and people like him, spend their careers figuring out ways to drop people’s insurance when they get sick, mislead them about what their insurance covers, and lie to them about the state of health insurance and the implications of reform. Wendell retired from the industry “…because (he) could no longer serve in good conscience as a spokesman for an industry whose routine practices amount to a death sentence for thousands of Americans every year”, and now he’s telling the behind-the-scenes story the insurance industry doesn’t want you to know. If you haven’t heard about Wendell Potter already, then settle in. You won’t soon forget him.
Media Consolidation – One stop shopping for ideas
The opening of XRAY-FM is a small victory for the free flow of information, but why? Why should a small, community radio station matter at all? It’s because the overwhelming trend in media since 1996 has been consolidation… six companies now control almost all the information we receive through all media. They’ve taken a vibrant, chaotic marketplace of ideas and forced it through a single spigot as a putrid slurry of corporate propaganda. Why, it’s enough to make you Furious, if you check out these stories or even just the chart below on MEDIA CONSOLIDATION!
Fighting Back
To fight back against propaganda we must first acknowledge our own susceptibility to propaganda of all kinds. Propaganda may be most effective in low-information population but if you think “propaganda is something stupid people believe”, you’re wrong. We’re all human, and propaganda is used to shape human opinion because it works on us all. This is just a sliver of the research on why…
Finland is winning the war on fake news. What it’s learned may be crucial to Western democracy, Mackintosh and Kiernan on CNN,
Researchers: Half of People Believe Fake Facts Sci-News.com, Dec 2016
The Dunning-Kruger Effect: Are the Stupid Too Stupid to Realize They’re Stupid? By Bob Seindensticker on Patheos.com, Feb 2015
The Internet Isn’t Making Us Dumber — It’s Making Us More ‘Meta-Ignorant’ By William Poundstone in NYMag “Science of Us”, Jul 2016
Knowledge isn’t always power. You can know everything about human biases and still fall prey to those biases.
A Princeton Psychology Professor Told Me A Truth About Human Behavior That’s Both Fascinating And Sad by Shana Lebowitz, Business Insider, Nov 2016
Accepting that we’ll never be perfectly immune to propaganda, we can still reduce our susceptibility. As Justice Louis Brandeis said, “If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.” The best weapons are education, critical thinking, and conscious evaluation.
How You Can Defeat Propaganda by Guy Bergstrom on The Balance, Apr 2016
Since this is a website available around the world, it is appropriate to talk about how to combat propaganda that has the full weight and power of the state behind it — because there are still places on this earth where that’s happening. The more common public relations challenge is combating propaganda on a smaller scale, whether it’s a political campaign, a corporate battle or a non-profit trying to generate awareness of an issue in the face of a government covering up the evidence. It’s hard to fight fire with fire, especially when you (a) can’t use the same evil techniques, manipulations and lies as the other side and (b) are typically David in a fight against Goliath since propaganda is a tool of those in power and on top.
Check your facts
Critical thinking is, well, critical to clarity on any subject. Assume what you’re hearing is propaganda until you can check the facts and verify that you’re hearing the FULL story. Even though they may be flawed, here is a selection of fact-checkers from across the political spectrum…
From the Center- PolitiFact, Snopes, NPR, Washington Post
From the Left- Media Matters For America, or their project Mythopedia
From the Right- Media Research Center, NewsBusters, or TownHall
Speak out!
Propaganda is most needed by, and flourishes most under, an authoritarian government. It’s closely related to the strategy of shutting down dissent and criticism. A recent blacklisting by some yahoo with a website is not just a form of propaganda but a form of thuggery. Much like the response to propaganda, the best response is open information and not letting lies stand.
Professor Watchlist Is Seen as Threat to Academic Freedom by Christopher Mele in The New York Times, Nov 2016
I Will Not Shut Up. America Is Still Worth Fighting For By Heather Cox Richardson on Moyers & Company, Nov 2016
Restore Respectability to Journalism-
Yes, they’ve always been biased in a variety of ways, but there’s a reason the Press is the only business venture mentioned in the Constitution. A free and functional press, or at the very least an attempt at one, is a major bulwark against the spread of propaganda.
Code of Ethics or Canons of Journalism (1923)
Meet the Press- The hustlers, hucksters, hacks, and cowards who helped elect Donald Trump by Rick Perlstein in The Washington Spectator, Dec 2016
How to Deal With the Lies of Donald Trump: Guidelines for the Media by James Fallows in The Atlantic, Nov 2016
Being back in China in the U.S.-election aftermath naturally leads to thoughts about how societies function when there is no agreed-on version of “reality,” public knowledge, or news… The United States is seeing both a chronic and an acute new version of this public-information problem. The chronic version, recognized but nowhere close to being solved, is the rise of separate fact-universes into which different segments of society silo themselves—occurring at the same time as the “normal” news media are struggling against economic and other pressures.
