How the Washington Post lies

 Saturday, April 7, 2018 No news media organization has been so heralded as an icon of free press as the Legendary Washington Post, the absolute epitome of The First Amendment.The First Amendment, however, does not guarantee an honest or objective press.In this regard, The Post has lived up to all the unethical and corrupt perceptions modern America has come to expect from its media outlets, a symbol of complete abdication of journalist ethic in pursuit of influence and power.This is not unique to The Post, of course.Most if not all media today have taken a huge step back from the concept of objectivity, reverting to an older tradition many once called “yellow journalism.”The Post simply stands out in the crowd as one of the arrogant, self-righteous manipulators of public opinion and when taken to task by angry victims, becomes a martyr of free speech that equally disreputable news organizations must rally behind to defend. Because to question the integrity of The Post is to question the sacred traditions behind journalism and the orthodoxy of The First Amendment itself.This makes clear just how out of control all media has become, this self-centered self-appointed industry that lays claim to serving as watch dog for public interests, a fallacy laid bare with each slanted headline or news report issued.First and foremost, there is (and perhaps never has been) an objective press.We are an evil breed seeking to influence the public, not inform, and so we slant each bit of news in order to sway the public to whatever end we want.And the Post has become one of the leaders of this insanity.Even before The Post engaged in its holy crusade to overthrow President Trump, or if possible, undo the popular movement that allowed him to win over a candidate already coronated by media, The Post was little more than an outlet for insider cranks feeding petty gossip from inside the beltway in order to damage real or imagined political rivals.
Everybody knew if you wanted to damage someone you didn’t like, you leaked something to The Post, and this began a tirade of attack that eventually undermined some public official’s credibility.This was made obvious during Trump’s first year as president when Jared Kushner and Steve Banon used the post to undermine each other, through a series of leaks that the Post trumpeted and other media picked up on such as CNN, and The New York Times.Despite these two being The Post’s primary inside and unnamed sources, the Post thought nothing of savaging them both in bold headlines.So much for loyalty to sources.The Post had bigger fish to fry, since it’s primary objective in doing everything possible to undermine the credibility of the Trump Administration and create the illusion that Trump’s victory was the result of a Russian conspiracy, and that Trump himself was either unqualified to be president or at best, nuts.Some editor somewhere in the upper management of The Post must have studied journalistic ethics to have violated so many of what most of us consider unbreakable rules. Or perhaps, the Post simply believed it had become so powerful that in a Machiavellian sense did not have to follow rules we all got taught in school as far as fair and objective reporting.The Post – as well as most media that echoed its reports – set aside rules of journalism in and open and unregulated campaign to manipulate public opinion against Trump. Part of this may have to do with the fact that Trump on the campaign had dismissed the post as not relevant, a severe blow to the ego of the nation’s premiere political media group.The Post needed to flex its muscles in a power game to show that it still has the ability to bring down a president it didn’t like, and to remind people how its ace reporters had done as much back in the good of days of Watergate. This, of course, require The Post’s ethically challenged staff of politically-connected reporters to engage in a campaign to brainwash a sometimes-unsuspecting public, or at worst, ignite a fire under those groups that oppose Trump but spreading questionable information.It would be a mistake to blame The Post completely for what they did, since it has become common practice for media to manipulate the public in the guise of providing information.Nor is The Post (or for that matter the rest of media) as powerful yet to actually control what people think (although The Post thinks it is).But media has the ability to control what issues get discussed and those that get ignored, setting a pre-arranged agenda of its own choosing.Media has the power to silence discussion about issues it does not want discussed.This is a kind of slight of hand that happens right under the nose of Joe Blow and is hardly discussed in the trade because nearly every news organization is guilty of it, some worse than others such as Politico, The Hill or The Washington Examiner, and others with a more subtle touch such as the manipulative purple prose of The New York Times or that silly elite magazine, The New Yorker.One of the best examples of how media steered the national discussion is the Parkland shooting where a madman with an automatic weapon killed 17 people.This tragedy happened despite the fact that school officials knew the killer was a problem before this violence occurred and did nothing.The FBI knew about the killer beforehand and did nothing.And when the shooting was underway, local police were ordered not to go into the school and stop the shooter.The Post and other news organizations did not want to discuss the failings of the system for a number of reasons.So, the media steered the story to the gun instead of the killer and the failed system that allowed 17 people to die unnecessarily, rather than the massive failure of a system that is supposed to protect innocent. And after nearly two decades of telling people “if you see something, say something,” and when someone said something, authorities did nothing. This was a tragedy against repeated in the YouTube shooting, when the father of the shooter told police where the shooter was going, and the police didn’t go there.By focusing the story on the gun, the Post and other news organizations allowed liberal groups to attack the NRA, a prominent GOP campaign contributor. The media then in a follow up series of stories showed how gun sales spiked after each shooting, suggesting that “gun nuts” were buying up automatic weapons against the expected back lash to limit gun access.To some degree this is true. People did buy automatic weapons.But what The Post and other media suppressed was the fact that people also bought up massively handguns because they were terrified about the fact that the police and schools – those institutions liberals claim will protect the kids – had completely failed. While the idea of arming teachers isn’t very bright. Media could not afford to go after the FBI, the police or the schools and still remain politically viable to the left.The Post made such a huge deal about defending the FBI against Trump’s accusations that they worked against him in building a bogus Russian conspiracy, that the Post would look stupid in calling the FBI incompetent regarding Parkland.Media could also not scold the cops for failing to be aggressive in going after the shoot when the Post and much of the liberal media had spent the better part of a year supporting Black Lives Matter’s claims that cops were overly aggressive.Media dared not attack the system because it might feed into the fear many in the GOP and the NRA are spreading that the system is unable to protect its adults or kids, and that people might have to defend themselves.In going after the guns, The Post’s objective was to undermine a strong GOP contributor, the NRA, and placate Democrats who would like to find a way to cut into the support in order to win key congressional races in November.This is only one small example of media manipulation of news to steer people into a certain frame of mind.The whole point of framing a story in a specific way is to get people to react in a specific way.In the Parkland case, the strategy worked as democrats managed to orchestrate massive student walkouts across the nation on the heels of the manipulated media coverage.Sometimes, framing stories doesn’t quite work out the way media plans, partly because there are other factors working against the framing, and other groups framing the story of their own ends, with each side using the public as pawns in a massive grab for power.The Post and other media rely on the fact that in most cases the public does not have access to the actual facts.People depend on media to know about what goes on in the world outside their immediate orbits. While a person might know the mayor in a small town, he or she may never even see a congressman or a senator, and certainly know very little about them or other powerful figures such as the president.And when events transpire beyond the borders of their town, they don’t know about it, except through the extremely jaded lens of media.In a small town, most people know about events even before media does.But when it comes to distant events or national issues, people have come to rely on media to inform them.In fact, people have become dependent on media and have come to mistakenly trust media to tell them the truth.Unless someone deliberately seeks out alternative information from other sources (an activity few people in the real world have time to engage in), the only information they get comes from what they read in newspapers or watch on TV or get in a news feed on their smart phones.The Post and other media rely on this, and spoon feed the public angles on news the media outlets deem as the truth.As I said before, the First Amendment guarantees a free press, not an honest one.And The Post lives up to this dishonest legacy, but so does almost every other news outlet.What we get as news isn’t fake, its framed. Relevant facts that might counter the angle the press is selling are often left out in order to create a specific emotional response and to get people to believe the myth that media is selling.Media deals in myth and symbols, not in facts.By limiting people’s access to information, media creates an illusion that serves as truth.The Post is particularly good at this, first planning seeds with slanted and biased headlines (or suggestive briefs) then watering these with more polluted information, and then repeating this skewed take on reality until people come to believe it is authentic.Headlines, tweets, breaking news on TV all serve to plant thoughts in people’s minds – sometimes called priming – creating specific impressions that later slanted news reports build on inside a person’s head.When a person takes in this information, he or she later remembers the original seed so that the slant seems authentic when it is not.This is what made other news organizations so dangerous when they picked up and repeated the slanted stories The Post was publishing.  Many people began thinking that if these organizations were saying the same thing, the slant must be true, unaware or unable to realize that the source of the story was always at heart The Post.Framing as news story comes in two stages.Media selects and limits the facts to fit the agenda it is selling, then starts planting in the public’s consciousness, later publishing additional slanted stories that build on the original lie.And these reports get repeated again and again like the old 45 singles we used to hear on top 40 music stations. After a while, you can’t get the tune or the slant out of your head.The Post’s obsession to paint Trump in a bad light becomes very obvious when you look at the pattern of their news feeds over the last two years, painting Trump at corrupt, or unfit or crazy.This has been a nonstop media campaign that other news organizations repeat and give credibility to. Not all the stories are unreal or completely manipulated. Bad stories about Trump are clearly there to be had. But for an audience with no other source of legitimate information, this is like being trapped in a movie theater being subjected to perpetual assaults on the senses. So that eventually, you come to believe as real whatever media chooses to put on the big screen.The Post and associated media outlets are desperate to control the agenda, creating images that even some of the most well-educated people accept as face, because there is little choice.In many cases, people do not seek alternatives because they’ve been told other media outlets like Fox news spread misinformation – when in fact, all news does.Most people simply accept as fact what they are told by mainstream media, unaware of how they are being manipulated, or not being allowed to view the whole set of facts that might alter the perception media is attempting to create.After enough of this, people simply believe what they are told as truth, and even begin spreading it among themselves.Media’s ability to frame a story comes from three primary places. One, media’s direct access to the news scene or the people, and steering the audience to those facts that support the message media is trying to convey; two, strategic alliances both with political parties and other news outlets so as to make it appear that a slant posed by an organization like The Post is supported by more than just claims made by The Post. Three, support of social and political groups that benefit from the story’s slant – such as anti-gun lobby or Democrats.It is very difficult to fight back against a corrupt media such as The Post.When you attack media, other media rally to its defense, not unlike the AMA does when a doctor is accused of wrong doing.But part of it is because media in general does exactly what The Post does, manipulating people to specific ends and so the last thing media wants is someone to expose the game and reduce the power of press to manipulate its audience.To call what The Post “fake news” is to invite a fight, not just with the post, but all journalists who are either too timid to call for reform or so deeply involved in the game, they’re scared to lose power.Media won’t police itself, and fights anyone outside the industry who tries to.This is why so many rallies to the Post’s defense, knowing if the mighty Post is brought to its knees, so does the questionable practices of a largely corrupted industry called journalism.   

email to Al Sullivan