Friday, November 25, 2016

Is It Propaganda Or Not? On "Fake News"


The now infamous Washington Post editorial about "fake news" sites is based a list provided by PropOrNot and published anonymously. "The List" includes Consortium News, Counterpunch, David Stockman Counter Corner,  Drudge Report, Information Clearing House, Lew Rockwell, Naked Capitalism, Off Guardian, Op Ed News, Paul Craig Roberts, The Vineyard of the Saker, Truthdig, Truthout, Unz, and Zero Hedge. Many, many others made the list as well, but not MNE. What's up with that?

Looks like the Establishment has lost it and is flailing about.

Is It Propaganda Or Not? — PropOrNot.com
The List– An Initial Set of Sites That Reliably Echo Russian Propaganda

All kidding aside, this is serious.
By these standards, any outlet that raises the alarm about the considerable presence of extreme right-wing elements among the post-Maidan Ukrainian government or which questions the Western and Saudi-funded campaign for regime change in Syria can be designated as a Russia dupe or a paid agent of the FSB. Indeed, while admitting that they have no idea whether any of the outlets it blacklisted are being paid by Russian intelligence or are even aware they are spreading Russian propaganda, PropOrNot’s authors concluded that any outlets that have met its highly politicized criteria “have effectively become tools of the Russian intelligence services, and are worthy of further investigation.”…
The message is clear: Stamp out the websites blacklisted by PropOrNot, or submit to the malevolent influence of Putin’s “new global empire."
It can't happen here?

AlterNet
Washington Post Promotes Shadowy Website That Accuses 200 Publications of Being Russian Propaganda Plants
Max Blumenthal

Tyler Durden is already on the case. I am confident that Drudge, Ron Paul, Paul Craig Roberts, David Stockman,  and Yves Smith will be, too. Get out the popcorn.

Zero Hedge
Washington Post Names Drudge, Zero Hedge, & Ron Paul As Anti-Clinton "Sophisticated Russian Propaganda Tools"
Tyler Durden

Sputnik International
Washington Post’s Piece on Fake News Promotes Fake List of Unreliable Sources

US Corporate Media Execs Turn Into 'Fascists' Trying to Gag Alternative Outlets

16 comments:

circuit said...

My mother used to tell me that, back in her day, newspapers in her neck of the woods drew up lists of books and newspapers that folks should stay clear of...Sounded so primitive back to me back then (and still does). Are we heading backwards here?

Random said...

Tom read this:

https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/12/1223066_re-get-ready-for-chicago-hot-dog-friday-.html

"Subject: RE: Get ready for "Chicago Hot Dog Friday"
I think Obama spent about $65,000 of the tax-payers money flying in
pizza/dogs from Chicago for a private party at the White House not long
ago, assume we are using the same channels?"

WTF does that mean? Look up pizzagate Tom seriously.

Random said...

They can't literally be talking about pizza. One conspiracy is it is sex slaves, although that could be crazy.

WTF? "pizza/dogs"??

Random said...

Analysis: Why Sweden is giving an award to the 'White Helmets'?

http://theindicter.com/analysis-why-sweden-is-giving-an-award-to-white-helmets/

Please PLEASE promote to post and promote #pizzagate Tom.

Ryan Harris said...

Democracy and capitalism idealize a population of rational people with a semi perfect shared window on reality.
If we assume instead people are irrational, poorly informed, highly biased, driven by emotions and fear. Then the notion of free will, the capability to make informed decisions is inaccurate, so efficient markets and enlightened government are out the window.

To say Tom Hickey is a subversive propagandist, that doesn't quite cover it. He incisively cuts right through the false gov and msm narratives for his readers.

Peter Pan said...

Mike's winning smile keeps the listers away.

Tom Hickey said...

Pizzagate

http://www.snopes.com/pizzagate-conspiracy/

Tom Hickey said...

The White Helmets have been completely exposed as propaganda machine run by jihadis and used by the Western establishment to promote its objectives for regime change in Syria, as well as to frame Russia for war crimes.

Only morons would still fall for this transparent farce.

See Moon of Alabama on how fake news is created.

ehttp://www.moonofalabama.org/2016/11/how-white-helmets-videos-are-made.html

The Western liberal establishment is using propaganda, disinformation, and psyops as clubs on their own people.

The news coming out of Syria and reported in the Western MSM is entirely manufactured and bogus, or, as they say, "fake.".

Malmo's Ghost said...

Snopes is biased. It's fake news fake fact checker.

Tom Hickey said...

Like I have been saying, there is no way to tell true from false and within the false, to distinguish mistake and ignorance from conscious and intentional deception as in "making shit up," or just cognitive bias. It's a free-floating world now information-wise, which was inevitable when news as information became infotainment and new bureaus ceased to be loss-making centers that give a media organization cred and became profit centers based on the relative number of eyeballs in the ad ratings.

Tom Hickey said...

Not that is is anything new.

http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring04/Vance/yellowjournalism.html

Ignacio said...

Traditional media execs are not being very smart... They are already a dying dinosaur, if they keep degrading their own image they will just die sooner. Maybe traditional media is too dependant on the deep-state indirect freebies to survive already on its own and that's how desperate they are.

The payout of this behaviour is just not there in a few years, they won't be able to pass their rent-extracting practices/business to their children as younger cohorts are abandoning mass media in mass (maybe they don't care?). Instead they should refocus, a few of them may make it up providing high quality content giving political coverage news (none of that are the big media conglomerates but independent sites). But most of them should forget about politic propaganda as a revenue source and focus on entertainment (no, i don't think young cohorts believe that political propaganda coverage is entertaining for the most part and will avoid that media even more), as they may have an opportunity there.

MRW said...

Who are the people behind PropOrNot?

Entire site stinks. No names. No credentials.

Matt Franko said...

" Many, many others made the list as well, but not MNE. What's up with that?"

No other blog that exhibits any skepticism towards the great "neo-liberal conspiracy!" meme

Wikileaks: NO DATA AT ALL wrt the "neo-liberal conspiracy!".... still waiting...

Kristjan said...

" Many, many others made the list as well, but not MNE. What's up with that?"

The funding comes from CIA? Clinton Foundation? :)

Noah Way said...

Nothing has changed in 100 years. Read George Seldes, he was writing about media corruption the early 20th century.