Reader Another Ian left this on tAV yesterday. I actually spent 20 minutes trying to verify it and it looked pretty real.
O/T and FWIW
TAKE NOTICE!
“There’s no way to confirm this, but watching just the same: Multiple reports that Israel(?) has launched military attacks on Iranian targets.”
The FAKE news was running the Iranian version of events where “one failed attack” occurred until today.
It looks like Ian nailed another one.
the Air Vent 
Why are blogs more accurate than the media?
Independent free seekers of real knowledge and truth?
It is NOT that one media is (always) more accurate than another. What it is, is, that a single sole source expert-authority imprimatur is less accurate than the perspective provided by the trial and error, Devil’s Advocate, loud and rude results of debate. When the U.S. had a “free press” a lot of inaccurate claims were published, and believed. Yet we collectively arrived at a more accurate consensus than we have, now, when our self-identified “betters” presume to educate those of us they describe as “deplorable” or “deniers” or racists and sexists and transphobes and morons and conspiracy-theorists.
Perspective — even from those whose vision is necessarily impaired.
The Blind Men And The Elephant
John Godfrey Saxe 1816 (Highgate) – 1887
It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
Though all of them were blind,
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.
The First approached the Elephant
And, happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me, but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!”
The Second, feeling the tusk,
Cried, “Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ’tis very clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”
The Third approached the animal
And, happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up he spake:
“I see,” quoth he, “The Elephant
Is very like a snake!”
The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee:
“What most the wondrous beast is like
Is very plain,” quoth he;
“Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!”
The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said, “Even the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can:
This marvel of an elephant
Is very like a fan!”
The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope
Then, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a rope!”
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong.
Though each was partly in the right,
They all were in the wrong!
So, oft in theologic* wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!
In our century, the “theological” issues have become partisan, political, tribal, and factional as well. When minority Presbyterians had to be tolerated by both Roman Catholics and the English Orthodox Anglicans (in order for ANYone to secure a majority in Parliament) the habit of finding common fundamental beliefs led to “free exercise” and “free speech” and “the free press”. When theology is discredited but “science” privileged, dispute and tolerance are no longer considered virtues. The Elephant *IS* whatever the loudest and angriest and most powerful blind man SHOUTS that it is.
Get used to the sharp end of the tusk.
“When the U.S. had a “free press” a lot of inaccurate claims were published, and believed.”
When was this free media and what inaccuracies were reported that we believed?
Well, for instance “in 1802, James Thomson Callender, a journalist and by then a political enemy of Jefferson, accused the president of keeping one of his slaves [Sally Hemmings] as his concubine.”
https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/hemings-sally-1773-1835/
The journalist’s [confessedly biased] account was widely believed, then and now.
DNA tests over two centuries later were suggestive but inconclusive:
In this Article, the authors summarize a “mock” trial defense of Jefferson, concluding that the allegations are unproved by the greater weight of the evidence.
https://www.tjheritage.org/a-civil-action-sally-hemings-v-thomas-jefferson
Jefferson was (and is still) as widely renowned as a partisan for “free speech” as he was (and is still) reviled as a slave holder. In the Callender case , Jefferson worked to defend the journalist from charges of sedition, later issued a presidential pardon to the man, lent (or gave) him money, and even considered (ultimately, unfavorably) Callender’s application for a sinecure appointment as a postmaster. Callender might have been the template from which all modern journalists were stereotyped. He was a racist, and “anti-miscegenation-ist” — if that’s a real word — a sexist, a misogynist, a drunk, and ultimately a suicide.
Jefferson had little respect for the papers of his day, but he understood that the commercial interests of the publishers were best served by providing perspective and multiple (diverse?) viewpoints, not a monolithic and lofty “Truth”.
“A coalition of sentiments is not for the interest of printers… [T]he printers can never leave us in a state of perfect rest and union of opinion.
The stageplay and later movie versions of “The Front Page” show that, at the dawn of the 20th century, the competition among — and scurrilous dishonest nature of — journalists was little changed over our first century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Front_Page
The caricature of the Chicago press corps of that era portrays the one coalition or consensus story the various journalists agree on was portraying an honest woman as a slut and a prostitute merely for taking in an ill neighbor — who happened to have shot a [Black] cop, earlier in the day.
Then, do we need to get into the inaccuracies of the portrayals of Woodward and Bernstein in the movie “All the President’s Men” ?
WOW !!
You had to go way back to 1802 for something there.
As far as “inaccuracies” in a movie?????
That’s not news reporting.
WOW !! You had to go way back to 1802 for something there.
Originalism. The idea of a free press, like the related ideas of free exercise of religious practices and free speech, is baked right into the Founders’ conceptions of how communities should be orders. “Monopoly” was, and is, a problem for more realms of our lives than, say, elementary schools.
In the 1990s, the union-favoring “Dallas Times-Herald”, for instance, folded in the 1990s leaving the corporate-favoring “Dallas Morning News” the sole paper. Even New York and Washington DC papers have failed, or been sold to billionaires that run them as hobbies and advocacy platforms. In my lifetime, the problem of cities seeing “daily” newspapers fail and suffering a news monopoly has been well documented.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1950/09/the-monopoly-of-news/639650/
Since 1929, 40 per cent of the newspapers in the United States hare either closed up shop or been consolidated into a newspaper chain.
(By the way Matthew, you might take a leaf from Joshua’s book and at least link to and cite sources for your carping comments. I don’t insist on fully formed and well researched essays in all cases. But it’s nice to know where ideas are arising.)
“Chain” news sources (and biases) are well known to the left who hate, say, the Salem Group (https://salemmedia.com/) and the right who hate, for instance, Comcast. (https://corporate.comcast.com/press)
As far as “inaccuracies” in a movie????? That’s not news reporting.
Art. Imitating life, against a background of “everybody knows” … Sort of like the permanent Civil Service (a.k.a. “The Deep State”) is perhaps best illustrated for the lay public by the UK BBC comedy (caricatures) of “Yes Minister” . https://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/yesminister/
Pertinent to the issue of having many newspapers, each with its own audience and perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M
ANYHOW, put in some effort. If the site is worth reading and commenting, it’s worth a bit of time in contributing more than exposure of bias.
Pouncer, I spent a good bit of time reading the other stuff you linked. As I’ve gotten older, history is more interesting than it used to be.
Pouncer,
The writing is a blast, the end was a slap.
Well done.
Hopefully there were NObama nuke sites targeted
Serious reading here (IMO)
“Shhh! Nobody Talk About World War III”
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/shhh-nobody-talk-about-world-war-iii/
And, after a look around the net this morning, no one seems to be mentioning yesterday’s dust up in Iran either
It’s completely crazy. Like we’re all going to get spf 1 million and walk it off.
And we throw Iran into it?!
Dumfuxology.
Thinking about that and polishing my tinfoil hat
Punt would be that the Israelis would be after things nuke.
Seems like things like drone factories were targeted
Who downstream might that benefit?
Supposedly Iran supplying drones to Russia
Nordstream 3 in action?
I’m prepared to be wrong – hopefully
Drone factories?
Makes sense. Is there reporting on that?
Try a search like “Iran drone factory targeted”. Brings up some mentions in Brave – didn’t try the Googler
Some mentions in yesterday’s Twitter string too
Gotta love the Mossad: