The Right Way to Challenge Fake News

Trump is right challenging fake news. It’s about time someone in high office did it. He’s going about it the wrong way.

Without speech, media and academic freedoms, all other rights are threatened.

Barring certain media outlets from attending Friday’s White House press briefing while letting others in was wrongheaded and counterproductive.

The NYT falsely called the move unprecedented, “something no administration of either party has ever done.”

Not quite. In 2009, the Obama White House said it would no longer conduct interviews with Fox News as a member of the press pool, an unprecedented act at the time.

Other media outlets objected. The White House relented. It remained hostile to Fox News criticism of its policies.

On February 24, NYT editors blasted Trump’s move, absurdly calling it “a backhanded compliment to the reporters whose honest work provoked the president’s latest foot-stamping tantrum” – a gratuitous insult, falsely referring to barred news organizations as “trustworthy.”

Far from it! The Times and other media scoundrels feature fake news, suppressing what’s most important to report.

They’re largely anti-Trump, inventing reasons to bash him. Justifiable criticism is warranted. Biased reporting defiles what journalism is supposed to be.

On Friday, Trump called media “the opposition party…mak(ing) up stories and mak(ing) up sources.”

Candidate Trump said he wasn’t “running against crooked Hillary. I’m running against the crooked media,” he stressed – referring to the media as the “lowest form of humanity.”

Throughout the campaign, they went all out to get him, continuing post-inauguration. The power of scoundrel media manipulated public sentiment works.

Fiction substitutes for important facts. News is sanitized, dissent marginalized. Supporting wealth, power and privilege substitutes for full and accurate reporting.

Wars of aggression are called liberating ones. They’re glorified in the name of peace. Civil liberties are suppressed for our own good. Patriotism means supporting what harms the public welfare.

Might is justified as right. Raping nations is called democracy building. Looting them is considered economic development. Free societies are threatened. Tyranny stalks America.

Truth-telling is a vital disinfectant. The way to challenge media scoundrels isn’t by barring them from press briefings. It’s by exposing their fake news with hard, irrefutable facts.

Trump has bully pulpit power. He has over 25 million Twitter followers plus other ways to counter media lies if done responsibly.

On Friday, he tweeted,

“FAKE NEWS media knowingly doesn’t tell the truth. A great danger to our country. The failing @nytimes has become a joke. Likewise @CNN. Sad!”

Most Americans distrust the media for good reason. Growing numbers rely on alternative sources to stay informed. It’s the only way!

NYT Big Lies About Trump’s Ties to Russia

(image: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

The Times gives journalism a bad name. It’s a lying machine, not a credible source of news, information and analysis.

Paul Craig Roberts asked if it’s being “sustained by CIA subsidies.” The agency has billions of dollars to spend on nefarious activities, unrelated to keeping America safe.

The Times is viciously anti-Russia, anti-Trump. “Bring on the special prosecutor,” it roared in a Friday editorial, outrageously claiming Trump administration ties to Russia, despite no evidence proving any wrongdoing or anything out of the ordinary.

In an effort to undermine or oust him from office, it’s trying to invent a Watergate-type scenario, the way Nixon was wrongfully framed for pursuing anti-establishment policies.

The Times wants an anti-Trump special prosecutor the way Nixon was attacked. It rejects FBI director James Comey’s involvement for daring to question Hillary’s integrity, what she abandoned before and after becoming first lady.

Attorney General Sessions is out for The Times because of his support for Trump.

The Times: “Mr. Trump’s unexplained allegiance to that country and its thug of a president, Vladimir Putin, has been a major concern from the start of his candidacy.”

“But the scope of a potential investigation expanded sharply in the last four days, with the firing of Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn, for lying to the White House about his contacts with the Russian ambassador, and the news that members of the Trump campaign’s inner circle were in repeated contact with Russian intelligence agents last year, at the same time that Russia was actively attempting to swing the election to Mr. Trump.”

Fact: No responsible editor would  publish this rubbish. The Times features it.

Fact: Trump deserves universal support by wanting improved relations with Russia – if he means it by following through responsibly, not so far. Rhetoric doesn’t substitute for policy.

Fact: No credible evidence suggests any improper contacts between Trump campaign members and Russia – none with its intelligence.

Fact: Accusations of Russian US election hacking were fabricated – The Times one of the leading proliferators of falsified claims.

Trump has been in office less than one month. Calling for a special prosecutor is a politicized Times effort to further denigrate and undermine him toward achieving its aim of ousting him.

All public officials should be held accountable for their actions – not by inventing reasons to attack them.

The Times went at Trump throughout the campaign this way. It’s continuing the same jihad post-inauguration.

An independent special prosecutor is needed to investigate The Times and other media scoundrels for fake news reporting, not journalism the way it’s supposed to be.