Self-reflection, it must be said, is not one of the mainstream media’s strong points. They clutch their bodices when subscriptions and public trust in media go into free-fall. But, like Principal Skinner from The Simpsons, they refuse to countenance that the problem might be them. No, it’s the children who are wrong.
That must be it, the media reassure themselves. No one would, after all, dispute Paddy Gower’s autohagiographical description of himself as a “news icon”. No, it’s the consumers who are wrong.
They’re wrong, because they keep paying attention to misinformation instead of the mainstream media.
Well, make up your minds. Do you want us to ignore misinformation, or keep believing the mainstream media?
[Anthony Albanese] said it was not the day for playing politics and warned against the spread of misinformation.
“One of the things I urge everyone to do is to exercise caution when reading unverified reports of the events and to seek out credible news sources,” he said. “We all need to be on guard against those seeking to use misinformation to create division.”
Which is why we’ve stopped trusting the mainstream media.
“Misinformation”, remember, is not just outright falsehoods. Misinformation includes inaccurate, incomplete or misleading information as well as selective or half-truths.
Now, read this, from the very same ABC article railing against misinformation:
MPs’ security increased significantly since 2016 in the UK (according to the BBC) an escalation that happened after Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered by a far-right terrorist.
The debate over MP safety further ramped up following the murder of Conservative MP Sir David Amess in 2021.
ABC Australian
Notice what she did there? Cox was “murdered by a far-right terrorist”, while Amess was just “murdered”.
No mention that Amess was murdered by a Somalian Muslim, because of the MP’s voting record on UK airstrikes in Syria as well as his membership with the Conservative Friends of Israel. “I thought if I couldn’t go join Islamic State, I should try and do something here to help Muslims here.”
Why did the ABC’s Patricia Karvelas carefully leave all of that out?
Incomplete or misleading information as well as selective or half-truths.
And she has the temerity to finger-wag the rest of us about “misinformation”? To piously intone that facts “must be free of manipulation”?
But the ABC doesn’t hold a misleading candle to the kings of misinformation, CNN.
While the derided independent media were accurately reporting Shots fired at President Trump in a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, how did CNN report it?
Secret Service rushes Trump off stage after he falls at rally. Apparently they confused him with Joe Biden.
That was later upgraded to, Trump Injured in Incident at PA Rally.
The Babylon Bee weren’t far wrong when they parodied CNN’s coverage as Clumsy Trump Hits Head on Bullet.
Nor when they wrote that, Trump Indicted For Inciting Assassination Attempt. Indeed, the shots had barely died down when Tennessee Democrat London Lamar tweeted that “the extremism from the MAGA regime” was responsible for the attempted assassination.
What was it Karvelas was saying about social media and “theories so devoid of evidence or fact it is irresponsible to give them any oxygen”?
The beam in your own eyes, mainstream media.
