CNN: Purveyor of Propaganda
Friday, January 9, 2009 at 07:41PM CNN openly derided Joe the Plumber when he headed off this week to the ME in his new role as journalist. I don't see why. Joe the Plumber is lucid, articulate and more committed to the truth than many in the elite media.
Is it a class thing? It seems likely. Afterall, Caroline Kennedy is inarticulate and inexperienced, and yet socialite Caroline Kennedy is considered US Senate material. Meanwhile, Governor Palin is derided as inexperienced and a joke; I think this is because Palin looks and sounds working class, which she is.
Michelle Malkin is correct when she states: "Groupthink, credential fetishism, and the Sorbonne mentality have turned national newsrooms into stale echo chambers. For all its self-aggrandizing paeans to “diversity,” mainstream American journalism remains one of the most intellectually and ideologically monochrome sectors of the public square."
In any case, CNN is in no position to judge the likes of Joe the Plumber. Yesterday, CNN aired a fake bit of propaganda filmed in Gaza. I link to it below. The story is an obvious fake and has been debunked.
Will CNN offer a correction? Don't hold your breath.
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Reader Comments (87)
Caroline Kennedy is facing media criticism specifically because of her lack of experience and poor public speaking skills.
Palin failed on the merits.
Joe the Plumber was previosuly exposed as less than truthful so he'd make a great Fox journalist.
-- or a great attorney!...
I know some ( right leaning ) construction guys and they don't particularly like Joe the Plumber who they regard as a fake nonunion plumber without the credentials and licensing that a real professional plumber should have, particularly one who claims that he would like to own and manage a plumbing business some day.
Sending him to a part of the world that he knows nothing about to practice a profession (journalism) that he knows nothing about is f***ing laughable.
If the conservative cause is to grow, it won't be by virtue of idiot stunts like this.
Plenty of ketchup left in Gaza I see!
Twenty seconds in and look who it is - the mad Marxist medic from Norway. He's not a doctor or surgeon, he's a professional Left Wing extremist and anti-semite who gives so many fraudulant interviews I doubt he has time to bandage a finger.
BBC, CNN, Sky, it doesn't matter which news you watch, he'll pop up sooner or later.
You cannot compare the kid-glove treatment that Caroline Kennedy has received by the elite media to the personal attacks and pummeling that the elite media gave Palin -- and keep a straight face.
Joe the Plumber will probably do a better job than most of the anchors on CNN.
It looks to me like CNN just sits back and waits to receive canned footage from their contacts in Gaza and doesn't check them, or analize them as long as they fit their prescribed anti-Israel narrative.
Phantom: what does the growth of the conservative movement have to do with Joe the Plumber's journalism job in the ME?
I want them to send Kato Kaelin to cover the Ukraine natural gas crisis
**London Alert - I expect to be there in the first week of February. If anyone is interested in a grog and conversation opportunity, please advise**
Joe is being sent by a conservative site, and the stunt makes conservatives look like idiots.
Phantom: I don't agree. Joe didn't have a valid license, he fixed pipes and wanted a plumbing business. No offense to your plumbing friends but so what.
I'd rather have Citizen Joe, with or without his valid plumber's license, reporting the news to me than CNN.
Did you know that this video - aired on CNN - came from a freelance photographer named Ashraf Mashharawi, who runs a business called Nepras For Media & IT. Per LGF: "according to Internet Haganah, in 2004 they were listed as the operator of at least two websites for ... Hamas."
CNN airs propaganda. Have they apologized? Corrected?
Phantom - classic line, poor old Kato.
Patty - Caroline hasn't received kid glove treatment from the media. And she doesn't deserve kid glove treatment either.
Patty - of course you would prefer Joe the Plumber reporting to you since the truth doesn't interest you.
Mahons
I agree. Joe is made for Fox, as is Palin if she ever gives up politics. You betcha!
Palin and Kaelin to the Ukraine!
So, CNN's blatant propaganda is OK with you? Mahons, Peter?
Don't want to rock your world-views (much) but East Coast liberalism is as elite as the Royal Court of Louis xiv.
Remember this next time you self-congratulate, patting yourselves on the back about the moral superiority of the Left, and how the Liberal cares - really cares - for those less fortunate.
I guess this is what you would call "nuance."
Actually Peter I wonder if Palin, Joe the Plumber and Caroline Kennedy could compete on some sort of reality television show. That way their fans could still root for them at no harm to the rest of us.
Phantom: I know alot of construction guys without licenses, period. They work for guys who have licenses. Just like Joe did. Union membership - not if they can help it.
Mahons: Maybe you and peter and phantom could join them -- because you are just as clownish, if not more so.
Imagine getting fooled by a fake story. Thank heavens that could never happen here.
East Coast liberalism is as elite as the Royal Court of Louis xiv.
You mean the east coast liberals are large landowners with thousands of peasants that they grind into the dirt? Gee, that's news to me Patty.
Patty - I don't approve of CNN's journalistic failings when the occur, but that doesn't mean Joe the Pluber should be Joe the Reporter.
I happen to live on the East Coast (as do Troll, Monica and Phantom), but am only a liberal in your imagination.
When I self-congratulate, I focus on an area other than my back, but I don't recall doing so over the moral superiority of the left (they are as wacky as you right nutters).
Patty
The trade here is heavily unionized, and all the really good (master ) plumbers are in the union
Those guys tend to be conservative and they really did regard Joe the Plumber to be a prop, a fake - perhaps unfairly so to an extent.
This stunt will only reinforce that perception
Patty
If CNN annoys you so much, my advice is to stick to Fox. "Fair and balanced" and all that. Yeah.
Let us all recognize that Patty is supporting Joe the plumber as a journalist. That is the bottom line.
I have a leaky faucet. Does anyone have Maureen Dowd's number?
Sometimes I haven't a clue what you folk (or folks :o) )are talking about.
Is Joe the Plumber a pal of our Bob the Builder? ;o)
Patty
So it's on film? Well done for posting it. This is the Norwegian prick who said a boy was killed playing football on the roof. He made a huge song and dance about it and now there is fake video. Awesome. And still noone thinks to ask what a boy was doing playing in the middle of an airstrike in which he was so obviously not killed. Utterly ridiculous.
It is a pity you posted the stuff about Joe etc as it detracts from it. That clip alone shows the Pali propaganda up to be the bullshit it is and that Norwegian skank master up as a liar and a fake.
"I have a leaky faucet. Does anyone have Maureen Dowd's number?"
If it's a leak then you'll want Bob Novak.
Mahons -
I don't approve of CNN's journalistic failings when the occur ...
Well I don't think you would, but I'd like to hear more about it.
CNN is a powerful broadcaster with great resources, yet it put out a fake here. It broadcast a lie designed to skew public opinion against Israel.
In effect, it defamed a country.
So what ought to be done? Should CNN be denied airspace? If a ... oh let's call it a 'fairness doctrine' existed, CNN would have fallen foul of it since it cannot be fair to broadcast a lie.
Maybe CNN ought to be made to broadcast a retraction every 30 minutes for a week?
Come one, let's not have any of this Joe the Plumber business, it allows silly minds to concentrate on silly things.
An American entity has embarrassed America. It broadcast a lie against an American ally, one which may have repercussions in blood. What does an American patriot think is a suitable sanction?
Aileen
These are "inside baseball" discussions for Yanks and Yankophiles
Of course "inside baseball" is itself a term that only inside baseball players would know about. If you want it defined, send a self addressed and stamped envelope to mahons the next blue moon and maybe he'll help you!
Phantom -
By the way, yep I ought to be around in early Feb time.
I'd be glad to have a beer with you.
Pete
Done
Please send an e-mail to me at bayridgephantom - at - gmail.com , and others who may be interested please do the same.
Phantom
You Americans and your language are so quaint;o)
Mahons is a lawyer. He's charge by the hour and wouldn't be over worried about the veracity. Just what he could get away with ;o)
*runs away
Well, in the spirit of Joe the Plumber, I've decided to practice law without a license. I'm going after mahons' clients and offering to work at a 25% discount. I'll be the best Philadelphia Lawyer out there.
Phantom - And give up your lucrative career as a cocktail waitress?
Pete - If CNN published the video it should (1) issue a retraction every hour on the hour and an apology to its viewers and (2) fire the editor who permitted an unverified video to be played.
Aileen - Just for that I am not going to sing my wicked version of Edelweiss for you (let us not disclose the source from where I learned of your attraction to Christopher Plummer).
Drug dealer. Don't you remember anything?
Phantom - If you say so, but then why the tutu?
Mahon
It is too small a world!!!!!
The uniform played a part ;o)
Aileen - The uniform? Don't tell me you would be wearing a nun's habit!
A nun, a lawyer and the head of CNN walk into Jeremy's Ale House and...
They shout in unison - your round Phantom.
Jimmy,
"Imagine getting fooled by a fake story. Thank heavens that could never happen here."
Indeed.
Luckily the market takes care of it and we can simply turn to one of the many other news organisations reporting from the scene....oh.
............Colm overreached himself :o)
Mahon I could never get into the habit
opps my post was meant to follow on from Phantom's
Aieeln - I know you claim you couldn't get into the habit, but could Chris Plummer if you wore one?
Bad Mahons, bad.
"Luckily the market takes care of it and we can simply turn to one of the many other news organisations reporting from the scene....oh."
Indeed sadly the IDF has decided that modesty forbids it should allow reporters in to record the measured and in no way disproportionate treatment of the local untermenschen at their hands.
Jimmy,
I am in favour of embedding reporters.
And if they look like Maria Bartiromo - bedding them.
She used to be my neighbor in Bay Ridge.
And my buddy who worked at the NY Stock Exchange used to tell me stories about her.
Hey any reproter that Joey Ramone wrote a song about can't be that bad.
"I am in favour of embedding reporters."
Faut de mieux perhaps, but it strikes me as a recipe for Stockholm syndrome. After all, the correspondent in the video you posted could be described as embedded.