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The media’s overblown coverage of these idiots are the reason they have such an outrageous sense of entitlement that fuels them to these acts. While everyone else is banning and condemning them, and shutting down their nonsense, the NYT is still convincing them they are valid and worthy, which only adds to their sense of entitlement, thus perpetuating the cycle. This isn’t a both-sides problem. Either the NYT is a white supremicist rag pretending to be a legitimate news source or they have no idea what a legitimate news source is anymore. Either way, they need to fire their managing editor.

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I vote for Door #1.

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I doubt that the Times is a racist publication. The executive editor of the Times, Dean Baquet, is a black man. However they are A-OK with misogyny. The Times’ gave Baquet the job after firing Jill Abramson, the first female to have held that job then spread the word that she had been a mean boss. Apparently the fact that she had recently confronted management after discovering her compensation was much less than the compensation of Bill Keller who had preceded her had nothing to do with it.

Baquet recently gave an interview saying how he was excited about being able to get back to normal reporting, aggressively covering Biden and the Democrats so they are sure to go back to their bothsiderism and obsessing about optics/appearances of conflicts of interest which is only a topic when Democrats are being criticized.

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What I guess I don't understand, while they let these types bully the press into repeating their conspiracy theories, is that stories with some actual backing (court documents) get buried and lost--such as the time when a woman said Trump brutally raped her as a 13-year-old.

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allowing them to relentless repeat conspiracy theories is so odd

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The NYTimes is working desperately to normalize Republicans, because if they don’t then the great lie of Both Sides collapses, and they then have to be culpable for being wrong for 40+ years. If they state clearly and concisely (as their Style Guide admonishes them) what is happening, then they would have to say that one of our two political parties is the problem. They are not down for that.

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And I meant to add this: the 40-year long collapse of the GOP is the biggest story in modern American politics, and the Press is deliberately choosing to miss it. It’s astonishing.

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The press is choosing to ignore that story because they know they were complicit. Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate, Chinagate were all bogus scandals shopped to the NY Times by right wing operatives. Because the Times reported these smears as credible the rest of the media followed its lead. Next came the lies about Gore supposedly claiming to have invented the internet, Love Canal, etc. Mainstream political journalists treated Gore with utter disdain and praise Bush for being “more fun to have a beer with”. That proved just how shallow the media had become. (google Vanity Fair’s article “Going after Gore”. It is jaw dropping.) And we should never forget how they willingly bought Bush’s WMD claims. I even remember the media criticizing Kerry for not responding “appropriately” to the Swift Boat liars. Then they joined in with the bogus accusations about the Clinton Foundation and hyped the ridiculous email “scandal”.

Meanwhile Republicans became more and more extreme an untethered from reality and the media refused to acknowledge just how bonkers they had become.

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I generally agree with you in regard to the media’s homogenous terminology and depictions of the conspiracy mongers but, after reading the Times piece on the middle aged female self identified QAnon, I have to disagree with your opinion that she comes off as anything but a total wingnut. We are beginning to observe the terminology come around(finally). Cultists, Insurrectionists, paramilitary groups, fascists are terms totally absent in the echo chambers until recently. The Capital mob insurrection may have been the ugly light of day for required for networks to bring on some plain language. Unfortunately, not a word from them, print or video, acknowledging their role in creating our current state of madness and being manipulated mercilessly by the idiot savant.

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re: that Times piece of the middle aged female, if they're going to do stories like that i feel like it has to be completely centered around "brainwashing." but the Times doesn't really want to go there.

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The Times should interview my sisters-in-law. If you don’t talk with them about politics you would really like them because they are funny, smart and nice. But they have definitely been brainwashed over the past twenty some years. It started with Faux News. Social media made their irrationality even worse. Now the one who was one of the most sensible people I know is on Parler and griping about being cancelled.

I am an older baby boomer so my and my friends parents were the WWII generation. My dad served in Europe in the medical corps. I grew up very aware of Hitler and the Nazis and always wondered how such an advanced, highly educated country could have descended into such evil insanity. Now I know exactly how that happened because I am watching the same descent of people I care about. It is horrifying and heartbreaking. Nothing anyone says to them makes a difference, they just keep getting more and more delusional.

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I'm sorry about your family but I think their are a lot of families like that no matter what race. It's the evil that has invaded the world and along with evil 😈 you get greed. I think that's the main problem and the rich convince people who we love and who we thought this could never happen to believe all the hatred and name calling the ugliness is somehow normal and right. I pray that we live to see change not only in America but the world from all this ugliness and hatred. I don't think the newspaper or going to change now they will go after the dems like never before.

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Thanks for that. The sister-in-law I thought was sensible is worth at least 5 million and is well-educated so she is one of the rich, though not uber wealthy.

I agree that the media is almost certainly going to go back to their horrible practices of the past.

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Yes sir. And the real test will come in the days and weeks ahead when we see the legit news outlets transition to the actual news, and trump's antics fade away to where they belong; in the tabloids, if even there....or not.

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Yes , will press be able to break its addiction

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Meanwhile the Washington Post is publishing puff pieces about Melania:

“But rather than dwell on what could have been, she focuses on what she has control over: choreographing her own exit, trying to cement her legacy as a first lady who devoted much time to renovations of the White House, and making plans to continue her “Be Best” initiative. Quietly, she has also been working with Chief Usher Timothy Harleth to facilitate the move-in of the Bidens.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/melania-trump-final-days-white-house/2021/01/18/291239b6-59cf-11eb-b8bd-ee36b1cd18bf_story.html

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Oh good grief!

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Oops! I posted before I finished....

In that puff piece the Post couldn’t be bothered to mention the reporting at CNN and other outlets:

“While pro-Trump rioters were bludgeoning a police officer to death, she was reportedly overseeing a photoshoot of her rugs. As the mayhem escalated, aides asked her if she would release a statement urging calm. But, no, White House sources told CNN, the first lady was firmly focused on her photo project.....”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/12/how-me-me-me-melania-trump-turned-herself-into-the-real-victim-of-attack-on-the-capitol

When she belatedly issued a statement she first expressed sympathy for the insurrectionists who were killed before she mentioned the police officer who was murdered, Thence she gets around to issuing a condemnation — of criticisms of her:

“I find it shameful that surrounding these tragic events there has been salacious gossip, unwarranted personal attacks, and false misleading accusations on me – from people who are looking to be relevant and have an agenda. This time is solely about healing our country and its citizens. It should not be used for personal gain.”

And then she finally managed to condemn the violence???

The First Lady flat-out refused to intervene in the insurrection to try to stop the violent insurrection yet the Post decides that isn’t worth making than an issue? Like her husband Melania took an oath to protect and defend our country and constitution when she was sworn in as a US citizen. She deserves to have that shouted from the rooftops. She also deserves to have her citizenship revoked.

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"Cement her legacy"? ROFL

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Well she did say she was planning to continue all her hard work for children, specifically citing her anti-bullying campaign so there is that. And here I thought she hadn’t been doing anything constructive. I just assumed if she had been doing a lot of work for kids we would have heard about it — all the time.

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January 19, 2021
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Agreed and "40% of the populace" remain Trump voters because of the media's circular logic of 1.) refusing to appropriately label Trump's lies and 2.) repeatedly infantilizing and rationalizing for these people who so willingly believe disinformation. That the media is FINALLY using the phrase "the Big Lie" when it could've/should've been used from day one makes me go #$(*(*#@ but at least there is now hope.

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Jesus Christ.🙄

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I think so much focus on Trump supporters by the media - especially the loud, big flag-flying groups and outlandish individuals - is perhaps one reason so many of them can't believe so many voted for Biden. They have been in such a bubble with their entitlement and brazenness encouraged by the attention they have received from a variety of media outlets across the continuum - and so many of Biden/Harris supporters have been ignored that they had no idea how many of us were motivated, for a variety of reasons, to get out the vote for Biden/against Trump. It's like we weren't newsworthy - especially BIPOC who were vital to Biden's win.

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On the podcast, The Daily, Times host Michael Barbaro played a bunch of audio of Trump fans and their disbeliefs. I couldn't help remembering your piece which I had read earlier. At the point of exasperation, nausea, or whatever, he did say that tomorrow's pod will include Biden supporters. If that proves to be sufficient counterpoint, mazel tov, but it still leaves me wondering why it couldn't have been fit into a single day's effort.

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While your expose on the Times is 100 percent accurate, let's not forget our friends over at Fox News. Now that the Trump era is coming to a close, maybe Fox could come closer to the center in an attempt to not give more incentive to an unhinged right. But of course that's just a fantasy. Last night Sean Hannity railed on and on about how Biden is only catering to the left and that the Democrats are not doing enough to heal our country. This will be Fox's spin in the coming months, that the division in this country is because of Democrats. Even an insurrection by Trump loving goons who stormed our Capitol and likely got help from inside of Congress can't get Fox to change the way they report. They are without morals or conscience.

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OK, what the hell is a "Trump bobble hat"?

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Ha! Good question

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The biggest failing of the Times addiction to reporting on the good people who live in the heartland (and one who lives in New York) is that those people in fact are generally correct that the state has been failing the majority of the people since the 1980s primarily through an economy that is essentially flat -- jobs with fewer benefits and a necessary reliance on public assistance and easy credit to fill in the gaps because Massa doesn't want to pay a fair wage and he's bribed the state to let him get away with that.

Honest reporting, which would actually benefit the audience, would acknowledge what the good peoples' problems actually are. Instead people who partly in ignorance keep electing the causes of their problems are allowed to speak their relatively limited minds and their actual problems are left at; no additional insight provided. Then again, the mainstream's failure in economic reporting is another way that they've harmed the nation since the 1980s. (Primary, of course, is their support of the GOP/denigration of Democrats and refusal to report on Trump honestly, instead preferring to portray him as mostly normal -- even after his and the GOP's literally deadly response to the pandemic.)

If the gold standard of the establishment press rather spew BS than provide light on a subject, well... here we are.

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The NYT is the Rights best friend. As long as they bend over backwards to write ridiculous pieces about *trump supporters* *Qanons* they will continue to mainstream and legitimize fascists and authoritarians.

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I'm going to concur for the most part but offer one small thought. Namely, they are assuming the reader's knowledge, or so it seems to me. The idea that this nice lady with a cute dog is part of a treasonous conspiracy might be shocking to some people, and THAT is the essential angle--but they aren't offering enough context.

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As I said the other day... this is why I don't read the Times any longer

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And that’s why I dropped my NYT’s Digital subscription

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it's good having a discussion on the corporate media's role as a echo chamber of the lies, conspiracies and blatant bullshit. none of this is "breaking news"; it's essentially clickbait to hook your attention for the 10 second headline absent any background, fact based sources and the implications the event has in the larger picture or issue.

opinion pieces edited to the medium's percieved consumer base. Not much different than what social media priortizes but, on a seperate demographic.

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