Left-leaning and anti-Trump titles had been disappearing, and then Library Director Bette Ammon got the following anonymous comment: “I noticed a large number of books attacking our president. I am going to continue hiding these books in the most obscure places I can find to keep this propaganda out of the hands of young minds. Your liberal angst gives me great pleasure.”
Those “obscure places,” the New York Times said, included misplaced in out-of-the-way sections, as well as behind rows of books and with spines facing inward so the missing books couldn’t be found.
The paper said about half the missing books deal with Trump, including “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House” by Michael Wolff and “Under Fire: Reporting from the Front Lines of the Trump White House” by April Ryan.
And when books are hidden and unable to be found, staffers order replacements — which is costly, KXLY said.
“If we’re replacing a $20 book, it may take time for three different staff people to order it, receive it, catalog it, [and] cover it,” Ammon added to the station, “and not to mention the time spent actually searching when the book went missing in the first place.”
To combat the problem, one staffer set up a webcam, but the enormous amount of footage took too long to go through, the Times said, adding a flying a drone over the top of the stacks showed no missing titles.
Technically, the Star Tribune is just now getting around to reporting on this after all but ignoring it for 3 years. They also aren’t giving any credit to journalists who’ve been covering it this whole time.
For the record, none of this is new information. We’ve known major US media outlets publish Chinese propaganda for years. Their hypocrisy on the subject of election influence by foreign powers is absolutely hysterical though.
Explanatory media website Vox has been receiving money from a Chinese communist government-backed front organization.
A recent Vox blog post by foreign editor Yochi Dreazen titled, “The big winner of the Trump-Kim summit? China” discloses at the bottom of the piece that the reporting was subsidized by the China-United States Exchange Foundation.
“This reporting was supported by the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), a privately funded nonprofit organization based in Hong Kong that is dedicated to ‘facilitating open and constructive exchange among policy-makers, business leaders, academics, think-tanks, cultural figures, and educators from the United States and China,’” the post states in a note at the bottom.
CUSEF, as first noted by Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin, is a front organization backed by the Chinese government and established to spread the party’s propaganda.
A publication that screeches about Trump/Russia collusion and Russian meddling in our elections via Facebook ads should probably steer clear of doing what they decry. Vox, however, like the Washington Post, doesn’t seem to care if they do it.
Vox’s ties to CUSEF are receiving increased scrutiny in light of efforts to lawmakers to counter China’s promotion of propaganda in the U.S. media.
The Chinese government doesn’t just pay to have their propaganda published in American media, but they fund a LOT of that Washington DC think tank data the American media publishes to sway American public opinion.
The influence operations are conducted by the United Front Work Department, a Central Committee organ that employs tens of thousands of operatives who seek to use both overt and covert operations to promote Communist Party policies.
The Party’s United Front strategy includes paying several Washington think tanks with the goal influencing their actions and adopting positions that support Beijing‘s policies.
“The [Chinese Communist Party] has sought to influence academic discourse on China and in certain instances has infringed upon—and potentially criminally violated—rights to freedoms of speech and association that are guaranteed to Americans and those protected by U.S. laws,” the report says.
All bought and paid for by the Chinese government.
As I never tire of saying, China Daily is my favorite newspaper in the world.
But it’s conceivable that not every visitor to the Washington Post’s web site would know the reason for my fondness and loyalty. China Daily is the state-controlled English-language voice of the Chinese government to the outside world. Sometimes this makes it a useful source of intel about the line the government wants to push.
The Washington Post has written two pieces in the past week drawing attention to the dangers of China’s foreign influence campaign, yet the newspaper appears to be complicit in advancing Chinese interests.
“The foreign influence campaign is part and parcel of China’s larger campaign for global power,” a Post opinion writer wrote Sunday, “Beijing’s strategy is first to cut off critical discussion of China’s government, then to co-opt American influencers in order to promote China’s narrative.”
“By influencing the influencers, China gets Americans to carry its message to other Americans,” the editorial explained, citing Glenn Tiffert, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution.
The Washington Post, an unquestionably influential publication, regularly features Chinese propaganda. The Post’s China Watch insert is written and paid for by the state-run China Daily. While the prominent newspaper acknowledges that China Watch is an “advertising supplement” prepared by the Communist Party’s English-language mouthpiece and the People’s Republic of China in its print edition, the China Watch website lacks any clear indication that the information is of Chinese origin.
Under the proud motto “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” the Washington Post’s editors have run a Communist authoritarian defending his party’s attack on democracy and subjugation of the state to the Communist Party.
On Monday, the Post published Chinese venture capitalist, Eric X. Li’s endorsement of Chinese President Xi Jinping‘s recent eradication of term limits for his office.
It’s distressing to see The Post become a channel for state propaganda from the People’s Republic of China. Yet that’s what’s happening with the lengthy advertorials from the China Daily that are distributed with your newspaper.
The Sept. 30 “Chinawatch” insert was especially objectionable. Four of the six pages were filled with happy, seemingly fact-filled reports about the latest developments with Taiwan, all masquerading as “news.” But they were missing crucial context for understanding the fraught relations across the Taiwan Strait. There was no mention of controversies within democratic Taiwan about the new policies and their effects, nor any observations contrary to China’s deceptive strategies. All was harmony and light.
The Chinese government is spending generously worldwide to promote its view. But your accepting its advertising dollars is no mere commercial transaction. These “news reports” are from a state-controlled arm of the Chinese propaganda establishment.
Hong Kong (CNN)US President Donald Trump went off topic in characteristic style at the United Nations Security Council this week, accusing China of using state media to meddle in the upcoming midterm elections.
While he provided no evidence for his remarks, which derailed a meeting that was supposed to focus on issues of nonproliferation, he later accused China on Twitter of “placing propaganda ads in the Des Moines Register and other papers, made to look like news.”
Gotta love CNN’s ‘he provided no evidence’ comment considering everyone knows the Chinese government does this and it’s been widely reported for at least a decade.
FAKE NEWS: Washington Post Writes Fake Story About Russia Meddling In US Election Using Fake, Discredited Sources
Last Thursday the Washington Post published an article on how the Russians were using ‘fake news‘ websites to peddle anti-Hillary propaganda. Shocker! Most of the websites were conservative or right-leaning. Stunning, I know. I mocked the article on social media when it came out because you’d have to be the worst tin foil hat wearing idiot to believe what they were saying.
Anyone who thinks Drudge is ‘fake news’ or a propaganda machine for Russia is a Grade A dolt. There are several well-respected and credible websites on their list. Not to mention some of the best journalists alive today. Robert Parry and Robert Scheer are on the list for crying out loud. Google them kiddos if you don’t know who they are.
What’s worse is that the Washington Post, whose content is consistently comprised of 30-40% fake news itself, didn’t make this list. They didn’t do the research, they didn’t track down leads, they didn’t verify any of these websites were working for the Russians, or were at least being played by them. No, they got the list from another website called PropOrNot.com. Ever heard of them? No? Neither has anyone else. They’ve only been registered since August 2016, and their first blog post was on October 30, 2016.
Ok, the age of a website doesn’t mean it isn’t quality. So who is PropOrNot.com? Apparently, according to their website, they are:
“An independent team of concerned American citizens with a wide range of backgrounds and expertise, including professional experience in computer science, statistics, public policy, and national security affairs.”
So … ghosts. Anonymous, we can be whatever we want to be on the internet, ghosts. That isn’t a real source. That isn’t credible in any way. They’re like the Craigslist hookup section of sources. No real news outlet would use these people for an article of any seriousness. No true journalist would. You might get Brian ‘tip of the spear’ Williams or Dan ‘you can be an honest man, and lie about any number of thing’ Rather to use them as a source, but not a real journalist. Man, those ‘real news’ personalities sure do have a habit of fabricating fake news.
On their Twitter profile, PropOrNot says they will reveal who they are when:
“Russia reveals the names of those running its propaganda operations in the West.”
Okey dokey cupcake.
Also on their Twitter, they defend George Soros several times. They even say anyone who is critical of Soros is essentially spewing Russian propaganda.
I wonder who might be behind the operation at PropOrNot? If Soros is involved, and I’m not saying he is, it wouldn’t be his first foray in media. In fact, he funds ProPublica. They tout themselves as an independent nonprofit journalism outfit. The rest of us know them as peddlers of fake news who occasionally do legally questionable things. ProPublica‘s history of publishing debunked mythology, pseudoscience, and ad hominem personal attacks of political opponents has long been known. They are more fake news than real, but with an occasional hit. Don’t even get me started on Soros and Media Matters. Probably the fakest ‘news’ website on the internet. Also didn’t make PropOrNot’s ‘fake news’ list.
This reminds me of the time the Washington Post published an article about how Hillary Clinton may have been poisoned by Vladimir Putin when she collapsed on the anniversary of 9/11. They did this while simultaneously mocking people who said there may be an issue with Hillary’s health.
Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Cindy Boren from the Washington Post were behind PropOrNot.
In summary: a website on a crusade to expose ‘fake news’ websites makes it a habit to defend someone who funds fake news websites while not listing the fake news websites that person funds on their big list of ‘fake news’ websites.
Sounds like PropOrNot is the propaganda site here.
[Tweet theme=”basic-full”]In summary: a website on a crusade to expose ‘fake news’ defends someone who funds fake news websites.[/Tweet]
The Washington Post is just another major media outlet obsessed with the latest fad of exposing ‘fake news.’ Well, welcome to the club Johnny-Come-Lately. It’s time to stop participating in lazy journalism. It’s best that you don’t peddle fake news if you are on a quest to expose it.
[Tweet theme=”basic-full”]@WaPo – It’s best that you don’t peddle fake news if you are on a quest to expose it.[/Tweet]
Unfortunately, major media in the United States is the number one peddler of fake news, not your shield against it. I’ve highlighted this countless times over the years on my show, on TV, and on my websites. A couple of recent examples are here and here.
[Tweet theme=”basic-full”]Major media in the U.S. is the #1 peddler of fake news, not your shield against it.[/Tweet]
