Not a gold standard for journalistic integrity

Duncan Hunter, the embattled Republican Representative for Alpine, CA has changed his tune and has agreed to plead guilty to charges of misuse of campaign funds. Originally, Hunter said he was the subject of a witch hunt, but as evidence and pressure mounted, he saw the light and changed his tune.

KUSI, the last horse in the San Diego’s television news broadcast race, arranged for an on-air interview with Hunter before he pleaded guilty, but agreed to ask only questions suggested by Hunter’s handlers. This is a journalistic no-no, yet the station stands by its decision. A spokesman for Hunter, defending the station’s tactic, called KUSI the “gold standard for journalistic integrity.” It’s not and is another example of how quality journalism is losing ground to partisan disinformation masquerading as news.  The McKinnon family, owners  of the TV station, are well known GOP donors/supporters.

Read the SD Union Tribune’s story about this stunt here: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/story/2019-12-06/kusis-duncan-hunter-interview-was-limited-to-questions-suggested-by-his-staff

Jack Was Right

Jack Nicholson was right. You can’t handle the truth.  By you I mean the American people. While politicians say over and over that they trust the voters, what they really mean is that they don’t and they think people are stupid. There’s evidence that they are not wrong. Americans have a history of being taken for a ride, especially by charismatic leaders who offer up simple solutions to complex problems. While there is some merit to the concept of Occam’s razor, it doesn’t always work with things like homelessness, war and healthcare.

Today’s New York Times opinion piece about Trump’s use of the term ‘fake news’ is interesting in that it shows how it has led a group of other world ‘leaders’ to use the same phrase in the past few years.  This is not new, having been coined Lügenpresse (lying press) by the Nazi’s half a century ago.  And to this day, there are still people who believe that the Holocaust never happened.  Mind blowing.  Don’t like what some says about you call them a  liar.  It’s the standard reply of many six year olds.

But too many people believe that media en mass are all slanted, and tell lies.  This is dangerous.  All people should be suspicious of the information they get nowadays, but for a different reason.  That’s because now, more than ever before, there are people or organizations who’s sole purpose is to misinform, promote alternative facts and to mislead people to buy or vote for something based on those lies.  This is very dangerous.

Read the piece here and semper cave:  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/30/opinion/editorials/fake-news.html