E-MAIL THIS LINK
To: 

Tucker Carlson's brutal takedown of NYT reporter requesting comment about his 'Proud Boys tie', part of NYT/Media Matters/WashPost/CCDH effort to silence Dem Party’s conservative critics
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Tucker Carlson publicly took down a New York Times

...which still proudly claims Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
 news hound who requested comment about his 'Proud Boys tie.'

In a post on X, political commentator and media personality Tucker Carlson revealed a request he received from news hound Adam Satariano, who prefaced that he was writing a story about how groups affiliated with the Proud Boys use the chat app Telegram to communicate.

The inquiry read: 'In some Telegram posts from chapters of the Proud Boys, they discuss Mr. Carlson wearing black and gold colors at the recent MSG rally for former President Trump in New York.

'Members of Proud Boys have interpreted this as a sign of support for the Proud Boys, which use black and gold as their official colors...was Mr. Carlson's choice of wearing black and gold a sign of support for the Proud Boys?'
Looking at the photo under decent light, I note that the tie is dark blue and gold, not black. And while Proud Boys are not known to be fashionistas, one would expect a NYT journalist to know his colours — even ones like midnight blue in the 96 count box — making the entire gotcha question and resulting attack article moot.
Carlson did not hold back in his response, mocking the news hound for his conspiratorial insinuations.

He responded facetiously: 'Yes, this is an official Proud Boys necktie. I received it at my Proud Boys initiation several years ago, after swearing a blood oath to the global fascist
...anybody you disagree with, damn them...
 revolution and the sacred principles of Q Anon.

'As you can imagine, I wouldn't normally admit this. The rules of secret societies being what they are, anything related to dress code is supposed to be confidential. But in this case, I've been outfoxed by your relentless shoe-leather journalism.

'Darn you, New York Times. You win again.'

His X post has been viewed 1.6 million times.



Matt Taibbi, a liberal journalist with cast iron ethics, explores the bigger picture. Here are key bits:
Save Democracy From Informed Voters: Vote Censorship!

[RacketNews] The New York Times and Media Matters, along with the Washington Post and CCDH, align in a last-minute, tag-team blitz to silence Democratic Party critics.

Nico Grant of the New York Times rode shotgun with Media Matters of America to shoot down 30 conservative broadcasters as unfit to appear on YouTube:

YouTube, which is owned by Google, has prided itself on connecting viewers with “authoritative information” about elections. But in this presidential contest, it acted as a megaphone for conspiracy theories…

Kayla Gogarty, a research director at Media Matters who led the analysis, said that “YouTube is allowing these right-wing accounts and channels to undermine the 2024 results.”

Grant’s story garnered huge pre-buzz thanks to conservative targets pre-empting his “scoop” with colorful early responses. “I do hope… you’ll note that I told you to fuck off,” was the acid reply of Tucker Carlson, accused of participating in one of “286 videos containing election misinformation” reaching “more than 47 million views.” Ben Shapiro ripped Grant’s exposé as an “October surprise,” saying the purpose was to “pressure YouTube to demonetize and penalize any and all conservatives” a week from Election Day.

As Grant’s story roared across social media, eliciting outrage from Democrats and Republicans alike, a trio of Washington Post reporters published a similar piece: “Elon Musk says X users fight falsehoods. The falsehoods are winning.” Instead of a Media Matters report, the Post worked off new “analysis” by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, the Labour-connected advocacy group featured last week in Racket and The Disinformation Chronicle.

Musk created “Community Notes” on X/Twitter as a crowdsourced alternative to censorship, but CCDH was not happy with its results:

X is poised to play a prominent role in the U.S. presidential election, a race in which Musk is a major backer of Republican nominee Donald Trump and spreading unfounded claims of voter fraud — most of which go unchallenged by his fact-checking program… The CCDH’s analysis… tracked how Community Notes responded to 283 posts that contained election claims identified as false or misleading by independent fact-checking organizations.

CCDH’s annual priority this year is “Kill Musk’s Twitter” through “Advertising focus” to drive away X’s corporate advertising revenue, the chief weapon being shrieking reports claiming “hate” proliferates on the platform. This now-exposed contempt for Musk and free speech was evident in the Post conclusions:
Table of priorities can be seen at the link.
The Times/MMA “studied” 286 videos, while the Post/CCDH analyzed 283 Notes. Yet each outlet used a format so common in the “anti-disinformation” era, it now reads more like spam or clip-art than journalism. A DNC-aligned group produces a “report” documenting a sciencey-sounding quantity of “misinformation” incidents, then passes the scary number to a politically willing mainstream news outlet, which trumpets the new “facts” while publicly and privately pressuring platforms to remove offending material. Welcome to the new “accountability journalism.”

The problem with the Times piece is it defines “false claims” and “election misinformation” so broadly that legitimate questions or analyses and even jokes get wrapped in with far-out conspiracy tales. The MMA report denounced content that could “undermine confidence in the 2024 election results even before any votes were cast,” which apparently didn’t include its own headline, “YouTube let right-wing figures undermine the 2024 election results even before any votes were cast.”

Carlson made it for a clearly sarcastic crack: “I don’t think we’re allowed to talk about voter fraud on YouTube, which tells you that it’s real.” Shapiro made it for saying opposition to a Voter ID proposal suggests Democrats were fine with not showing ID, “which suggests they are fine with the possibility of voter fraud.”

Tim Pool was approached by Grant and mentioned in the Times piece seemingly as a way to get in a line about his work for Tenet media, through which Russia Today “allegedly funneled… money.” Neither the Times report nor the MMA version cited an instance of election misinformation by Pool, however. “The New York Times piece was remarkably tame,” Pool said. “There was nothing substantive in it.”

Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch made the list of 286 bad videos by referring to criminal indictments of Trump and saying that if he loses, “people are rightly going to say, well, they had their thumb on the scale, so it’s no surprise.” Again, you can disagree, but is that an issue of fact? Asked if the purpose of the piece was to get him removed from YouTube, Fitton said “probably,” and noted the Post had already sent him queries about yet another article seemingly calling for censorship of podcasts.

Even comedian Greg Gutfeld somehow made the list for saying Democrats would win with “votes, legal or illegal,” though there’s “very little evidence on that, but that hasn’t stopped me before.” This is a self-owning joke and could be interpreted almost as the opposite of a charge of voter fraud. “It’s almost hilarious how desperate they are for content,” Gutfeld said. “They now report on jokes!”

It’s no accident Media Matters and CCDH worked this “censorship two-step” to America’s two papers of record at the same time. They have a history of tag-team action with these papers.






Posted by: trailing wife 2024-11-03
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=723213