- Jan 12, 2013
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I don’t disagree with anything in your post.Jill Stein was at that dinner too.
I tend to find him on the ball about certain issues, but I disagree with him on COVID-19 lockdowns.
Some people can have very reliable and credible perspectives and reporting, despite all of our biases, but questionable takes on other issues.
That's where our media literacy kicks in in knowing and discerning certain biases and how that affects the reporting.
I don't see it as any different if he is more Pro-Putin/anti-imperialism West than all other journalists and reporters in the West that work for corporation-controlled Western media and are heavily pro-Western/American.
My post was a critique against DLF ’s media illiteracy.
As he has previously stated, he used to basically only watch CNN here and there.
After October 7th he ‘saw the light’ when it comes to mainstream media bias but somehow he went so far off the deep end that he has thrown the idea of media literacy, skepticism and basic critical thinking completely out of the window.
Any mainstream reporting is now immediately null and void in his view, whereas he uncritically consumes any media that either identifies as independent or comes from a country politically opposed to the US, west or Israel.
My point is that that actual media literacy means retaining sketicism, identifying potential bias of the outlet itself and particularly the author. It is vital to apply this to any reporting.
What DLF is doing is simply following a mindless flowchart.
If the reporting is from a mainstream outlet, everything in it is all lies and propaganda. Unless said reporting is critical of Israel of course, then it’s magically factual and ok again.
If an outlet is independent, then everything they report is mindlessly accepted as fact without even the slightest consideration for healthy skepticism, bias identification or any critical thinking at all.
It’s an extremely ignorant mindset to have, and is just as ignorant as someone who mindlessly watches CNN.
Also just for the record, please read reporting. Don’t watch an opinion-news broadcast masking itself as such.
A news outlet being independent does not magically erase all possibility of the same issues that mainstream news outlets have.
Max Blumenthal, who reports for an independent news outlet, is an excellent example of this. He completely changed his tune and started praising Assad and minimizing the Syrian regime’s actions right after he was invited by Putin to a Kremlin-sponsored dinner. Following that dinner and completely reversing his prior view and reporting also happens to coincide with him getting a girlfriend who works for Russia’s state-controlled news outlet Russia Today.
Does that mean anything Max Blumenthal reports should be dismissed? No, you don’t have to throw out the baby with the bathwater. His reporting on Syria post-Kremlin sponsorship is utterly ridiculous and unethical, sure, but that doesn’t necessarily apply to his reporting elsewhere or the reporting of other journalists working for the same outlet.
What his track record does warrant is extra scrutiny, identifying potential bias and checking for corroborations from other suitable outlets/reporters.
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