Category: Media

VICE sues the FBI

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

What Was James Comey Thinking?

I wonder if we’ll ever find a smoking gun:

VICE News is suing the FBI, demanding the bureau release records related to its curious disclosures, behind-the-scenes actions, and apparent leaks in the days leading up to the U.S. presidential election.

The wide-ranging Freedom of Information Act lawsuit was filed Tuesday morning in conjunction with Ryan Shapiro, a doctoral candidate at MIT and research affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Earlier this month, VICE News and Shapiro filed more than 50 FOIA requests with the FBI seeking documents about the bureau’s discussions regarding Donald Trump, along with other documents that would shed light on the FBI’s decision a week before the election to tweet newly posted records from a long-dormant Twitter account about Bill Clinton’s 2000 pardon of financier Marc Rich.

The pardon, a controversial decision by the former president, was investigated at the time by current FBI director James Comey while he was U.S. attorney.

Our FOIA lawsuit notes that the FBI failed to respond to our requests for expedited processing. We argued that we urgently needed the documents to immediately inform the public.

Phase One, in which Doris gets her oats

~ susie ~ 4 Comments
Via ripleys.com
Via ripleys.com

I’ve been done work for a week now (I have an NDA, can’t talk about work stuff so don’t ask), and I’m working on healing my brain. Literally! My neurological system is pretty much in shambles after a year of working 12-hour days and constantly scanning my surroundings for election-related news.

Part of that is, I haven’t once watched the news since the election. I don’t have the stomach just yet for that nonsense. I do watch short video clips, but that’s it. (After working on the mayoral race, I didn’t watch the news or read a paper for six months.) I’ve been reading a lot of books — six since I stopped working.

My original post-election plan was to start a site of women-focused political news but as you probably noticed, our government suddenly took a different turn. My partner (to be named later) and I are instead starting a much larger site that will focus on deciphering the news instead of reporting it — an umbrella in the shit storm, as it were.

These are dangerous times, and we have a lot of work to do, including the hard work of organizing to save Obamacare, Medicare, and Medicaid. But more importantly, we have to put Trump’s actions (and that of the media who covers him) into historic and political context for the voters. The fog of lies is the first step in creating an authoritarian government, and we’re not going down without a fight.

So sometime in January, we plan to announce a Kickstarter campaign for the new site. In exchange for two years’ funding, we promise no ads, no click bait headlines, and no stories meant to drive traffic. But you will get our undivided attention on this administration, and that’s worth a lot.

Chasing traffic is a fools’ errand; advertising revenues are in the toilet for all but the largest sites. I’d rather concentrate on drawing the map you’ll need to navigate the next four years.

Stay tuned!

A letter to the media

~ susie ~ 6 Comments

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For 16 years, bloggers warned journos about “truthiness.” Citing AEI, Cato, Hoover, Peterson as if they were neutral sources of facts. And so the earth was plowed to prepare us for the age of Trump. Media mainstreamed falsehoods as fact, tainting the body politic.

Every time we attacked, cajoled, begged for reality-based journalism, the response was “Both sides do it.” Or: “I must be doing my job if both sides are mad at me.” Don’t flatter yourself, guys. We were angry about the damage done by your lies.

How hard can it be to run an op-ed that notes, “The author is a long-time member of a Koch-funded think tank that denies climate change”?
Why would you send readers out into the political wilderness without a guide? You took their trust and abused it. Now we have Trump.

Your media institutions betrayed the public trust. They can’t even tell what’s true anymore, and you built that. All you had to do was to identify the specific political affiliations and agendas of the people you quoted as authorities. You didn’t even do that. Many reporters clearly swallow propaganda. Almost any story on Social Security will include Peterson “facts” you could spot if you tried.

But you didn’t. Too much work, easier to be a stenographer to the powers that be. Instead of afflicting the comfortable, you afflict the oppressed with your indifference to the facts. C students in charge! Thanks for bringing us the McDonald administration.

Rob Reiner: Media and celebrity culture to blame for Trump

~ susie

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In a wide-ranging interview on this morning’s AM Joy, filmmaker Rob Reiner discussed how it’s possible that an “insane person” Donald Trump could win a Presidential election. Reiner’s latest movie is about Lyndon Johnson. JOY ANN REID: Actor and director Rob Reiner knows a thing or two about the workings of fame and he made the… Continue reading “Rob Reiner: Media and celebrity culture to blame for Trump” →

DC meeting ends with Nazi salute; NY Times calls them ‘alt-right’

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

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The media refuses to call them Nazis. “Heil the people! Heil victory,” some shouted at an alt-right conference in Washington https://t.co/McMAo32r5B – The New York Times (@nytimes) November 21, 2016 The alt-right, a movement associated with racism and anti-Semitism, celebrated Trump’s election https://t.co/MFN75iLqe4 via @katieglueck – POLITICO (@politico) November 21, 2016 Meet the new think tank… Continue reading “DC meeting ends with Nazi salute; NY Times calls them ‘alt-right’” →

Trump tells the press how it’s gonna be

~ susie ~ 5 Comments

This is the “official” version of what happened, and here’s the real one.

Donald Trump scolded media big shots during an off-the-record Trump Tower sitdown on Monday, sources told The Post.

“It was like a f–ing firing squad,” one source said of the encounter.

“Trump started with [CNN chief] Jeff Zucker and said ‘I hate your network, everyone at CNN is a liar and you should be ashamed,’ ” the source said.

“The meeting was a total disaster. The TV execs and anchors went in there thinking they would be discussing the access they would get to the Trump administration, but instead they got a Trump-style dressing down,” the source added.

A second source confirmed the fireworks.

“The meeting took place in a big board room and there were about 30 or 40 people, including the big news anchors from all the networks,” the other source said.

“Trump kept saying, ‘We’re in a room of liars, the deceitful dishonest media who got it all wrong.’ He addressed everyone in the room calling the media dishonest, deceitful liars. He called out Jeff Zucker by name and said everyone at CNN was a liar, and CNN was [a] network of liars,” the source said.

“Trump didn’t say [NBC reporter] Katy Tur by name, but talked about an NBC female correspondent who got it wrong, then he referred to a horrible network correspondent who cried when Hillary lost who hosted a debate – which was Martha Raddatz who was also in the room.”