In Yellow Journalism . . . .

Scandals Are Mere Political Commodities

On my previous post on sex scandals, I think some may have misunderstood what the problem is.

If your car is stolen, you go to the police. If you are depressed, you seek counseling. You don’t go to the news media for help. The news media can cover these topics and usually do so to merely state what has happened and to offer help but too often these scandals are mere political commodities to be exchanged and traded between political operatives and the news media.

Scandals, however, disrupt the democratic process of discussing issues and voting on them. The general public becomes outraged and divided. Both political parties love it as a way to call upon people to resign and seek political advantage. When Nebraska elects the next governor, it will not be on the issues but for being scandal-free. So what happens on the issues? As for the scandals, they will magically disappear when the election is over because too much of the scandals are based on hearsay and have little value after the election.

Good journalism tends to be rare, but Chris Bowling of The Reader wrote this article about code violations of landlords. The analysis by The Reader found 40 individuals and companies, less than a percent of property owners cited, account for about 13% of Omaha’s code violation cases since 2015. One the the top organizations to have code violations turns out to be the government Omaha Housing Authority. The Omaha Municipal Landbank has violations as well. This should make local government accountable. See link below:

https://thereader.com/news/in-omaha-bad-landlords-get-off-easy-and-tenants-pay-the-price

However, good journalism is being attacked again and again. The result is safe narratives and ugly, outrage scandals instead of facts. Twitter used to be a source for good news stories but the censorship is so severe, it regularly flags satire from the Babylon Bee. The staff of the Babylon Bee met and had a discussion with Elon Musk and this has led Musk to buy parts of Twitter and put it on the defensive. Thousands of people could have their Twitter accounts liberated if Musk’s tactics work. Twitter justifies terminating accounts of political speech and shadow banning which does much to disrupt democratic processes. Musk understands this.

The censorship and yellow journalism is so severe, books, and events can get cancelled at a moments notice. Alex Epstein is putting out a new book soon about fossil fuels but the Washington Post tried to get him cancelled by calling him racist. He preempted the the attack. See story and video at link below:

https://newideal.aynrand.org/the-attempted-character-assassination-of-alex-epstein/ 

The real journalism has shifted to online sites covering news but it is constantly under attack from various sources. Tim Pool has been running a commentary show for years now and has recently been ”swatted” eight times and has had events cancelled, as well as received a death threat. See his story take at link below where he outlines all the attacks: 

But the worst attacks have been on Project Veritas which has repeatedly revealed problems with government which need correcting. The latest attacks are actually coming from the Department of Justice and other Federal Agencies and they made requests from Apple and Google. The attacks are now being widely criticized.

See video at link below:

https://rumble.com/v10ubhb-doj-spied-on-journalists-apple-and-google-accounts-veritas-files-motion-dem.html

Keep in mind, James O’Keefe was arrested last year see link below:

https://nypost.com/2021/11/06/james-okeefe-apartment-raided-as-part-of-probe-into-ashley-bidens-stolen-diary/