Letter to the Editor: Response to ‘emergent propaganda state’
Dear Sir:
I read with interest the opinion piece by Mr. Ray Mosby in last week’s South Reporter. In it, Mr. Mosby laments the loss of credibility by what he refers to as “every legitimate news organization in the country.” He further laments the emergence of upstarts such as Fox News. Methinks he doth protest too much.
I can understand why Mr. Mosby is upset by the accusation of “fake news” being hurled with regularity against old, established news organizations whose editorial pages are filled with opinions which agree with his own. Those editorial pages, however, are not the reason for the “fake news” accusations. The problem is that the front pages of those publications are filled with the same opinions masquerading as news. The media is liberal; and that’s all right. The problem is that liberal journalists are no better than anyone else at being objective on subjects about which they have strong feelings. Therefore it is necessary to have someone who can point out their prejudice so readers (listeners or watchers, in the case of radio or TV) can better form their own opinions based on facts. In 1987, the Media Research Center was founded to serve that purpose.
In 1987, 25 percent of the public thought the media was controlled by liberals. Today, 90 percent know that it is. Being a purveyor of “fake news” does not mean you have to lie about the news. You just have to leave out inconvenient facts, or ignore a story completely if it does not fit your agenda. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reported in April that 99 members of the MS-13 gang had entered the U.S. as unaccompanied minors. Sixty-four were given Special Immigrant Juvenile Status. No major news organization reported the story.
At CNN, no doubt one of Mr. Mosby’s old guard bastions of truth, Jeffrey Toobin stated that there is no need for a special prosecutor to investigate the 2016 activity of the FBI. Well, let’s see. Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe was fired because he lied four times to federal investigators. While McCabe was investigating the Clinton e-mail case, his wife received $700,000 from Democratic PACS (Caesar’s wife was not keeping up appearances).
FBI Director James Comey was fired on the recommendation of Rod Rosenstein who then appointed Robert Mueller to investigate alleged Trump-Russia collusion. The investigation was based on a fake dossier paid for by the Clinton campaign. The dossier had been used to get a FISA warrant to allow the opposition to spy on the Trump campaign. Mr. Mosby complains that it is “a truth turned upside down world in which Benghazi is a real scandal and Mueller’s probe no more than a ‘witch-hunt.’”
Indeed, how could anyone in Mr. Mosby’s world think a political scandal of dubious origin could possibly be less important than an incident in which four Americans lost their lives because of patent incompetence at the highest levels of government?
Very truly yours,
J.R. Dunworth
Holly Springs