Now They're Just Making Stuff Up

Who? Reporters. It has been widely reported that some unidentified Republican supporter yelled "Kill him!" (in reference to Obama) at various Palin rallies. Now AP sheepishly reports that the Secret Service investigated one alleged incident, reviewed tapes of the rally, and found no evidence to support the media's charge.

The Secret Service heard "tell him" on the tapes, not "kill him," and could locate no person at the rally who heard those words ... except the reporter. The press is so incredibly biased or incompetent that this story — refuting a false allegation — is given a headline that states the false allegation as fact: "Secret Service looking into Obama threat at rally." The headline should read: "Reporter apparently spreading false reports of Obama threats."

There's a similar story about the apparently false report of a threat at a Palin rally in Scranton, Pennsylvania -- this time the Secret Service had lots of agents in the audience, none of whom heard any "kill him" threat. Again, the only person who claims to have heard such a threat is the reporter who filed the story. The headline is better: "Secret Service says 'Kill him' allegation unfounced."

Meanwhile, the press is reporting the following mean and hateful slogans being shouted by the crowd at Obama rallies:

• "Long live our wonderful president, George W. Bush!"
• "John McCain is an American hero, but we have examined the issues carefully and will give our vote to Senator Obama!"
• "Tax cuts for everyone!"

Comments

[the narrator]

wow. if the secret service didn't hear it, that is proof positive that nobody said it.

case closed.

[Clark]

While there is a slight anti-Republican bias I think the bigger problem is that the press wants to go sensational. The issue is that they don't care about an honest contextual presentation of important facts rather they recognize the importance of interesting stories. Given the decline and probable collapse of newspapers this is hardly surprising. (Their main revenue stream - classifieds - has been upseated by the Internet)

Expect things to get far worse before they get better. It'll get better only once the transition with the new media is over. And realistically that transition is just getting started. (Movies and TV is just now where music was when Napster came out)

[Ronan]

Dave,
Now I'm SURE you're voting for McCain.

[Dave]

Ronan, I'm voting for America.

[Jim Cobabe]

Dave,

The news media loses further credibility every time I listen. It seems so crooked and bigoted.

Instead of the pretense that every news source is the gospel truth, so help me God, I wish the media sources could identify their own bias ahead of time. A simple label would do. So, NYTimes stories could be prefaced, "flaming liberal slant". It would save a great deal of time to understand this from the beginning.

[the narrator]

codenames:

objective media: those who agree with me.

liberal media: those who disagree with me.

[the narrator]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPg0VCg4AEQ

these people must have all been fabricated by the media too.

[Dave]

You're just a broken record, narrator. Here's another commentary on the false media report phenomenon: "Report of bloodthirsty McCain-Palin supporters are mostly exaggerated or simply false. During the debate, Obama quoted these false reports as fact in his rejoinders to McCains accurate comments on Obama's associations with Ayers the unrepentant domestic terrorist. He's great with speeches, it's just facts he has a problem with.

Great system -- the press makes stuff up; Obama relies on it in a national debate to rebuff accurate comments by McCain; impressionable independent voters believe Obama (after all, if he was wrong on the facts, wouldn't TV or the newspaper point it out?) and he gets elected. Maybe the word for this is "truthiness."

Granted, we expect a fair share of truthiness during national elections, but from candidates, not the media.

[the narrator]

Dave,

did you watch the video in the link? Are you saying that all those people in the videos are actors? Are you saying that those people are fabrications of the 'liberal media'?

[the narrator]

I see...

"broken record" = things repeated that you disagree with

"Dave's super awesome world of objective truth" = things you repeat

[the narrator]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRqcfqiXCX0

nobody is shouting "kill him," but I'm guessing this people here were all fabricated by the 'liberal media' as well.

even worse... these people were fabricated by the terrorist liberal media al jazeera. so i guess you can dismiss it as well.

[Dave]

I think we're talking in circles, narrator. If you've got something new to add, fine.

[the narrator]

I did. I added two video clips of mccain and palin supporters shouting threats, accusing him of being a terrorist, and explicitly being racist and xenophobic. Did you watch them? Or did you pre-emptively toss them aside as being fabrications of the 'liberal media'?

And I might add that your whole blog post was fallacious. All the article says is that the secret service did not specifically hear someone shout the line "kill him." They do not claim that it was not said. Your absurd conclusion that this means the "Reporter apparently spreading false reports of Obama threats" is foolish.

And your citing the National Review while trying to accuse other presses of possessing a liberal bias is hypocritical to say the least.

[Dave]

Narrator, you don't have to agree with me and comments are what that is for, but when you call the entire post fallacious and call me a hypocrite, you've worn out your welcome. Go insult someone else.

[Jim Cobabe]

Are we really supposed to believe that some political rallies are different than others? It sounds like a lot of nonsense. Even the mobs would not be so easy to manipulate. Or perhaps the reports are supposed to imply that some groups are more violent than others, because of who they favor for politicians. Or I don't know what we are meant to conclude from the articles. Are we supposed to think that it is part of campaign strategy to whip the rally into a violent frenzy? Of course the other camp behaves itself. They get a gold star for behaving like angels. How silly the whole thing has become.