Hello, and welcome to the hardhitting Gaelic news magazine Locking Antlers. Rab C Nesbitt s4e5: Eorpa, BBC 1994
Misinformation is a way of leveraging one’s power over an enemy. The Corbett Report: A Brief History of Fake News, James Corbett online 2012
The pedigree of fake news stories goes back some time. But perhaps the most famous was the Halloween 1938 edition of the weekly radio drama Mercury Theatre on the Air; this adaptation of H G Well’s War of the Worlds was presented as a fake news broadcast of an alien invasion. ibid.
The VNR, or Video News Release, is a short video production that is made to look like a news report. ibid.
Both the European Parliament and the US House have both passed bills targeting Russian Propaganda websites. The Corbett Report, The Abnormalization of Dissent, James Corbett online 2016
It’s people like me … I’m suddenly learning I’m a Putin puppet. ibid.
‘Fake news can have real-world consequences … Lives are at risk.’ ibid. Hillary Clinton
Once the government starts getting in and regulating what is true news and what is fake news and how do we regulate those sites and how do we clamp down, how do we censure people … is that really what you want? ibid.
‘Such distinctions do not lend themselves to argument. They are proffered to us as axiomatic truths, empirical facts which no normal person would ever dream of contradicting. ibid. C J Hopkins, Counterpunch online
Queen Elizabeth’s death: Different outlet after different outlet reporting … literally the exact same wording. The Corbett Report: Who Controls the News Controls the World, Youtube 35.28, 2022
Multiple TV channels: ‘This is extremely dangerous to our democracy’. ibid.
1954: I inherited my first newspaper … 1983: I bought my first cable channel. Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, 2004
9 satellite television networks, 175 newspapers, 100 cable channels, 40 book imprints, 40 television stations, 1 movie studio … ibid.
Firmly announce we are starting a Fox news channel. ibid. Murdoch
We were a proponent of a point of view. ibid. Jon du Pre
… some people say … ibid. Fox cliché
… shut up! … ibid. Bill O’Reilly
‘… who actively work against our military once a war is underway will be considered enemies of the state by me.’ ibid. O’Reilly
‘Tremendous progress in Iraq.’ ibid. Rupert Murdoch
‘That call on election night had more to do with making George Bush president than any recount or ballot design issue.’ ibid. John Nichols
Our job is to report the news not fabricate it – that’s the government’s job. V for Vendetta 2005 starring Hugo Weaving & Natalie Portman & John Hurt & Stephen Rea & Stephen Fry & Tim Pigott-Smith & Rupert Graves & Roger Allam & John Standing & Eddie Marsam & Ben Miles et al, director James McTeigue, television executive
It’s easy to make someone into a monster. It’s hard to see that you’re on that path too. Divide & Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes, Glenn Beck, Sky Atlantic 2019
The Republican convention should have been this crowning moment for Roger. But instead he was embroiled in chaos. ibid. woman
Roger always knew the lowest common denominator in people. ibid. woman #2
We used to call it riling up the crazies. ibid. Fox dude
A sexual harassment case against popular cable TV host Bill O’Reilly. ibid. news commentary
Gretchen Carlson: Fox News Boss Roger Ailes Fired Me For Refusing Sex With Him. ibid. online news headline
14 more women came forward and said, What about me? ibid.
O’Reilly Settled Harassment Claim in January for $32 million. ibid. CNN banner
Murdoch Dismissed Fox Scandals: ‘It’s All Nonsense.’ ibid. CNN banner
Since 2004, sexual harassment at 21st Century Fox has led to payouts of more than $163 million. Settlements require silence. ibid. CNN banner, caption
Roger Ailes, Founder of Fox News Channel, Dead at Age 77. ibid. Fox News banner
On September 17th 1903 the Daily Telegram shared a story with its readers in Clarksburg, West Virginia. A dispute over a pet dog between two immigrant miners had led to a tragedy: it was one of the miners who took the bullet. Ian Hislop’s Fake News, BBC 2019
What motivates fake news? From propaganda and paranoia to profit and politics. ibid.
New York Journal: Destruction of the War Ship Maine was the work of an enemy. ibid.
When President Trump talks about fake news, which he has more or less constantly since being elected in 2016, what he means is real news that he doesn’t like. ibid.
The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion purports to reveal the detailed plans with which a Jewish elite will take over the world. ibid.
There are occasions where fake news has been undertaken with the full knowledge of the state and justified as being in the national interest. ibid.
Doesn’t lying make us as bad as the enemy? … Lies have unforeseeable consequences. ibid.
I believe that there are potentially very real threats from fake news. ibid.
People are actually confusing real and fake news, especially if they see it online. After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News, Elizabeth Williamson of The New York Times, Sky News 2020
Pope Francis shocks world, endorses Donald Trump for president, releases statements. ibid. online headline
Pizzagate: this child sex trafficking ring in a pizza parlour. ibid. lady
Mueller Probe Indicts 12 Russians in Hacking of DNC and Clinton Campaign. ibid. The Wall Street Journal
Trump endorses accused kid molester Moore. ibid. Daily News
Los Angeles 1998: ‘Over the past twenty years we’ve been in a variety of helicopters; this is the latest, OPD.’ Storyville: Whirlybird: Live Above LA, BBC 2021, Bob Tur
There was never a movie date or a dinner date with Bob. It was a car crash, or an air crash or a fire. I was in love with the excitement of Bob. ibid. Marika Gerrard
So Marika and I started chasing news stories. And LA was the perfect place to cover breaking news … Driving the city streets I saw the real Los Angeles. And your job is to put the camera on your shoulders and document what’s going on … I loved the thrill of the chase. ibid. Bob
When you’re a stringer your wherewithal, your monetary wherewithal, depends on whether you get the story or not. ibid. Marika
We became slaves to breaking news … There’s hundreds of miles of freeways. And that’s when I started thinking about helicopters. ibid. Bob
Flying a helicopter over the city of Los Angeles, you feel like an angel. You see things that few people ever get to see. ibid.
The helicopter allowed us to get to stories while they were still happening. ibid. Marika
It’s getting worse. Night is falling over this troubled area. And over the cover of approaching darkness, fortunately, the shotgun rounds don’t travel far. We are out of their reach. ibid. Bob filming LA riots
The city is just getting worse and worse. It’s really changed. A different place. It’s not the place I remember as a kid being able to walk everywhere. ibid.
There are no solutions. Civilisation’s going to have to basically destroy itself before people get the message. People aren’t getting the message right now. Things aren’t going to get better. There are no solutions. ibid.
‘We in America are the best entertained and least informed society in the world. Project Censored: The Movie, Neil Postman, 2013
In 2007 two fathers from California were inspired to make a film that explores why today’s corporate media is deliberately dividing the nation. ibid.
What will it take to end the reign of corporate media’s junk food news? ibid.
Vested interests? Or do the American people prefer the sensationalistic junk food news? ibid.
‘Deliberate decisions are made to withhold information from the people.’ ibid. Cynthia McKinney
News abuse … A more subtle form of news bias: stories that have some legitimate newsworthy quality, unlike their junk food counterparts, but where the way the story is presented is so spun or so distorted that the ultimate point of the story gets lost, and this too is a form of propaganda. ibid.
For the past 35 years Project Censored has been publishing the top censored stories that have deliberately and systematically withheld from the American public. ibid.
We have a concentrated top-down corporate media system that’s primarily orientated to make money and provide entertainment, and is increasingly a propaganda machine for the military-media-industrial complex. ibid.