Here's Glenn Greenwald, who can hardly be accused of being right-wing or a Trump supporter, on media bias:
The U.S. media is essentially 100 percent united, vehemently, against Trump,
and preventing him from being elected president. I don’t have an actual problem
with that because I share the premises on which it is based about why he poses
such extreme dangers. But that doesn’t mean that as a journalist, or even just
as a citizen, that I am willing to go along with any claim, no matter how fact-free,
no matter how irrational, no matter how dangerous it could be, in order to bring
Trump down.
Although he doesn't name them, it seems to me he's likely referring to the vary news outlets you would consider beyond reproach (say, NYT or WaPo). Does this perhaps make you reconsider your position?
Do people really see the NYT as beyond reproach in 2016? They pushed Hillary so hard during the primaries, and every day they add a few points to their 'Hillary is guaranteed to win' graphic. They were instrumental in sidelining Sanders. NYT's institutional bias is utterly flagrant--perhaps not as crass as HuffPo, but offensively biased nonetheless.
I was curious about this Greenwald quote, which does not really match my perception of recent media coverage, so I went and looked up the date[0]: the article in which the quote appears was published in July. Greenwald's context here is mostly (or entirely? I'm not sure when the interview itself was conducted) based on the primary process, which certainly seemed strongly anti-Trump, to the extent that many outlets even refused to believe what the polls were telling them [1].
I have no problem calling Trump a racist thanks to his very first speech in the race calling Mexicans rapists and drug dealers. Followed up by the thoughtful idea of banning all Muslims from entering the USA and that anyone from Syria shouldn't be allowed to enter the country.
"When Mexico sends its people they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you; they’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people. But I speak to border guards and they tell us what we’re getting.”[0][1]
There was the time Trump called for a wall to keep illegals out, and social media said securing our borders – which we already try to do – is racist.
There was the time Trump suggested mass deportation of illegal immigrants, and social media said upholding current law is racist.
There was the time Trump suggested banning all Muslim immigrants until we figure out what the risk is, and how to deal with it. Islam is a belief system open to all, not a race, but social media branded it as racist [2]
Lol you just directly quoted him painting every Mexican as a bad person. "and some, I assume, are good people" was said in jest and he doesn't actually mean it. He means all Mexicans coming here are bad for the USA.
Banning an entire religion is bigoted, racist, totally idiotic, call it whatever you like.
You can keep trying with the mental gymnastics to justify what he says, but thankfully the majority of Americans see through it. I'm enjoying the current implosion and fallout of his campaign as each day goes by and am wondering just how bad he is going to lose.
"You might well dislike Trump’s words. I did. But let’s not make it worse. He did not say that all Mexicans are rapists. Yet that’s what many commentators did. For example, Politico misquoted Trump by omitting his phrase about “good people.” They said he was “demonizing Mexicans as rapists.” They argued that Mexicans do not really commit more rapes in the U.S. than whites. But that’s not what Trump claimed."
"Trump was discussing crimes committed by unauthorized immigrants. Is it true that some people who illegally cross the border from Mexico are good? Yes. Is it true that some others commit crimes? Yes. Is that a problem? People disagree. Some conjecture that unauthorized immigrants don’t commit more crimes than U.S. citizens. But crimes by unauthorized immigrants, even murders, would not have happened if those individuals had not entered the U.S."[0]
I saw the speech live. He said the illegals coming from Mexico are all bad people. He joked that some "might" be good. It doesn't get any clearer than that.
It seams like in this election even traditionally right learning news papers like the WaPo or WSJ are pilling onto trump. Not to mention countless regional newspapers that have a right leaning edition staff.
Bias disclosure: Left leaning, not by my own choice. More centrist, along the lines of the Economist editing staff view of the world. So not by choice, because there's not really centrism left.
Glenn Greenwood has essentially the level of anti-establihsment-media (and pro-conspiracy) bias that he accuses the establishment media of having anti-Trump bias, so, no, him saying something like this doesn't make me reconsider anything.
This is extremely obvious if you are non-partisan. Right now, there are huge issues about Clinton just released by wikileaks[0] she said that she has a "public position" and a "private position" to placate a room full of bankers (Read: Hey guys I won't really do any of that Bernie Sanders stuff, I'm just saying it for votes)
CNN's top story: Trump said "grab her in the pussy" in 2005
Having a public position and a private position is something everyone does--expressing your private position publicly is often detrimental to getting the goal of that position done, so you craft a public position more amenable to achieving that goal.
This was leaked. She was asked at the beginning of her campaign to release the transcripts of these speeches, she said "I'll look into it"[0]. If it was intended to be public this sure is a hell of a way to go about making it so. I can't honestly tell you how she actually feels, but I can tell you that at very least she is a serial liar.
One of the Wikileaks "scandals" in this article is that Hillary Clinton advocates "a hemispheric common market with open trade and open borders".
Scandal? Come on, that's not a scandal, that a policy position. Personally, I agree with free trade in general, so I'm not scandalized by this "revelation" one bit.
Yes, "a hemispheric common market with open trade and open borders" is a policy position - one she really wants to convince voters, especially Saunders supporters, that she doesn't hold. Whilst simultaneously convincing businesses who'd benefit from it that she does. Also, trade is already pretty damn free, which means that free trade agreements end up being largely about loosening safety standards, tightening IP laws, and other such measures that benefit big businesses over consumers.
>Scandal? Come on, that's not a scandal, that a policy position.
That is pretty clearly an endorsement for TPP (other leaks make this connection more obvious[0]). Hillary says she is not in favor of it, this seems to directly contradict that statement. Saying one thing behind closed doors and another in front of the voting public is a scandal to me.
It is also well known that Hillary Clinton has sort-of kind-of changed her position in response to the Bernie Sanders left pull.
Yes, in my personal opinion it's probably not a strong pull, and Sanders voters who feel strongly against free trade / TPP / etc. are justified in feeling suspicious. But a speech from 2013 when she was openly promoting it doesn't exactly tell too much.
>But a speech from 2013 when she was openly promoting it doesn't exactly tell too much.
What about emails from last year? Consider that with the 'private position' and 'pubic position' comment and you are a fool if you think she will do anything she claims.
That's not at all what that means, she explained what that meant during the last debate.
This is the issue with all of these "leaks", they can create a one sentence soundbyte and make uninformed people think conspiracy theories when in fact it is standard mundane work being done by people trying to fix complex problems involving many different groups of people who need to come together to find a solution.
No wonder why the leaks are always in drips, no one is bothered or intelligent enough to spend more than 3 seconds analyzing the story they'll just re-post some nonsense from their Facebook feed and assume it is true.
I think this is the exact reason Trump is where he is. The right wing media frenzy has come full force and the echo chamber has reached a new high. Unfortunately when he loses badly the conspiracy nonsense will come back full force in that he was cheated out of the election. No one but the subset of a subset of Republicans will believe this but it is what it is.
There I believe he was referring specifically to the breaking story that Trump's descriptions of leaked Hillary emails were fed to him by Russian propagandists, a story with little basis in fact.
It may be a story with little proof and mostly conjecture, but we don't know if it has little basis in fact, or not. There is plenty of circumstantial but fairly damning evidence linking the Trump campaign to Russia.
Nobody is claiming that he is a Russian agent. At most, they are claiming that he is rhetorically pro-Russian, perhaps because of admiration for Putin's leadership style, perhaps because of hopes for future deals in Russia in case the 'running for President' thing doesn't work out.
EDIT: formatting.