This post will be different from what you are accustomed to reading. I am not commenting specifically on the current situation in Ukraine or the future of BRICS or the possible outbreak of a war with China. What I want to discuss is how the mainstream media — both traditional networks and mainline news papers and magazines — and cable news are losing influence to blogs and social media.
Part of my motivation to tackle this subject comes from a weekly Zoom meeting that I attend with a group of very smart men and women, most over the age of 65. If I named some of this distinguished souls in this group your next question would be, “Why the hell did they let you into the group?” They were feeling charitable, I guess, when they invited me to participate.
Several in this group have been doing some pretty interesting mental gymnastics in trying to explain away the Tucker Carlson/Donald Trump interview. It is an internet phenomena and set a new record as the most watched video ever on X (formerly twitter). Yet, some of these good folks just cannot believe that so many people actually watched the interview and try to dismiss the 260 million plus number as nothing more than idle clicks. These are the people who still watch cable news and spend much of their day with CNBC, Fox Business and Bloomberg News on their screens.
The television news business that reigned supreme in the 1980s and 1990s is dead. I have written previously about the difference between 1968 and 2016 in terms of ratings and viewers. In August 1968 more than 53 million Americans watched the nightly news on ABC, CBS and NBC. Walter Cronkite on CBS reigned supreme with 28 million viewers. At that time there were a little over 200 million Americans. That means a whopping 14% of all Americans were watching Walter. I was shocked to discover what had happened to ratings when I looked at the numbers for August 2016. All major networks and cable news shows combined had a total of roughly 28 million viewers. (Yes, I added up the ratings for ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News).
Although fewer people were watching these various news shows, the anchors continued to make big money and the corporate control of these various outlets became more concentrated. The new reality is that legacy media and cable news cater primarily to an elite audience that is not representative of the American social and ethnic classes.
I made my first appearance as a terrorism pundit on August 15, 1994 on CNN to talk about the capture of Carlos the Jackal aka Ilich Ramírez Sánchez. Way back then this was a simple news hit. I was invited on to talk about the terrorist past of Carlos and the meaning of his arrest. As a result of that bit of punditry I started getting invites from all the other networks, and I do mean all. I appeared multiple times on CNN’s Crossfire, NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Nightline, CBS 60 Minutes and the Jim Lehrer Newshour, just to mention a few. In late 1999 NBC hired met to be their terrorism consultant as we waited for the world to implode with the arrival of Y2K aka New Year’s 2000. After 9-11, Fox News put me under contract for a year (all of 2002). Roger Ailes decided not renew my contract because I was raising questions about the wisdom of invading Iraq.
Whenever I was asked to appear on any show the process was the same regardless of network. There would be a pre-interview (the producers wanted to know what I was going to say). The network would send a limo to my home. I made sure I was cleaned up and wearing a suit jacket of some type. The drivers of the limos were from Pakistan. Always. The immigrant Pakis had the limo business with the various networks locked down.
When I arrived at the station I would be hustled into make-up and then sit in the “green” room making chit chat with any other pundit waiting to go on air. Met some interesting folks this way. When the time came for my hit I would be taken to either a small studio or ushered into the main stage where I sat across from folks like Wolf Blitzer, Bill Press, Patrick Buchanan and even Tucker Carlson. Except for the appearances on Cross Fire, most of the time on air lasted five to eight minutes. Once my moment of punditry was over I trundled back to the make up room to remove my disguise, exited the building, climbed into the limo and returned home. This whole process consumed two to two-and-a-half hours for a brief bit of punditry.
There was one exception to this pattern. Sixty Minutes. They brought a five man crew to my home in Bethesda in October 2001. They set up for more than two hours — lighting and sound — and then Bob Simon showed up. He needed to change clothes and the next thing I knew I had Bob Simon in his underwear in my foyer. Hilarious. All of this for a 45 second comment on the story about 9-11. Hey, it was CBS money, not mine.
That world no longer exists, thanks in large part to Covid. All of the networks, both in the United States and abroad, discovered Zoom, Skype, Streamyard and Google as more efficient, cheaper and quicker ways to snag an interview. I feel for the poor Pakistani limo driver’s . Their days of being the primary chauffeurs for pundits in Washington, DC have been decimated by the internet.
But that is not the revolutionary change that has transformed the TV and Cable News empire into tabloid, propaganda outlets. Starting in 2008, with the arrival of Barack Obama, the networks and cable shows became more political. Prior to 2008 I remember being able to have legitimate debates on air with people who had opposite points of views. I recall vividly debating Professor Alan Dershowitz during the Wye River Summit in October 1998. I laughed at him insisting that Jonathan Pollard was not a spy and it discombobulated him. But at least we had an honest disagreement without rancor or screaming.
After 2008 all of that changed. Fox became the anti-Obama channel and the rest of the media donned their Obama cheerleading outfits. The age of honest debate (if it ever existed) was over. My anti-Iraq comments and my appearance in the documentary, Outfoxed, ensured I would never be invited to appear on Fox News. My criticism of Barack Obama and his ties to terrorists and other unsavory political characters made me persona non grata with the rest of the media. I am not complaining and I have no regrets. Just telling the story.
In 2017 I started to get invites to appear on foreign media, such as RT. I appeared several times on RT’s program, Cross Talk. Remember, this was pre-covid. Only with RT I did not get a limo. I had to drive myself but they paid for parking. When Covid hit, the media world changed. No more in person interviews. Instead, the TV interviewers were content to use my computer camera and audio. Wasn’t great but it got the job done.
We are now in an era where I believe that the mainstream media, especially TV and Cable, are largely irrelevant. Yet the tradition of using those platforms is still firmly embedded in the establishment mentality. Politicians raise tons of money, or try to, just to buy time on conventional TV and Cable that a diminishing number of people are watching. The action has shifted to podcasts, X and other social media platforms. That is what the vast majority of Americans are watching.
Most politicians do not understand nor comprehend the shift that has taken place. There are exceptions. Barack Obama picked up on it early. Donald Trump is the king of social media. And Vivek Ramaswamy gets in. The rest are still welded to the legacy media and foolishly spend money on TV ads that people skip if they can.
The wild west world of the internet scares the hell out of the traditional media gatekeepers. They no longer can wield total control over what messages get out. That is why the Biden Administration was working so frantically to get social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube to quash any voice that failed to genuflect before acceptable government policy. These dummies fail to realize that the world of the internet is still relatively free and that alternative channels exist or are being created every day.
There was a time when all of the cable news shows would permit a debate about the war in Iraq, for example. Now? Complete shutdown of anyone who speaks out against the U.S. policy in Ukraine. Col. Doug MacGregor is one of the rare exceptions. He appeared several times on Tucker’s show, and a few others. But now that Tucker’s gone, Doug and I are relegated to doing internet podcasts. Great! Instead of trying to discuss the complexities of the Ukraine/Russia war in five minutes, we can spend 30 minutes to an hour and a half going in depth.
We cannot (and should not) go back to the halcyon days of the 1990s and early 2000s. The combination of blogs and podcasts have created a new world that cuts across international borders and provides the means for creating a genuine international community of conversation. We just have to do what we can. That is why I have this blog and I thank you for being part of this new community.
Firstly, such an interesting backdrop to your life.
Secondly, I may agree with the fact that media is changing but we do not have control of those networks. Let’s not forget when we thought the internet was freedom, and the USA proved it isn’t. Then there are individuals deserving question marks…
The Trump/Carlson viewership figure is bullshit concocted by Musk to make Twitter look more popular than it is. Actual viewership will be around 15 million, an excellent number and bigger than the debates 13 million. Musk pumps up the figures by including tweets visibility even when the content isn’t viewed. An hour-long interview isn’t going to be seen more times than a Mr Beast video which crunches a mini-season season of exciting events into 15 minutes. ‘Modern humans’ don’t have the headspace for depth.
Although I disagree with the Chinese Government, I understand why they’re reducing kids online gaming time to 40 minutes.
I disagree. I’m stunned by the number of friends and acquaintances who do not have a X account who specifically went to X to watch. I don’t think that’s an aberration. Do you have any hard evidence for your numbers. And the debate, by the way, had less than 12 million.
I wasn’t using X till Tucker moved there. I watch every episode and forward it to friends. I know some opened/resumed their accounts because of Tucker. I hope he will get to interview Putin, and I hope Elon has the guts to put it on.
Tweet views are not the same as video views. It’s not uncommom for social media to try boost itself.
https://mashable.com/article/tucker-carlson-x-trump-interview-twitter-video-view-count
Remember when Musk got engineers to prioreitise himself on people’s timelines so his Tweet would be bigger than Bidens – https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/14/23600358/elon-musk-tweets-algorithm-changes-twitter
You’re missing the point. The actual number of views, whether just taking a glance or listening to the whole interview, is off the charts. The interview also attracted a lot of international views.99% of the people who use X would kill for numbers like those.
And to your point, Larry, those 230 million were definitely not channel surfing their TV’s. They were online, not on cable. Rupert Murdoch or the guys who own CNN would blow a dead reindeer for that kind of viewership. Speaking of live corpses, that’s all the MSM is right now.
If he gets the Putin interview he is chasing …..( thats Tucker not Mike. )
As per RT or was it Sputnik today? It would launch a political career.
About the living dead.ie MSM
Bruce Willis “Sixth Sense.”… They are dead but don’t know it.
https://youtu.be/3-ZP95NF_Wk?si=mYrOJjSmKA-bClnJ
Great movie.
Then try “Solaris” https://youtu.be/tbA7UaUzsiE?si=bgwRd5JdnrcNbQbv
Recommended for the Biden Administration.
I agree with you, Larry. Good videos such as the dissertation by Doug with Tucker sitting by, transfixed, end up bouncing around the internet for days afterward, amplifying the message. I don’t have an X account; we watched it on YouTube.
Mike – there are “impressions,” and “engagements,” on X, which are supposed to distinguish the “views,” from just “clicks.” Anyway, since Elon took over, if you like some twit, you can see the impact of your own “like” in real-time. I’m not saying it’s perfect or there are no algorithms to “fix” things, but IMHO – it’s better and more transparent than whatever it used to be.
On CFP, it’s being reported that tucker is negotiating an interview with Vlad , Putin , what kind of viewer ship will that bring to X.
The Tucker Carlson/Donald Trump interview was recorded and shown on at least one You Tube channel and one (or more) telegram channels. I still don’t have an X account, but I am thinking about it.
I was one of those people who do not have an X account but went there to watch it. I am way too old to believe I am alone in anything I think or do.
I have already created quite a few accounts on different platforms to see the other side of the published narrative. I don’t have X YET, but who knows.
I now know more about what is going on in the world than in my own country.
Even in my country, people like Larry are banned from alternative media that are supposedly open minded and where all opinions are allowed, not so! But they open a blog and I go looking for it, like Larry’s blog
What I do think is that in the years of the paper and television news, it is a very local thing, while now it has to be viewed worldwide. The local data can be extracted from the data data but with VPN and so this is not 100% accurate. We can also take into account that in the past there was several people, one viewing figure, and a family consisted of at least three to four people, so the viewing figures may well be quadrupled. While now, one person can be counted per viewing figure.
What we do have now via the internet is a much wider range of opinions, while it used to be almost one-sided.
I used to be very pro-american, not anti-russia, but they were the ones to keep an eye on, and the english were my heroes who stood up to nazism.
Now I know much better, and America is not what I thought it was, the Russians are not our enemies and the English are the most underhanded country in the world.
Many of us Brits share your disgust of our elite’s.
I’m watching it now on some obscure youtube channel where this repeat has 1.4m views. There are a lot of similar repeats around.
So 260m full or at least 10mins+ seens likely to me.
But a lot of those views will not be Americans. The Trump vs Swamp conflict is mirrored in many many other countries (Brexit here in UK for example).
As is the Carlson vs mainstream media conflict.
indeed. i have no x account, no google account, ho facebook account, no linkedin account …..not even a working television or connection to receive television programs directly from the networks YET from my desktop computer i would say i am as current likely MORE current with what’s happening with in the world than if i absorbed only legacy tv.
all this has been my life since 2004 and i am OLD, well into my 70’s.
i can only speculate what the young are doing and how they simply no longer even care about legacy media in print or on tv.
No, they do care about legacy media. A lot.
They don’t think they are being lied to, they just swallow all the propaganda subconsciously.
I have a lnadline and no cell-phone. No google account, yadda yadda like you. But from that POV, it’s really easy to see who is drinking the koolaid. And they don’t even know it.
Excepting maybe a very few local outlets, the MSM should be torched. Why does anyone waste time rebutting the BS they put out? That alone puts one into the koolaid. One cannot debate or criticize Austin or Nuland; they need to be shunned, ostracized, put out to freeze to death. Likewise “our” Senators, Representaives, agencies. There is no marginal path for improvement. That, by itself, becomes a limited hangout. Live not by lies.
There might be other actions that make sense, but it’s clear to me that shutting down and refusing to participate, throwing sand in the gears wherever possible, is the best course of action.
Start by getting rid of your cell phone. And when CBDC start up, refuse. Know that if you have to pull your gun, it is in self defense.
‘Modern humans’ don’t have the headspace for depth. – Mike Hampton says…
And yet those same “modern humans” have the headspace to know every detail of every statistic for their favourite sports team and its stars. As the Python skit demonstrated, “and then there’s sports!” as anywhere from 25-50% of network “news” reporting. Ditto for the the public needing to be “in the know” about an endless stream of celebrities’ and royalty scandals… so what if Meghan is going to dump Harry’s ass and take half his royal loot in the divorce? Won’t change the fact King Flappy-Ears is a WEFer…
And notice how nationalistic/patriotic sports has become. “As the players tried to take the field, the marching band refused to yield, do you recall what was revealed, the day the music died…” So not a new phenomena.
And then there’s the “brought to you by Pfizer” aspect of “news”.
Social media is a major problem for the cable/legacy news/networks, partly because the Big$$ traditional advertising models simply don’t work there. Y’know those little click-bait ads that get inserted on webpages (unless you run a modern ad-blocking browser like Brave)? Turns out, the advertisers have to compete to fill those blocks and its not as lucrative as the old 1% response expected from any mass advertising campaign. That’s why spending $millions for a 30-second Super Bowl TV ad made sense. 200 million sets of eyeballs yields 2 million responses by the old paradigm. What webpage gets 200+ million views in a few hours? Oh, wait, the Tucker/Trump interview did. 1% response may mean 2 million more votes for Trump? Even if half that Tucker/Trump number is clickbait or bot traffic, 1 million new/firm votes for Trump? Definitely more “impressions” than the debate can claim.
Due to the commodification of “news”, we get the “junk food” of information via the corporate/military/political MSM/legacy outlets, not the “meat and veggies” we should be being fed.
Larry, I do not have a X account nor see what it is posted there. The same occurs with Facebook. The social media became a toxic world.
I’m an 80-year-old expat who went to Twitter for the first time when Tucker joined that outlet, and several of my expat friends and I watched the entirety of Tucker’s interview of Trump. It’s a small sample of only ten old codgers, but none of us had any interest in watching talking points being spewed during the GOP debate.
How many times would anyone go and look for the video to watch a candidates debate when it is the wannabees?
The interaction with candidate and people is unstoppable. Talking heads are just disney.
You know, Mike, I’ve always kinda disliked your need to be the first to post, but in this case, I am grateful.
This is clearly troll farm gymnastics. And the fact that so many supposedly open-minded intelligent people believe the lies of ‘views’ is truly unbelieveable to me. This should be known by every human alive by now, to not believe ‘internal statistics’ about views and clicks and interest in some pathetic internet scam-of-the-day.
How anyone still believes anything about the completely proven corrupted internet media complex is more astonishing than anything else. It has been as cesspool of lies and manipuliation since 1999 and has only grown more corrupt and dishonest ever single day since then.
Kudos on your call, Mike Hampton, I’ll forgive your impetuousness forthwith.
There’s believe and want-to-believe. And there’s want-to-believe added to USA-is-exceptional. The Disagreeing didn’t bother to comment on the facts in the link I shared. I’m happy to be proven wrong, but with facts.
My heart is against the system but It’s important for me not to be an echo. I read diverse sources, and am hesitant to give individual billionaires my loyalty. Musk is from my country. I would love to support him in the hope that kids have someone to aspire too (because there’s endless Corrupt Shits here) but I can’t because he’s a Pretender, a double talker. His “internet freedom warrior” status is contradicted by his actions. He’s projecting himself for the Right because of his military contracts and all the government hurdles he has to jump to get his other projects working. It’s about money. It usually is, with a double dose in America.
Reading and commenting takes time which I have little of. It’s also ironic that I have commenting disabled on my page. I hate anonymous opinions, which began when once anonymous politicians spent a decade taking me down. I have a long thread to respond to on Simplicius’ page but I’ll take a holiday from interaction for a month, and focus on writing.
I’m happy to ‘give’ people a chance to be “first”. I’ll be the Slow South African 🙂
Be well, everyone. Do the best you can to live long whilst always seeking the scary light of Truth.
” ‘Modern humans’ don’t have the headspace for depth. ”
They might just be busy trying to survive. Here’s some in-depth reading about the pitfalls of generalizing and victim-blaming.
https://breggin.com/article-detail/post_detail/Mattias-Desmet-Mass-Hypnosis-Expert-or-Trojan-Horse-The-Full-Story
In the eyes of the impure (of heart), everything looks impure. The Bible
You could not see the truth, if it hit you right between the eyes…
First of all, the world is “thirsty and hungry” for the truth, after years of the bullshit being spewed out about DJT. He did indeed break all the viewership records and then some, except for people like you, desperate to minimize the 7.3 earthquake on the Richter scale that just took place, brought about by a man the Democrap scum is trying frantically to destroy, so they can postpone their “judgement day”.
Second, as an investor, I have sized Elon Musk up and down a million times. He is one of the few “honest” businessmen ever able to make money, despite his childlike, unflinching honesty. I take deep offense at the customary “reptilian creature” demonizing of good people, like those who, by their sheer deliberation decided that DJT was a homophobe, a xenophobe, a racist, a mysoginist… just because they said so. If you don’t know a person, do yourself a huge favor… don’t impune that which you don’t know about him, just because in the eyes of the impure, everything is impure…
Musk has proven that he doesn’t care about ratings, so why would he fudge the numbers, I know there a lot of crooked people out there, but I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt
All billionaires care about numbers. They care a lot. That’s what has driven them to be billionaires. Big business is all about fudging the numbers, and everything else that is fudgable.
I believe it is very important for readers to be aware of the process for the massive psy-ops that has been organized against the legacy media on a multinational institutional level. The process can be seen here:
Global charter to Fight Disinformation https://cbc.radio-canada.ca/en/media-centre/trusted-news-charter-fight-disinformation
This charter is a unilateral agreement created to control the information content of Western MSM and has been signed by all the major Western news networks like the CBC and BBC etc. It is an agreement to control “fake news” as defined by a charter to censor information flow and promote propaganda to the general public. This set the stage for the Covid and Covid inoculations and Russo/ Ukrainian War psy-ops of Western controlled presses. The Covid campaign would not have been possible without a controlled press and this is the methodology used starting in 2019.
This is globalism in action.
Our collective egos’ reality testing functions has been assaulted pretty badly over the years and is getting worse. Thank you Larry for your work helping distinguish between reality and fabricated self-serving mythology.
“…we do not have control of those networks…”
We do indeed have control. It’s called a Federal Broadcast Liscence and RICO laws.
And, as far as cable goes, 70-80% of cable revenues are from Big Pharma. When in power any President can go back to banning drug advertisements. That would kill Cable overnight.
You see we do have control, it’s the will of the Rich Men North of Richmond that is lacking.
On a personal note, I never had a Tweeter account, I knew back then, that Twitter was a psyopp and I never joined. I was anxious to see the interview live and considered joining X.
“An hour-long interview isn’t going to be seen more times than a Mr Beast video which crunches a mini-season season of exciting events into 15 minutes.”
I also thought of Mr Beast when I saw the number of views claimed. There is no way that any political content would come anywhere close to his viewcounts.
I know who Trump is, but what the hell is Mr. Breast.
Mr. Breast sounds like something from PornHub. Mr. Beast is a Youtube channel with umatched viewcount:
https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast/videos
It says that latest video got 100+ millions in 9 days. It’s high budget stuff with worldwide audience. No politics talk show can compete in views.
Ditto . . .I have never heard of “Mr Beast” either . . . . Not that I spend much time on Jou Tube as most folks I’m interested in hearing from are on Rumble. I’ll ask the grandson when he comes to stay this weekend. I left twitter the day they banned DJT but rejoined when Tucker started to use it. Haven’t been disappointed so far. Although there’s a shit ton of blue & yellow flag wavers there that are TOTALLY delusional.
I worked for an owned ABC television station for over 30 years. I watched our news department completely change how it covered news events during that time.
Back in the 80s news reporters had almost complete autonomy in how they reported a story. They dug up their own stories and reported the facts and circumstances as they uncovered them. It was real journalism.
By 2000, reporters were assigned a story, told how to cover it, who to interview, and what to ignore. Their scripts also had to be approved before editing started. It was real propaganda.
I remember the way it was when journalists could do their jobs. Sometimes it was dangerous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Bolles
And still is. It used to be the Chicago mob and now it’s Dem politicians.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/las-vegas-reporter-remembered-fearless-force-elected-official-angry-jo-rcna46902
Thanks Ted for sharing this real life experience.
Ted, this is exactly what my friend who has been working for one of the big news agencies in Europe for a long time told me. For every story the editor-in chief tells you in advance which outcome is expected, whom to interview etc. The result of every bit of “research” is fixed from the get-go. All the journalist has to do is find those people able and willing to utter the crunchy one-liners he is after. And from what I gathered this is true for every big news agency, be it ThomsonReuters, be it AP, be it Bloomberg- whoever. This is not news to most people here, I guess, however to a lot of others who are still stuck with MSM, it is.
The death of Journalism in the US MSM can be traced back to an FCC ruling eliminating the restriction on the number of news outlets one company could own. That opened the door for the consolidation of all the major US news outlets under the control of 6 large corporations.
Shortly after this ruling, Disney bought ABC, and journalism withered and died.
Hell yeah! I’m in and you can count on me. I don’t miss you on Judging Freedom and follow you on Telegram.
Larry, your work sets a standard for elevating the audience’s level of understanding. Regularly reading your BLOG has allowed me to understand important aspects of war, battles, propaganda and much more. Your work is fair and thorough.
Many of your audience are on a much higher level of understanding, training and much more knowledge than a financial type such as myself.
It may take only one grain of sand at the margin, or one more straw on the back of the camel, but we are only a few more upticks in yields for long dated Treasuries to sober up stock buyers, but it is imminent…. The Lehman moment was just the elite digging in their heels refusing to rescue a group of arrogant new money types at Lehman, but isn’t all money “new?” We may discover the same type of intolerance for “new” money, depending on which REIT’s capital structure wont get rescued in 2023 from rising rates on long dated Treasuries and widening corporate yield spreads as credit become more scarce following the Q3 reports from banks….
Just as cable news stations buried the networks after the Reagan Admin changed the rules for financing news services on the networks, the internet is ripping a hole right into the coffers of the lame street news media AKA MSDNC…
see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine
We readers have come to rely upon you for fair insights and reality.
Thank you.
The media of yore bemoans their fate. They screwed up. The don’t understand that people talk back to the news. They want to tell the brilliant or psycho news puppet what they think. The internet killed the tvnews stars because they were just lecturers. Today anyone that wants to can interact in some fashion. No one cares about the famous fatuous faces. They don’t have any authority because the new viewers don’t have any history with them. So if they catch them in a lie, it might be the last time they go to tv for their news. Their ratings have been turning down and sour.
It is a wonderful thing. The various owners of our nation’s tv exposure have had far too much power over what the population could see and it has ended. With some resistance. With prejudice.
I don’t know what other people do, but I haven’t watched a half hour of cable TV for at least 5 years. I did catch the last 15 minutes of last year’s Super Bowl. Honestly, I browse the internet for content I find relevant and people like you fill the bill. There are others. The ability to watch or listen at my convienence and cut out ads is amazing. Actually, I honestly can’t sit still near a TV set. It bores the hell out of me. I can’t be the only one.
Thanks for your posts and appearances.
I can’t be the only one. — Curt
You’re not…
I am relying on utube to consolidate sources of relevant podcast info. Alternatively can there be a bulletin board of relevant podcasts?
Dan – virtually anything of vital import is quickly removed from YT & lots that still post there are careful what they say or even what subjects they cover. So it sort of encourages self censorship among ‘content creators’ Rumble BitChute Odysee, Brighteon are YT alternatives for ‘meat & vegies’ Cheers
Are Tucker and Trum TVs grave diggeres?
https://compactmag.com/article/tucker-and-trump-are-tv-s-gravediggers
The MSM has been committing slow suicide. It’s just an elite propaganda machine now, and people see it for what it is. The elites, whoever they may be, have a flawed logic. They try to keep us ignorant because they equate ignorance with stupidity.
It reminds me of something my dad told me years ago. Never assume others are stupid, give them a chance to show you first. If you do things assuming others affected are stupid, they’ll fool you every time.
With the net, people have a way around the “ignorance” problem and can inform themselves. That’s why Europe and Canada are trying to regulate the web for “misinformation” which is another word for information they don’t like. But they can’t stop the flow any more than masks stop COVID. The more they try to stop the information flow, the greater the resistance, and the more innovative people get in finding ways around it. They learned nothing from Soviet history. People found ways to communicate, and technology makes it easier.
50 years ago people watched TV news because there was something called journalism. It was slightly biased, but they still questioned things and it was more balanced. There’s no journalism any more, and facts are irrelevant, only the narrative is presented.
I don’t use X, or Twitter, whatever it’s called, and just because I’m not a twit doesn’t mean I didn’t watch Tucker and Trump instead of the Cuck news puke show.
Have you no respect for reindeer?
Not for dead ones obviously !! Came REAL close to dousing my laptop with my lunchtime coffee when I read his opening statement. Wonder where he got that idea from ?? – has he watched volume 3 of Epsteins ‘Island Paradise’ video collection perhaps
Thatcher changed TV because of her hatred of World in Action (ITV) and Panorama (BBC) and the Sunday Times Insight Team – all of which questioned government through investigative reporting, so the rot started with Broadcasting Act and auction of TV spectrum and her favours to Rupert Murdoch allowing him to buy BSkyB and have a monopoly stake in print media with major print titles.
In U.S. I remember regional press like A H Belo in Dallas or Boston Globe as real newspapers.
Concentration and consolidation with centralised newsrooms and decentralised satellite printing.
In U.K. there are regional papers owned by US interests which doing setting and Lay-out by satellite in India and print via contract printers. There is no real newspaper simply WFH journalists or freelancers uploading preformed stories or renting their names to NATO press releases
Refreshing is the Citizen Journalism and Comics turned commentators like Jimmy Dore and Babylon Bee or the highly successful Redacted or Rebel News – and of course Peter Lavelle and Discussion of a quality not often found today
There was a deliberate policy of pushing dissent out into the ‘fringe’. Fringe-Gettit? The place for looney tunes.
The establishment must have thought that went well with covid, a wholly managed and controlled tissue of lies. But covid was the high point of this sort of mental manipulation, and now the message has got out to the ordinary public that people like them get their news this way, and this is not just where you find the looneys or even where you can find them at all. It is where you find genuine informed dissent busy building its own mainstream, and you can avoid the filler in 24-7 M/S media- the head boiling trivia where they go out into the world to find inane comment from the sort of people we are supposed to be.
Next stop- how to manage this, now the gaslighting has failed.
Larry, I’m an OG pushing 70. Get all my news, info, and media for the last 10 years via internet alt media. Haven’t owned a tv or had cable/direct tv in 15 years. Many of my boomer buds and genX friends do the same or watch some MSM but more alt amedia. MSM will be relegated to the status of phone landlines soon enough for the generations raised on cell phones and tablets. Good riddance of controlled narratives passing for reality. Oh, and I joined Twitter this week JUST to watch Trump/Tucker; sorry Mike, you are way off. When Trump does Rogan, I will watch his show for the first time EVER. It will be massive!! (I typically use Telegram, Rumble, and Patreon…some Bitchute and Odessey, various free podcast platforms., and Slack.)
The MSM joournalists are still influential because it gives them status and ‘credibilty’ and they tend to create the narrative with a large half listening audience. Otherwise explain how most of my friends and family thought I was round the bend for believing that Russia was the biggest economy in Europe and had a reasonable point of view.
Somewhere I have a great book by Dale Carnegie about public speaking. In 1915 he wrote people attach importance to a speech (communication today) first according to who says it, second how they say it and least important what they say. That hasn’t changed.
The real problem is the gathering of the ownership of the means of communication into the hands of a few very rich people who can decide who gets airtime and who doesn’t, who gets a well paid job in the MSM, who gets ludicrously favourable book deals etc. They can even delete the President of the US of A from Twitter. They need cutting down to size. They need a Roosevelt or a Putin.
I did not grow up with a lot of TV watching. Then, from 1995 until around 2022 I literally did not watch a single episode of mainstream news. When I have viewed segments on occasion (accidentally until recently) I was struck by the garish graphics and setting. Two other aspects stand out in recent years, the creation of “mobs” via constant emotional / info manipulation of Internet masses, and the lack of critical thinking around us. Two examples – Trump derangement syndrome and Covid fears. Many have a boiling resentment and hatred of Trump but can’t identify just why! Some hate Russia, or China, as led by media. Ditto for Covid, how did we get *one* step beyond “experimental” and into coerced (forced) adoption for children and even pregnant women without testing? This extremely widespread, determined and persistent effort to vax everyone, in clear light of the fact that it will not help you at all, is the most frightening development of modern times IMHO, and if Ed Dowd (author of Cause Unknown) is right the agenda seems to be population control (offing the masses). I came to that conclusion *very* reluctantly, not wanting to believe it, over the past 3 years.
“Two other aspects stand out in recent years, the creation of “mobs” via constant emotional / info manipulation of Internet masses, and the lack of critical thinking around us.”
“Many have a boiling resentment and hatred of Trump but can’t identify just why! Some hate Russia, or China, as led by media. Ditto for Covid, how did we get *one* step beyond “experimental” and into coerced (forced) adoption for children and even pregnant women without testing?”
You might want to investigate the work of behavioural science since Skinner. Turning people into the very device of war was always the aim. Just consider(or look around) how easy they are then manipulated.
The below gives an insight, but is written by a KCL spook, so remember, Russia bad, really bad. Ignore that bit and they admit how they control and divide.
“[p]articipatory digital propaganda enables the private, everyday identity of users to be occupied and taken over by the institutional actors that propagate it. … It is designed to implement new forms of sovereignty. It is designed to replace networked structures of society with fragmentation and polarization. It helps to pull people apart by forcing them into the role of combatants rather than citizens.”
https://jods.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/jyzg7j6x
We’re all combatants now. Like it or not, you’ve signed up and are a participant in a war against yourself.
I replied to your “can’t identify just why!”
Alas, the censors deemed it too dangerous to groupthink and so disappeared it.
While I fully agree that “We cannot (and should not) go back to the halcyon days of the 1990s and early 2000s” (obviously it’s been a highly entropic and irreversible process), I have a problem with this: “Instead of trying to discuss the complexities of the Ukraine/Russia war in five minutes, we can spend 30 minutes to an hour and a half going in depth.”
All too often, the 30 minutes to an hour and a half is padded out with chit-chat and fluff. So far, they are little more than a continuation/extension of the relaxed/casual format of long interview that TV has long had.
While interesting, there remains only 24 hours in the day, most of which is consumed by working, sleeping, and other essential activities, leaving very little time to watch such discussions in full. As a result, I rarely watch any of these interviews in full. While I read everything you and AndreiM write, I rarely watch yours or his videos in full. I watch a few minutes, then click every few minutes later to see if anything interesting is being said. But this is a random process and misses much. Carlson’s interview of McGregor was an exception, I found it riveting.
For greater impact, I would suggest the format of these interviews should be modified.
I would suggest, ideally, a five minute or so summary of the interview with the questions asked and the responses or conclusion to each as a preface to the interview but as a minimum time-stamped links in the video description to the moment each question is asked or key topic started, just like the various cooking videos provide timestamps directly to each included recipe.
This format would allow someone with limited time to quickly get the primary points of the discussion and/or to go directly to view the questions and answers of particular interest.
First of all, I have to say that the new media on the Internet are tremendously important. Despite exorbitantly increasing censorship and prosecution by lawmakers. I as an information consumer read many international sources. Sometimes or often different opinions and assessments exist. But this is not a bad thing. On the contrary. Thus I am better able to weigh facts and arguments with each other and to consider other points of view. In the end, one should not unconditionally believe what one reads somewhere, but activate one’s own thinking with the basis of the input of information.
Particularly in the so-called “social networks”, a special phenomenon prevails, according to my observation. There are a lot of people on the move there who only take in information that confirms their own opinion. All other information is sorted out or even ignored.
One example: Pigoschin and the PMC “Wagner”.
I am baffled by the fact that even respected analysts claim to know. This in a global war, where deception and manipulation from all sides is naturally an essential part of the war.
I would never claim to know anything about myself. I can only know when all the cards are on the table, and that process can take many months and years.
Somewhat provocatively, I wrote today on the subject in question:
“Media circus
What a media circus, be it mainstream or new media, around Prigozhin and Wagner and all this in connection with the Kremlin, 404, Africa, Belarus, Poland, Baltics, USNATO, Kaliningrad etc.
Completely forgotten, however, is the fact that the Wagner PMC is not Russia’s only PMC at all. Some analysts say that the PMC Wagner is not even the most important among them.
Why not make a single fuss about one of the other PMCs that are quietly doing their job effectively?”
To me, the whole thing feels like opponents are lying in wait, the audience is holding its breath, and someone keeps “throwing a rock in the water.” Automatically, everyone is listening in that direction and all senses are strained toward that sound.”
What I implied here may be completely wrong in content. That was not my point at all. I just wanted to point out that you don’t have to believe everything you read. Truth is a shy animal. As the excellent George Carlin once said, one should not only read, but always question what one reads. This also requires some strenuous thinking of your own.
Great article Larry.
I have always been a great fan of the politician Trump because he made all the right peoples heads explode. 7 years later the law is being twisted into a pretzel to nail him while nada on Hunter.
I never listened any of his speeches. I just enjoyed the exploding heads.
I don’t have an X account but I watched the whole Tucker interview with growing admiration.
They will have to kill him to stop him
The current situation has been likened to the advent of the printing press. Just like printed books allowed people to bypass the clergy and provided access to knowledge, so does the Internet and mobile devices. Anybody can be a citizen journalist and broadcast live from anywhere, anytime. Ditto opinions, analyses. The media, and their handlers, including the government, no longer have a monopoly over the dissemination of information.
As a result, they’ve resorted to various ways of thwarting this liberation process, introduced hate crimes, made operators liable for content, that sort of thing. As things have deteriorated overall and the need to brainwash the population and keep them on a short leash has increased, they’ve now rolled out unbridled censorship in an attempt to impose information totalitarianism.
They can’t stop this, though. The censorship laws might make things difficult in the short term, but they don’t stand a chance in the long term.
Legacy media are dead. Already now, the media are ridiculous, their bias being so evident. Everybody who has their head screwed on right knows that they’re full of shit. The media today remind me of the Second World where I was growing up – nobody believed a word of what they said. Newspapers were good for kindling or perhaps for extrapolating what the establishment was up to by reading between the lines. Same thing today.
That being said, the freedom of the Internet, insofar as it exists, has its pitfalls because not everything that gets put out there is legit. It must be assumed that the people who run legacy media are not stupid and influence people through all sorts of limited hangouts, fake alternative outlets. By both what they talk about and what they don’t. Tons and tons of red herrings out there!
BTW, I’ve watched bits of the Trump interview. Hmm. As usual, Trump mostly talked about himself, inconsequential things. This is supposed to be a visionary who will save the US, the West, or the world? Hardly.
That was a great article. Very helpful and specific information.
I just want to epitomise the whole subject into a short phrase.
The other day, I got to see a good film on traditional TV. When I told my son to watch because it was worth, he replied:
“Chanel what? Who watches traditional TV nowadays?
That’s a thing of Antropology museums, dad.”
It’s not only mainstream media, it’s the WHOLE traditional TV which is dead right now.
If not for Football World Cups, I haven’t put the TV on in a 15 years I reckon.
About that good film in Traditional TV I saw that day, I was on sick leave and I found that film out of the blue.
The TV, as we remembered, it’s a thing of the past. It’s dead
The only problem with this is the so-called AI. That’s because it can appear human and insert commentary in comment sections and similar places that make it *SEEM* like the consensus is something it’s not. Therefore, all of us that try to have a wide Internet-based information-gathering network are basically living in a hall of mirrors.
Following specific blogs is decent so far, but I think going to X/Twitter for information is asking for AI-based trouble.
Larry, take care in Britain with the word Paki. The snowflake population will be having cardiacs all around you – their last words, ‘you waysist!’. Now, when I was a boy, one could . . . no I cannot say nowerdays.
But Afghani is OK.
Funny old world.
But you’re correct. Larry will never get a gig with the beeb or the guardian after that P word.
I had a similar thing happen to me. I used ‘Paki’ in a conversation as a contraction. I had a dual-citizen Irish colleague (in hindsight well-versed on the political correctness that had not yet fully infested our non-leftist institutions) explain (in a friendly way: one of the compliant rather than one of Satan’s minions) to me that it was considered a pejorative. If your name is Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff, whether you are offended by it or not, you are getting called ‘Wolf’.
Who decides whether it is or not? Are actual Pakistanis offended by it or is this simply yet more nonsense invented by left-corporate trash clowns to cudgel us into submission. My people are being destroyed. I don’t care about other people’s hurt feelings. If you are offended, go back to your own country (where I am not) and you won’t have to hear me ever again.
Thank you Larry for your willingness to speak out – your insights are incredibly valuable
When you’re caught lying too many times you end up with people whose lives are affected by your lies avoiding you.
The 17th century mass printing of books helped change the human world at a time when the old orders just weren’t up to the job of maintaining the status quo of the existing ‘rules based order’ anymore.
New ideas got legs and crossed the globe rapidly.
Now we have mass communication of a speed, variety and complexity beyond anything the 17th century was capable of.
A new genie is out of the bottle, best hang on for the ride.
As an example of what has and hasn’t changed, look at Ukraine…. a WW1/US Civil war battlefield with one combatant a nuclear power, one combatant a non nuclear power and the major protagonist (NATO) a coward with nuclear weapons. Couldn’t make it up if we tried…_
We are now in an era where I believe that the mainstream media, especially TV and Cable, are largely irrelevant. Yet the tradition of using those platforms is still firmly embedded in the establishment mentality.
Indeed. Remember McCain’s op-ed on Pravda website?
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/john-mccains-pravda-op-ed-131002526.html
I used to buy the newspaper every day and read it cover to cover, it had the news articles and then it had Editorial or Opinion pieces where obviously opinions were given, but they were separate. The news was no doubt slanted but much less so than today, my online news subscription I cancelled as it ended up a war mongering propaganda piece, and why pay for that?
These days I get info online, it is to a degree confirmation bias, but certainly better than the MSM. For the woke nutters they no doubt have their own sources. The world is indeed changing, however I suspect blogs like this will eventually be put under pressure to conform or be closed down by the “fact checkers”.
A comment to add to that observation about the past convention of separating “news”and “opinion/editorial”.
I have not watched TV news in some time now. I do check in on the websites of the TV network “news” operations, not to get news, but, essentially, just check status of what propaganda and nonsense is being foisted on people.
When peeking at the CNN site, it’s a mark of sure comedy ahead to see the frequent pages with the label “analysis” in the byline. It never fails. The byline reads “analysis”? Idiocy and mountains of mendacious bullshit follow.
Dear Larry,
a real optimistic view of the future of telecommunications. However, we have to take it into our own hands.
But: We don’t have an InterNet on this planet yet. What we can use, we can call an InterStar system, because only the tips of the star-shaped structures are connected in the IXPs.
The name InterNet comes from: The Inter-connection of local Net-works. And the local networks are with it always in the communities, which interconnect like with roads and ways for the material transport systems also for the immaterial transport systems.
In the 80ies, this dispute was. The state constructs were for private profits and state control mania, the friends of a free communication of the people for the self-organization out of the local communities. In the beginning the university camps, later the real living spaces.
So we still have a lot to do, so that your perspectives and visions, as correct and reasonable as they are, become reality.
With kind regards, willi
Asuncion, Paraguay
In Russia, for the last 3 years I have not watched political talk shows and almost all other programs on TV, except for some of my favorite films. I was disappointed with the studios of the leading leaders of public opinion – Solovyov, Skobeeva, Norkin, Sheinin … – and their guests, the so-called experts and analysts.
I get information from some Russian telegram channels, podcasts on YouTube, Rutub, as well as from the site of Martyanov, Duran, Brian Berletich, from articles by Sam Parker and this site, for which I am very grateful to Larry and the local community.
Thanks to Yandex, I have a happy opportunity to hear the voices and opinions of smart and good people from different parts of our planet.
Thanks for this information Gera. I was curious about an opinion of a reasonable Russian about the Russian media. Although we must also take into account the war. But from what little I’ve seen, I absolutely agree.
And in Western Europe there is no war and talk shows about war are no less radical. I have already pointed out here several times that Putin on the night he announced the SMO should have made public the “ultimatum” he sent to NATO! In my opinion, no further explanation is needed to understand the legitimacy of the Russian operation in Ukraine.
Hi Larry,
Do you have any comments on your former employer’s Operation Mockingbird? Or, this quote by (your?) former CIA boss William Casey to incoming President Reagan in 1981:
“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
How does this relate to Lincoln’s “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”
Compare with “There’s a sucker born every minute” (whether PT Barnum actually said it or not).
Your ‘lived experience’ (to use contemporary woke jargon) is valuable as a personal, historical record of the narrowing of the Overton Window. However, I’m guessing your readership here already does not trust, or greatly access, the legacy media: I certainly don’t.
Has ‘clever’ manipulation becoming self-defeating? For your audience, sure. Yet, I certainly know lots of intelligent, educated people who sincerely accept, and never look beyond, the standard MSM narrative.
Of course, the ‘net’s alternative media is both its own strength and weakness: excess multiplicity of voices.
The way forward?
My father was a newspaper man and I literally grew up in newsrooms in Canada. But I was born in 1946…so I different era. I promised my father I would NEVER become a journalist. I broke that promise during the Vietnam War when I ended up in SE Asia as a stringer. I saw the error of my ways and went to Japan where I have worked in the media business since then. A general media whore. (But I don’t kiss them on the lips).
So Larry’s account was sooooooooo fascinating. Frankly, though I don’t see the media as any more honest than it ever was, which was never really. Just the technology has changed. And attitudes have hardened, with less tolerance for dissent.
Marshall McLuhan said “the medium is the message”. What he meant by “medium” is technology– print, radio, TV, smartphones, etc. Each medium structures how things can be communicated, limiting or expanding possibilities — including freedom of expression and also censorship.
So censored on Fox, Tucker goes to Twitter which is a different “platform” (aka “medium”.
In media, you have both “raw” and “cooked” (to steal Levi Strauss’s concept). “Raw” is unscripted, un-edited. “Cooked” is the opposite. There’s lots in between.
The closer you get to “actuality” and the further you get from “virtual”; the more impact. Tucker’s popularity is at least as much based on his “actuality” as the kind of “virtual presence” you see elsewhere – it translates to genuineness or authenticity, not that I always agree with thim. Just a professional observation.
Hi Larry, I’m a long time follower, but not much of a commenter, and while your analysis of the “legacy media” decline is correct, my analysis/outlook for the digital media world is far more pessimistic.
Firstly I’m one of those people that was on the internet when it was still a wild west, really not so long ago, when one could find recipes for homemade explosives or drugs on public forums (as an example).
There was no money in it in those days, so there was no big corporate/government interest in it, and nobody was in it for the money, just goofing around and exchanging info on common interests.
The sites that allowed you to have a free blog didn’t censor much of anything, there were tens, if not hundreds, of search engines and directories, there were thousands of sites that gave you free email without any checks whatsoever, you could even send SMS’s anonymously.
Obviously, that couldn’t last long. As soon as the internet become powerful enough the usuals suspects came pouring in, and the process is still ongoing.
So what do we have now?
One search engine: Google (90% market share)
A few social media sites: Facebook (65% market share)
Messaging: (WhatsApp) Facebook
And so on and so on, for every communication related platform.
For every knowledgeable, well intentioned blogger or analyst, like yourself and few others, there are hundreds of paid for shills, fake independent media groups and scores of low moral people just trying to squeeze a few bucks from their followers.
Now to get back to my main point.
The legacy media is losing power, but the people behind it are not! It’s a mistake to look at Facebook and Google and think of them like some new thing, and not see that the people behind the curtain are the same.
I mean, It’s plain for everybody to see, at a glance, that what is left uncensored by Facebook, for example, is exactly the same information that CNN and all are pushing. And there are ample articles describing some of the people involved on censorship on the internet with ties to governments and old media.
I see the internet now, like the cable media and radio in the ’70 (or around), a few independent stations still exist, some new ones pop up from time to time, but over them is a great shadow that relentlessly tries to incorporate/censor/bankrupt them, until we are left with nothing else but a few psychopaths controlling all.
That was said a lot better than my attempt. For every Larry Johnson there is 5,000 government talking points. And control is growing daily.
In the UK you could find serious discussions during iraq2. The Guardian would run John Pilger and John Bolton on the same page.
After Snowdengate it all changed, and by the terror campaign against the Syrian Arab Republic only neocon voices could be aired.
With Ukraine the entire msm has been mobilised to the extent that I feel like an exile in my own country.
Fortunately, the sane among us no longer follow msm “news” on anything of a geopolitical nature.
Eventually you price yourself out of existence.
Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow, Eric Severide, 60-Minutes, All the News That’s Fit to Print, newspapers, The Sunday comics. “That world no longer exists, thanks in large part to Covid.”
No. The COVID lockdown was a “pause.” A lot of things were changing all at once. Too many things were going away all at once. Our way of life, our economy, our country, the works, affordable housing, real jobs. We had reached a tipping point. We were pricing ourselves out of existence.
If the markets crash then the stock market gets shutdown. If there is a run on the banks the banks are closed. The Crash of 2008-09 was a credit crisis. The Crash was caught in mid free fall. It will remain in mid-free fall until the debt cycle ends. One day. Everything has become “fixed,” rigged, manipulated, and controlled.
As our friend Jean-Claude Juncker said: “When It Becomes Serious, You Have To Lie.” Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow, Eric Severide, 60-Minutes, “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” newspapers, The Sunday comics has no place in a world like that.
The value of the USD had fallen 98-percent from 1913 until 2008. The Crash of 2008-09 saw the last 2-percent of the value of the USD disappear. The emperor and empress wearing new clothes are the bubble heads and bimbos in MSM. Walking around butt naked. We all are. Everything.
What the FED and central banks could not stop was the fall of the USD. During the GFC, stopping the loss in value of the USD was like catching a falling knife with your hands. Somebody lost fingers in that one. The knife and all these fingers didn’t stop until it hit the ground. One day, in March of 2020, the world was closed for a year. COVID was a run on the world. The pandemic represented how the world had priced itself out of existence.
Same thing with MSM. Making mainstream media fully owned, fully controlled, fully manipulated, and fully propagandized, was essential to mask the collapse of everything we once knew. Still hasn’t stopped us from seeing the media empresses — Melissa Theuriau, Georgie Thompson, Alessandra Villegas, Brooke Baldwin, Megyn Kelly (if you like that kind of thing), Susan Li, Abby Huntsman, and Ainsley Earnhart, for starters — butt naked. It’s a start towards seeing things as they really are.
The truth will come out. BRICS or no Brics it’s all falling apart.
The powers that be can’t get control of the media fast enough. They can’t censor enough. They can’t shadow ban fast enough. It’s gotten so bad that the powers that be are looking to buy a social media platform just for themselves.
It won’t do any good. Eventually you price yourself out of existence.
That platform is called AI. Putting the AI in charge of every bit and byte flowing over the internet and the airwaves.
“The combination of blogs and podcasts has created a new world that crosses international borders and provides the opportunity to create a true international community of conversation.” 👍
TASS NEWS yesterday 9:20 p.m.
American political television journalist Tucker Carlson has asked for an interview with Vladimir Putin. This information was provided by RT head Margarita Simonyan.
“Tucker is a great man, by the way, he is very much asking for an interview with Vladimir Putin. It would be great if suddenly someone finds out about it and brings it to the president,” she said in the program “Sunday Evening with Vladimir Solovyov” on Rossiya-1 TV channel.
I think this international networking is absolutely significant, especially for major international events.
The Austrian Bachheimer, for example, was there for the BRICS meeting with his blog and reported independently and freely from this meeting.
https://bachheimer.com/brics
A few days ago a number of Russian dot-org sites lost their internet viability – within a day or so they were back. For instance:
Anyone who has lost connection with Russian dot-org sites such as ‘Strategic Culture’, ‘New Eastern Outlook’ and ‘Oriental Review’ can now find them at dot-su
Russian RT features a detailed article on new camouflage made in Russia, that prevents detection by thermal imagers (mostly drones)
https://russian.rt.com/russia/article/1194345-mgtu-snaiper-maskirovka-meta-svo
All ranges are closed”: unique camouflage suits for snipers and scouts have been developed in Baumanka
Scientists of MSTU im. N.E. Bauman created a line of camouflage products “Meta” for snipers and scouts of the RF Armed Forces. The new equipment hides military personnel from detection by thermal imagers, almost all types of optical devices and devices operating in the microwave range. The means of disguise have already been tested and received positive feedback from the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. According to experts, Baumanka products will be in demand in the NVO zone, where military operations are often conducted under the cover of darkness.
Specialists of MSTU im. N.E. Bauman completed the development of new visibility reduction products for snipers and scouts of the RF Armed Forces under the general name “Meta”.
“To date, prototypes have been made from functional metamaterials of a new generation to hide people and equipment in the multispectral spectrum. These are special screens and several versions of suits for hiding manpower. Depending on the tactics of use and the tasks assigned, these products can be used by UAV operators, observers, intelligence officers, spotters, snipers and other military personnel, ”RT said in the press service of the Moscow State Technical University.
The direct developer of the Meta line is the Regional Educational and Scientific Center (RUNC) “Safety” of the Moscow State Technical University. N.E. Bauman. The project is being implemented jointly with the Advanced Research Foundation (FPI).
The Meta line is designed to hide military personnel from detection by almost all types of optical instruments and devices operating in the microwave range. Also, suits and capes make military personnel invisible in the sight of thermal imagers – equipment operating in the infrared range.
“The thermal imager provides a temperature-contrast image of targets and therefore is a very effective means of observation and reconnaissance. However, the laboratory specialists have found solutions that make it possible to ensure the same temperature of the surface and the environment. Moreover, a way was found to hide the face from detection by thermal imagers. Thus, all ranges of optical radiation are closed, ”the MSTU noted.
Means of disguise “Meta” provide invisibility in a wide temperature range – from negative values to plus. With prolonged use, camouflage products may lose some of their protective properties, therefore, in order to preserve them, products must be periodically treated with special solutions in the form of a spray.
This year, Baumanka specialists conducted a series of tests of their products together with the Central Research Testing Institute of Engineering Troops named after D.M. Karbyshev of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (TsNIIII IV MO RF).
“Specialists of the Central Research Institute of IV of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation highly appreciated the developments of the Safety Research Center of the Moscow State Technical University. N.E. Bauman. Now the products are being finalized in terms of ergonomics and performance properties. At the moment, it has been possible to achieve a high level of moisture resistance without loss of protective properties, ”added the MSTU press service.
“Operating Costs”
In mid-August, elements of the Meta line were presented at the Army international military-technical forum in Kubinka near Moscow. Information was published in the MSTU exhibition booklets that the university had developed several types of equipment.
In particular, the specialists of Baumanka produced three types of mobile multispectral shelter (MMS). They are intended for use by sniper, evacuation, assault teams and UAV operators.
Also, the MSTU materials report on the creation of camouflage suits “Meta V” (jacket, trousers, helmet and backpack covers), “Meta Z” (jacket, trousers, helmet-mask, hand pads), “Meta O” (cape, pants, helmet-mask), as well as a Meta 4 camouflage cape.
It is noted that the “hiding distance” of camouflage means starts from 100-150 m. Each suit and shelter has a different “working temperature range”. For example, for “Meta O” it ranges from -12 to +15 ° C, and for “Meta Z” – +5 to + 25 ° C.
As Alexander Butyrin, columnist for the Firing Frontier magazine, stated in a RT commentary, the Baumanka project will solve the problem of a shortage of special fabric materials from which camouflage equipment is made.
“Mostly foreign materials were used for camouflage suits. Naturally, now such an approach is completely unacceptable. Apparently, the Bauman people have mastered technologies that allow our army not to depend on imported materials, ”Butyrin said.
According to the expert, one of the most important properties of the equipment of the Meta line is the so-called IR remission – the ability of the fabric to reflect infrared rays. True, to ensure it, the material must be periodically treated with a special aerosol.
“IR remission has some operating costs due to the need to treat the suit with a special aerosol. At the same time, this is a completely normal practice that has become established in other armies of the world, ”Butyrin emphasized.
Another advantage of the Meta family, the expert called the absence of angular shapes in the silhouette of the carrier and the use of materials of various colors, which allows you to hide a soldier in different types of terrain.
“Angular shapes are created by the very figure of a person, protruding weapons, elements of ammunition. It can be seen that the Bauman team did a good job of solving such a problem, ”the expert noted.
A similar point of view is shared by reserve colonel Roman Nasonov, a member of the coordination council of the National Guard. In an interview with RT, he said that the Meta family can significantly reduce the visibility of snipers and scouts.
“To completely make a person invisible, including at night, of course, is impossible. However, the Bauman team made great efforts to ensure that the surface temperature of the suit was similar to the ambient temperature. This is a very difficult task, especially given the fact that the temperature of the environment is constantly changing,” Nasonov noted.
“Tough competition”
Another family of promising domestic camouflage equipment for the needs of the RF Armed Forces is the Praying Mantis Z line developed by Alfa-K. Currently, this equipment is being tested by the military.
As Viktor Konstantinopolsky, a representative of the enterprise, stated in a recent interview with RT, the equipment is able to hide military personnel from optical systems operating in the infrared range, night vision devices and thermal imagers.
“The principle of the infrared spectrum is to fix objects that radiate heat. On average, an adult at rest generates approximately 100 W of heat, and during physical exertion this figure increases significantly. Even exhaled air, weapons heated from firing, and elements of equipment can get into the field of view of modern optics, ”Konstantinopolsky explained.
The main advantage of the Praying Mantis Z, the developer called metallization – applying a special coating to the fabric, which “provides effective shielding of the generated heat.” Also, camouflage robes are “adapted to the landscapes common for modern combat operations.”
According to Konstantinopolsky, Alfa K is ready to supply the RF Armed Forces with camouflage equipment for snipers, intelligence officers, UAV operators and other military specialties. All products are waterproof, all-weather and have a relatively small weight – 1-3 kg.
“The enterprise is capable of mass-producing camouflage equipment for the Russian army. On average, depending on the configuration, one camouflage coat will cost up to 150 thousand rubles. According to the information that we received from the military, American counterparts in ruble terms cost 600-700 thousand, and at the same time, they are somewhat worse than Bogomolov, ”Konstantinopolsky noted.
In a conversation with RT, special equipment expert Andrei Klintsevich drew attention to the fact that the practical use of shielding the generated heat is highly likely to hide military personnel from detection, however, in warm and hot weather, the military should not wear such a camouflage suit for a long time due to the risk overheating of the body.
“The effect of shielding the generated heat is used in foreign camouflage suits and capes. This is really effective because the heat is actually locked away by the gear. But the disadvantage of this effect is the violation of thermoregulation, which increases the risk of heat stroke, especially if the soldier is actively moving. You can’t wear a suit with shielding for a long time, ”Klintsevich explained.
According to Alexander Butyrin, perfect means of protection against detection in various ranges have not yet been created either in Russia or in other countries of the world. However, the experience of the special operation served as an incentive for breakthrough domestic developments.
“According to the NMD, we can conclude that military operations and reconnaissance have become much more often carried out at night. For this reason, both means of detection and means of protection against them are now being intensively developed. This is quite tough competition, and, in my opinion, Russian developers are close to finding a balance between convenience and high protective properties of camouflage elements, ”Butyrin concluded.
“.. expert Andrei Klintsevich drew attention to the fact that the practical use of shielding the generated heat is highly likely to hide military personnel from detection, however, in warm and hot weather, the military should not wear such a camouflage suit for a long time due to the risk overheating of the body.
The effect of shielding the generated heat is used in foreign camouflage suits and capes. This is really effective because the heat is actually locked away by the gear. But the disadvantage of this effect is the violation of thermoregulation, which increases the risk of heat stroke, especially if the soldier is actively moving. You can’t wear a suit with shielding for a long time …”
A guy that fought in Yugoslav wars told me the same thing a couple of decades ago. He talked about some one piece suite that made you infrared invisibe, but you could not wear it for more that 15 minutes because it gets way too hot.
Protection from infrared vision is essentially thermal isolation. The problem is, what to do with the heat. Tanks have thermal blakets, but exhaust is still hot, and the barrel too after a few shots.
Speaking of hot barrels, another guy told me a story about rubbing howitzer barrels with snow, in order not to pop un on thermal vision.
As a child in the mid sixties, it was television and print for me. My parents seldom watched, but their info came from radio and print. Today it is internet dominating for both print and audio/video. No commercials constantly interrupting, you get to search out multiple sources etc.. The internet is to television what television was/is to radio. The internet is the new medium and delivers print, audio, and video in a volume and diversity of sources that is revolutionary. The internet will change societies and culture as much or more than the Gutenberg press. We are
only still infants in this new world being born. Nation states grew up after
Gutenberg and the internet will slowly destroy the nation state. We live
in interesting times.
I can hardly stand to watch any MSM news. Most of it is spin and propaganda designed for some social engineering objective. Perhaps “Morning Joe” is the worst. What a midwit, sanctimonious ninny. Thank God for Larry Johnson, Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, Russel Brand, Jordan Peterson, Col. MacGregor, the Duran, Zero Hedge, The Unz Review and so many more. You guys are rocking it!
My very first encounter with the Mainstream media was when I went to the US for the first time in 1972 to go to grad school. The sheer superficiality of news coverage was jaw dropping. It bordered on childish. I was forced to buy a shortwave radio to listen to European news broadcasts in English. This has remained virtually unchanged to this day. The propaganda content, the ignorance of announcers is beyond the pale. Yet millions of Americans depend on such organisations as their sole source of news. They swallow the trash hook, line and sinker.
Here in France I did watch the Trump interview on Twitter and I don’t have a Twitter account.
Relevant indeed.
As to your meeting. Look at the power holders. The hideous Diane Feinstein. George Soros. Biden. Average age 85. It is charming that 35-year-olds are watching Tucker on Twitter. They don’t run things. And won’t for many years. Biden will be 86 when he ends his second term.
And this new information age will end. The EU is formulating social media censorship laws that will have a broad reach. And if you think these are not effective, try to access RT. Can it be done? Yes. But it certainly adds time and complexity. And people take the easy way out.
The old will eventually die, but the censorship will grow young and vital especially with AI enhanced fusion centers. You know how when you talk with your buddy about shooting pool in person, and then pool cue ads start showing up on your feed? The smart phone is your leash and your dog collar. And it will be your Stasi officer always at hand.
And between the government censored and controlled feed and the instruction by union school teachers? There will be no help from the young. The new generations will be well trained sheep that will be more than happy to turn their parents in for “speech” violations.
Right now, alt media is the Wild West. With its freedom and its excesses. It will be tamed and turned to the Masters purposes in a short matter of time. Enjoy the present.
Very well said.
You nailed Larry. Legacy media has lost revalence due to technology advancement and their decision to abandon journalism and embrace advocacy. Their Overton window was always too narrow. Thanks for all you do. 🇨🇦
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRDp7bVDDt8
‘The time of the Wild West is over,’ EU’s Věra Jourová warns Elon Musk’s Twitter from Davos
Jan 19, 2023 The EU Commissioner for Values and Transparency discussed the Twitter takeover with Euronews Next at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The values that Ursula van der Leyen tried to lecture India.
Since then these are EU enforceable laws.
Any new information on the grapevine about Jack Teixeira?
Or is his case (and those documents’ original source) simply fading from view in both legacy and alt_media? How much of alt_media is financed by the deep state?
Who sets the agenda? Who “fact-checks”? The legacy media are become arbiters of narrative, conformity and acceptable public discourse for the political elite, which is also occurring on all social media platforms except X and blogs…
In the end, however, alt_media, social media, blogs, or whatever will stratify the same way as cable news — people will gravitate toward publishers and writers with whom they already tend to agree — which is why the deep state is serious about early childhood indoctrination into alphabet sexuality.
That future is fact-free feelings and emotions, with hate speech prosecutions for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Control.
In an attempt to remain relevant the MSM have turned themselves into the equivalent of TASS and Pravada.
I bet MSM told you that TASS and Pravada are the worst.
Here in Canada..or what was Canada..I can no longer read Alastair Crooke on Strategic Culture which is blocked now. Ritter is hard to find. Long life to Larry Johnston I say!
But the world is a big place and if the decadent West hates truth others will make sure it gets out,
I just tried connecting from Canada and it works fine. The old .org address used to be DNS-blocked at home but not at work so I just put the IP address into my hosts file to access it from home.
This simply reiterates that the people dreaming of controlling the Internet and building an AI prison for us are retards.
Good Morning Larry:
I think this post of yours is important, especially in moving forward. I have reread and thoughtfully pose the following response:
1) “Why the hell did they let you into the group?” They were feeling charitable, I guess, when they invited me to participate.”
You are being modest. I think you have a lot to contribute and have great analytical skills and simply “human-ism” that is helpful to discussions, for any age group.
2) “Yet, some of these good folks just cannot believe that so many people actually watched the interview and try to dismiss the 260 million plus number as nothing more than idle clicks. These are the people who still watch cable news “
In truth, there were probably many “random clickers” however, what your people who are still “watching” cable news were not accounting for was the “international reach”. The “cable networks” are not readily available internationally, whereas Twitter is. The 260 million may seem astonishing for a population of 340ish million, but on a global view ship, within expectations of anyone that high profile. Interviews with movie stars or professional athletes can also garner those numbers because of international reach.
3). “My criticism of Barack Obama and his ties to terrorists and other unsavory political characters made me persona non grata with the rest of the media. I am not complaining and I have no regrets. Just telling the story.”
I was fairly new to “Internet info” had a twitter account and “spammed”: “Obama is a liar” all over the place, was immediately “suspended”, I was new to it all, I didn’t even know what “spamming” was. In any case, I cancelled my “Twitter” account and haven’t had one since. And am in agreement with you, “Obama” is still a liar.
4) “But at least we had an honest disagreement without rancor or screaming.
After 2008 all of that changed. Fox became the anti-Obama channel and the rest of the media donned their Obama cheerleading outfits. The age of honest debate (if it ever existed) was over. “
There are many things to consider about “honest debate without rancor & screaming”
For consideration:
A) I don’t agree with your “2008” timeframe. The 2001 “War on Terror” and Bush campaign largely split news networks into more “selected” extreme “coverage” in networks.
B) By 2004-2006 the “Networks” had been “consolidated” into largely “privatized” ownerships & exists as 6-8 (or less now?) mega corporations under same control.
C) Obama “campaign” used all levers, social media, all cable networks and smashed the election. Well aware of “Twitter” reach.
Before I move on to other responses, I want to rear view mirror a couple of things regarding “media” and “cable news”:
The skyrocketing ratings that surprised networks with shows:
Phil Donohue (being the first)
Oprah Winfrey
Jerry Springer
Dave Letterman
These shows ushered in the “infotainment” into “cable” news, with solid interviewers and newscasters like Walter Cronkite & Barbara Walters (and yourself) rendering these “obsolete”.
Now “cable news” was all about ratings. The more sensational & “dramatic” the better.
This was the “pivotal” change that began these completely made up stories, the start, but made worse later.
“Newspapers” used to separate “News” from “Opinions”…I used to read “Herb Caan” in the SF Chronicle , under his name was: “Opinion Columnist” he was a journalist simply writing his “opinion” was very popular and was distinguished between “said facts” and opinion. Forget that today on cable news, or frankly in most, even “alternative” news… everything is some kind of “fact” instead of an “opinion”… another cross over point on the road to the now delusional.
5) “Most politicians do not understand nor comprehend the shift that has taken place. There are exceptions. Barack Obama picked up on it early”…
He certainly did. I was a participant in the outrage of Syria.(after the Libyan “campaign”) The social media boards went ballistic, inciting Americans to the point of outrage against war not seen since the 60s, immediately “petitions” went up with 100s of thousands signatures, so effective was that social media outcry that something had to be done…
And something was done:
“Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012” HR4712 … allowing “government sanctioned Propaganda”
2012: An outraged Hillary Clinton
“We are losing the “information war”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LyjnEm8DZkI&pp=ygUqSGlsbGFyeSBjbGludG8gaW4gY29uZ3Jlc3MgaW5mb3JtYXRpb24gd2Fy
6) “That world no longer exists, thanks in large part to Covid. All of the networks, both in the United States and abroad, discovered Zoom, Skype, Streamyard and Google as more efficient, cheaper and quicker ways to snag an interview.”
I disagree with this. Before 2019 the internet was largely doing interviews and “on the ground reporting” and far fewer “set interviews” in cable newsrooms as before. The “viewership” increased because no one could go anywhere is all. I agree on the point of costs and “perfecting” the tech though.
7) “The combination of blogs and podcasts have created a new world that cuts across international borders and provides the means for creating a genuine international community of conversation. We just have to do what we can.”
Our time is getting short. Today I read this:
https://www.courthousenews.com/eu-law-kicks-in-aimed-at-making-life-on-online-safer-less-toxic/
Read the whole article. Absolutely mind bending verbiage for brainwashing.
An unelected EU body will be “gateway” for “toxic information” now punishable even by arrests and serving time.
We had our own Biden trying to introduce an “information Tsar”, now going back, watering down slightly and reintroducing.
All platforms as pointed out are “privately owned” and “the people” need their own platform(s).
Please suggest to your group, or the many possible influencers you have the following:
1) Arrange a “We the People” or some such name “Consortium” to Incorporate a privatized platform with investors, donators & tech savvy (and lawyers) to protect free speech.
We can’t keep on with Google ect.
2) Begin a petition… Nationwide to repeal “2012 Smith-Mundt Act”… even if we can’t find a Congressman to take a Bill up, the symbolism is important. The traction it gains will be important. It’s a very loud and clear scream “we don’t want your government sanctioned propaganda STOP”.
3) Begin petition with Proposal of a Bill .. something simple… “hate speech” is a first amendment right. There are already “incitement” laws on the books. Any “action” that may follow “hate speech” that is unlawful, is already on the books.
Since the Supreme Court, under the 14th Amendment made “Corporation are People” too.. well, hells bell… they’re protected under the 1st amendment. Anyways, the Bill should clearly prohibit Federal Government overreach into Amendment will not be tolerated.
The bottom line, we’re simply not United enough to break to Uniparty structure & status quo. There are too many people that the US as some National Sovereign state, instead of the “Empire” that it is.
The West is separating, the wall is coming down, the EU/US/UK and poodles, will be behind an iron curtain of information soon.
The “test” of compliance & obedience is being implemented in the EU. Arrests and “examples” will continue to flow.
We’re running out of time…
“Trump” is not going to “save us”… nor the “next election”…we’re on our own to unify and collectively ignite activism or continue to blog and interview separately for “awareness” as we systematically, one by one, get shut down and disappear.
A Nationstate that died with a whimper instead of a roar . We wouldn’t be the first I suppose.
Good post. It is over Brother. The USA will not be saved. You can make plans to get the fuck out, or you can be “corrected”. And the coming slave state? Is what the majority of people want. Look at the popular election vote. Not the sometimes-close Electoral college. A majority that is growing larger every day wants the control Mommy state.
Never ever think of leaving. It’s a losing proposition. You will just make their game easier. And besides, it’s the real MAFIA, they’ll get you anywhere. Better to be got while surrounded by family, friends or, at least, people you understand, no matter how few or useless they are.
I’m not addressing this just to you. Everyone, from Europe to Antarctica should at least stay put, if not fight in some way.
Just my 2c of course.
The phenomenal reception of Rich Men North of Richmond would indicate that the Trump Carlson interview was speaking to the same ” Hungry for Hope” population in the collective West.
How near are we to an uprising one could ask. given thes figures?
Have a look at US voter priorities Feb 2023 – Ukraine is not even on the list :
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/02/06/economy-remains-the-publics-top-policy-priority-covid-19-concerns-decline-again/pp_2023-02-06_political-priorities_00-01/
Which means it has no effect whatsoever on Biden’s approval, which means he can funnel money.
So who are critics addressing, and who is listening?
Curiously that PEW survey did not include Russia, a separate one did :
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/06/15/more-than-four-in-ten-republicans-now-say-the-us-is-providing-too-much-aid-to-ukraine/
This. I love this forum, but it is a tiny bubble chamber. Americans could give a shit about Ukraine. They don’t know who Prigozhin is. They couldn’t point to Europe on a fucking unlabeled globe map.
The main stream media is a relic at least in one aspect. It was designed to control.
The main stream media was established as a funnel. They controlled input. The WSJ signals, to all outlets down the line, as to what is the allowed to go through. Should anything escape and depending on its size and speed of absorption, the WSJ would marshal outlets in those markets to suppress the “story” and destroy the story teller, end of story.
So why is it a relic? It has no control over nor can it wrest control from the Net. The internet is a seive, too many holes to control output and no control over input. Input is too fast and more importantly, an unpredictable vector.
A Putin interview by Carlson would break the Net on a global scale.
Then let’s think outside the box for a moment. How about a next interview of Trump and Putin? That would be watched by most freezing Europeans for sure, to say the least. One topic of discussion would be how to end the war in Ukraine? Checkmate WEF.
After such an interview, who would become the difacto President of the US, for a while? Not Obiden. Hey, if they can pull a “Guaidó,” why can’t a we pull a temporary “Trump” untill the elections?
LJ, on a different topic: the difficult relation between security and wokeness:
CIA Stairwell Attack Among Flood of Sexual Misconduct Complaints at Spy Agency
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/08/25/cia-stairwell-attack-among-flood-of-sexual-misconduct-complaints-spy-agency.html
I certainly have no answers here, but think the issue is worth noting.
We’ve come a long way, for better or worse, from the days of Wild Bill Donovan.
https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/the-legend-of-wild-bill-how-donovan-got-his-nickname/
I don’t know a lot about the OSS except that my husband knew one of Patton’s aide-de-camps in Africa and Italy and he believed that it was the OSS that murdered Patton. They all believed that. Getting away with something like that would set the stage for further lawlessness as described in that article about the sexual abuse.
It’s mostly the operational arm that is the problem, according to this interview with RFK Jr. There’s about 4,000 of them.
https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1691228480556429312
Good article.
Question: what are Obama’s ties to terrorists? I hadn’t heard about that before.
“Question: what are Obama’s ties to terrorists? I hadn’t heard about that before.”
The Weather Underground members were his backers to climb up the political ladder.
Thomas
Obama’s ties to terrorists? Well, he put Biden in charge of Ukraine.
Bill Ayers. Domestic terrorists.
My wife is 70 I’m 68, we’ve decided to dump cable and just use Internet. The hurdle most people have our age to dumping cable is a purely technical one. And that is… how do I get whats on my phone or tablet to show up on my TV set? With Youtube a little Chromecast icon displays, easy, youtube works great. But with Twitter videos there is no Chromecast button on my phone for the videos to send them to the TV set. Once all Internet web sites implement Chromecast buttons on all their videos, then cable will truly be dead. Basically the “device to TV” barrier is still lacking in the electronics and software. I can’t understand why Twitter, which wants to become a long-form video platform, cant or won’t implement something as elegant as a Chromecast button on their videos, its pretty stupid of Musk who I thought was smart about tech.
How do I get whats on my phone or tablet to show up on my TV set?
Get an “Android TV” Box from Amazon or eBay (at least 4 GB RAM Memory). Basically it is a customized Android phone without the phone part of it. It works very well and comes to hook-up with your TV. In addition, it comes unlock so you can remove any application that you do not need and can install any without artificial restrictions.
Larry’s observations about the limo ride to the studio and the Green Room, etc., ring true, as I did financial commentary on CNBC (Ft. Lee, NJ) and other NYC-based networks in the ’90s. The Money Honey, Maria Bartiromo, even came to my office downtown a few times for interviews, camera crew in-tow.
And like Larry, my fate was struck when I wouldn’t agree to spout a perspective the producer was looking for in booking my next appearance. They never called again–having been struck from their list of useful guests.
The MSM is a dumping ground for “leaks.” Here is an excellent analysis of such “leaks”:
https://www.unz.com/runz/secret-intelligence-leaks-vs-basic-common-sense/
I see many people who are ignorant, jaded, cynical or just don’t care. Many of them, at best, are consumers of the mainstream. Right understanding is impossible.
Searching and consuming alternative sources is a sifting process, but it must be done, like priming a pump. People who are not able or willing to invest some time will not succeed without someone rattling their cages. I appreciate Larry giving us information that we can test and verify and know we are on the right track.
Larry,
I think this might be a case where Marshall McLuhan’s “THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE” might apply?
Societies throughout time are always subject to stresses, these can be external, like natural disasters, or internal, like economic, political, and social upheavals etc. A well-adjusted society will adapt and flex to the stressors, however a rigid, non-adaptable/non-responsive society may not. Often one cannot tell whether a society is flexible or rigid until a stressor is well along and a catalyst (new communication medium) arrives to manifest it. In well adapted societies, when a new medium emerges, it is accommodated and adjusted for without disrupting the society. However, when a new medium emerges in a rigid society under stress, it can be the catalyst for radical changes or even an explosion.
If one studies history, one might notice that in many places, between 50-100 years after the printing press was introduced in a particular region, a rebellion occurs. The Catholic Church initially embraced the printing press as a means of freeing up clergy from having to mass produce liturgy (eg, hymn books) that was to be widely distributed. However, that same printing press ignited the Protestant Reformation. In the American colonies, the printing press was brought in to mass produce royal proclamations and to help administer the colonies, but it also found another audience, less favorable to the Monarchy. One could also make the assertion that it was the mandatory “weekly mass” that allowed Christianity to overtake the Pagan religions in the early Roman Empire. The mass was simply another medium.
The other aspect of new mediums is that they are subject to “positive feedback loops”. In the American Colonies, printing presses were expensive, forcing the owners to find material (messages) that colonists were willing to consume. If the society is well adjusted, a printer may have discovered that printing cookie recipes was enough to make the business profitable. In maladjusted societies, printers often find that anti-establishment messages are the best sellers. And thus, a positive feedback loop is created, where the grievance literature creates a demand for itself. Even if the printer disagrees with the message, he prints it to stay in business. In the American Colonies, the greatest amount of rebellious sentiment occurred in regions with the most printing presses. So, that raises an interesting question: without the “medium” would there have been a rebellion in the American Colonies? Or would they have gone the way of Canada, where the same grievances existed, but where there was a dearth of printing presses?
The internet (medium) arrived in America after the end of the “Cold War” when the elites were forecasting a “New American Century” and the “End of History”. In the early years, it was thought that the internet would “bring everyone together”, similar to the way television did during the post World War II economic expansion. However, that turned out not to be the case and the establishment is desperate to contain / censor / suppress it. In all likelihood, that is a lost cause, because the medium has found an audience and has entered a positive feedback loop. (The introduction of of cheap radios by the Nazi’s in post Weimar Germany had a similar effect.) Furthermore, the new medium is much less expensive to produce and more flexible to consume, than the old medium, and therefore less subject to elite control.
So, what we have now is the expensive old medium (mainstream media), developed in post-World War II America, being used to compete with and suppress the less expensive new medium (internet / social media) that emerged out of the Post Cold War Era (aka: era of globalization).
I would have thought that the CIA would have a department for “COMMUNICATION THEORY” that would have laid all of the above out, but apparently not.
Food for thought.
Interesting thoughts, but I could claim the opposite. The internet flattens the masses. It makes them passive. They may write angry posts, but they will never leave their cages. Was Neil postman right
You could be right. If it is correct it is quite a brilliant and counter intuitive strategy as one might superficially think the reverse. I would not put it past TPTB; the ultimate version of “controlled opposition”, splintered into a thousand fragments, the “divide and rule” strategy applied to the electronic age. It might not be a difficult thing to test as there seems to be / were both versions available: China’s Great Firewall and a free-for-all in the West. So there could be a basis of comparison, based on which system eventually created a more stable, cohesive and governable society. I just put it out there as food for thought / discussion item. Thanks for your reply!
The truth is in between. As long as there is opposition, there could be a revolution. To be 100 percent sure, you have to follow Stalin or Mao. But it is a dangerous way from our society to Stalin.
So, all you have to do is to monitor the resistance. As long as it is practically unable to perform anything, let them talk. As soon as trouble may start, start countermeasures: Judges, media campaigns.
Kind of like this:
“Yes, Minister” – Why the UK is in the European Union
https://youtu.be/ZVYqB0uTKlE?t=112
🙂
The fun part is seeing the MSM trying to be a thing on the web and failing to prevail in a universe where everyone can speak and not only the authorized ones.
They tried hard … clickbaiting , gaslighting , trolling ; you name it , they used all the dirty tools available and yet they still failed. A wild freelance with a blog get more attention.
They are like that too nice girl in college who can’t keep a boyfriend and look at the other less nice girls in a relation since two years … she don’t understand. She’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
My four kids, oldest 19, don’t know what public TV is. They never watch it. The are the generation smartphone.
But they also hardly read books. A 100 page book is something harder to overcome than a wall made of concrete.
Politics was never made by the masses. Neither did the whole France kill the king in 1789, nor were more than 5 percent actively rioting in Russia in 1917. Lenin lied when he speaks about the people’s revolution.
So, what now with the internet? Can it trigger a revolution? Or is only a maidan like organisation able to shake up the USA?
CNN or X can just make Blabla.
I have avoided commercial media like the plague since my college days. Even Benjamin Franklin recognized the corrosive effects of advertising on press freedom.
“We cannot (and should not) go back to the halcyon days of the 1990s and early 2000s. The combination of blogs and podcasts have created a new world that cuts across international borders.”…that´s quite right to con-clude, the MSM:s collective narrative about Ukraine is boring, foreseeable, what the big MSM:s fight to preserve. the same development as a “multi-polar world”, it will arrive. As a more equal society for men and women, and the immigration groups will have more influence, and a say in the society.
Don´t forget the greatest revolution since 1950s, about the conditions for all the young people, maybe the most important and successful change, not that easy to observe, all the 1940s and boomers, were not immediately grey “grown-ups” but young people, with an own lifestyle, money music, clothes, culture. That´s the most lasting change during this century. Maybe today, a continuation followed in the identity policy, a more confusing event.
The music- and popidols driving this were born early in the 1940s, the Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Who, Byrds, Beachboys, et al, and there was an equivalent group of journalist, teachers, intellectuals, whom call the main policys in question, especially during the Vietnam war, what shaped the journalism for decades. It was about a modernization all over.
But that’s history now, with a new generation, who will earn much money, and stay in power, what-so-ever, so we can count them out as a part of the establishment. Since 24/2 2022, not one word from them questioning the Ukraine war, but of course they identify themselves with the Ukrainians, what most elder people don’t do. Maybe the youngster´s “Vietnamwar”, but what they will lose, but their opinions are compact pro- Ukraine.
But the journalism is gone, as even the diplomacy, in our time, two of the main pillars, in the society, maybe an effect of the big organisations, the EU/ Nato, not allowing individual initiatives, or not even thinking, only with risk of exclusion, what an effect of the Internet society, the boring EU,
closed down the RT, to show it’s repressive power, over its citizens, like in the Soviet Union, a black-out from above, humiliating, for adults, state of emergency, sorry folks.
About 1962 a special radio, on a ship, sending pop music from the charts, and advertisements, the rebel with a cause, Mick Jagger visited, the: Radio Nord(North) but outside the nautical borders, was banned of the govern-ment, the same mindset, surviving in the EU, those days Eurovision, EU-TV, sent 1958 the election of a new pope, the popes not pop, all teenagers Vatican-dream, from the Catholic Europe.
But Sweden is still too rebellious to join Nato, due to Turkey, but works on her full subordination, every day, new laws against free-speech.
Great commentary and fascinating history Larry. Obviously, given the extensive comments, lots of folks have opinions covering all aspects from approval to criticism to “here’s my history”. Has occurred to me in my old age, having enjoyed travel all over the world and being “Jack of All Trades”, that there is a huge component of the U.S. population and much of the world that I project is much younger than most of the posters here and really doesn’t give a s**t about the opinions expressed here. They are so much more involved in tic tok and their personal gratification than anything that influences or makes their world go round. The profound impact of this majority ignoring politics or simply going along to get along leads us to this brave new WEF world, no matter our understanding and screaming about how illogical and irresponsible the “world” has become. Great sorrow for the world my progeny will live in!
I am a Brazilian and since 15 years ago I do not see, watch or listen the MSM, here represented by Globe, Record, SBT, Band, Estadão, Folha de SP, VEJA, IstoÉ, Época among others. My brain do not accept so many manipulation, disinformation. Anybody with 2 neurons know that it represents only the voice of the capital. It is a corrupt and evil segment of society.
Mainstream media is not dead. Not by a long shot. Mainstream media feeds content to the online version of those media companies. While people may not watch TV or cable, they certain turn to the online versions. Do a search for the top American online news outlets and you will see that the NYTimes and CNN are typically the top two viewed outlets. We are talking about hundreds of millions per month. Repeat, we are talking about hundreds of millions of views per month. What we see on CNN is in good part clips from their cable shows.
What has changed is the deliver mechanism. Paper to cable and now to internet websites. But it is the same propaganda and psyops only worse because their reach is almost beyond imagination.
Since X, formerly Twitter, has been commented on, I thought I would throw in my two cents.
I am not a fan of social media although I did go to reddit to see the latest videos of idiots in action. I don’t do facebook or LinkedIn. When Elon Musk took over Twitter ostensibly for free speech I started an account to support him. Later I paid for the blue check mark in the hopes that I would be viewed with a bit more respect, or at least not thought to be a bot, but again to support Musk, not that he noticed my $96. Things at Twitter seemed to improve, based on what I read since I hadn’t been on Twitter prior to the buyout. However, Linda Yaccarino was recently hired and it seems that she, aside from having a face that you just want to punch, intends to generally make “harmful” posts still be available but difficult to find or navigate to. So much for free speech.
Also, I comment on posts here and there on X and always try to be as non “harmful” as possible, but that’s not always easy if one’s position is that trans individuals are suffering from mental illness, or that the Rainbow People are actually heading up a Tyranny by the Minority. I have noticed though that comments that are probably perceived by the Rainbow People as “harmful” are never upvoted or retweeted. So I wonder if I am shadowbanned. That is, are my posts are being hidden and I am unaware of it?
And I am still grateful for You not moderating the comments on this blog.
They are moderated, but the bar is low. One needs to try hard to go below it.
Thank you Larry. I think the news has always been extremely one sided, and that side is the financial sector. The Hearst newspapers were incredibly biased in favor of capital and war in the early 1900s. There was never a golden age of newspapers in the US, but for quite a time, the news at least had a tinge of adversary against the powerful. There were times when the reporting was good, but that was always tempered by the fact that the major news outlets were all owned by financial elites. There has never been a major, nationwide worker’s paper, or anything like it, as that would be called communist or socialist and would get no ad revenues to stay afloat. But alas, it is far worse than that now, where everything is just pure drivel propaganda. Absolute manufacturing of consent. Brainwashing. But there is big money in brainwashing, so don’t expect it to go away any time soon.
Here is a civilizational theme that defines us as free or not societies that should be debated every day! But the platform only defines consumption habits and not the information content that is important to debate. While I agree that there are good shows on the internet from alternative media, the internet also remains the biggest source of fake news! What is important to discuss is journalism, which is as important in Democracy as the legislative power or the judicial system. Journalism, the 4th power in Democracies serves to scrutinize all the powers that be, including the elected Govts and inform the public! Especially when political power derails like today!
This war would never have started if the populations had been well informed about what is happening in Ukraine since 2014! There is no Democracy without a free and independent press! But as the current neoliberal order in the West fails to maintain hegemony within the rules of the rule of law, it has killed journalism! That’s what we’re watching today! Journalism in the big media was murdered. Like Japan’s economy in the 1980s! Journalism is not an economic activity that seeks profit. Journalism informs! And the big media were all bought by the big oligarchs – who also took over the Govts – to misinform. And this phase of neoliberalism was already expected. When take all the sources of knowledge such as journalism and the Universiades. And getting out of the current dystopia is not going to be easy.
In Europe we used to have public televisions that guaranteed the practice of true journalism. Journalism is a profession with ethics and deontology and in the recent past journalists who prevaricated were punished and often expelled from the profession! Because you can’t play with such a noble profession that guarantees our freedom as a judge in the Courts. The journalist is not an expert who is never held accountable when he says shit! The journalist has obligations described in the professional card. How to always listen to several sources and guarantee the right to contradictory, etc. Unfortunately, journalism died in the big media, today big corporations, where most people used to get information. Televisions and newspapers. And in Europe even on public television, which shows how countries were taken over by financial power.
The script for the war in Ukraine is the same throughout the West. No matter where we live, we hear the same lies. Many Americans may not know it but the BBC was for many decades one of the best information channels in the world. BBC even made documentaries on Euromaidan explaining how protests were hijacked by neo-Nazi nationalists in Ukraine. Today those documentaries have disappeared and the BBC has a mezzanine with MI6 agents in the information studios. Like the Gestapo in Nazi Germany! And they don’t hide it. The BBC even publicized the mezzanine with MI6 agents during a news service.
Thank you very much, Mr Larry Johnson,
for this -for me- already nostalgic look back to a time of broadcast that seems like a view upon a world of news broadcasting I, being 58 years old now, can remember very well, but appears to me as if completely gone and disappeared in the past two decades.
I am from Germany, so the situation might not be congruent but maybe similar to the situation in the United States of Northern America. For reasons I am not fully capable to understand, the decline of the private owned news media was accompagnied by the downfall of former quality state media news broadcasters like ARD tagesschau and ZDF heute (today), whose evening news shows starting at 7:00, and 8:00 pm, once were a fixed part of German family’s daily lifetime.
But as you’ve already described, there were two or, as I think three main events that changed news sphere forever as if they were of a special quality: 9/11; 2008; and Covid, as you mentioned two of them. After 9/11 the what I want to call cleansing and enforced conformity of news began to become more and more obvious over the years. First there was this rise in patriotism because of the terrorist attacks that shook and shocked the whole world. Then, after 2008, the concentration of media in the hands of only five or six media companys like e.g. Bertelsmann rose drastically when the financial crisis locked down business of a lot of former independant small news agencies and outlets. Most obvious old and traditional papers like FAZ and Frankfurter Rundschau went broke or could only be safed with huge amounts of money from e.g. the Gates Foundation and other investors whose money comes with a price. The price of conformity, as we will see.
Also even the publicly owned state broadcaster, financed by commonality with an annual contribution of more than 200,- Euros (!) like ZDF reduced their reporters drastically, I heard of 2000 reporters whose status was changed from permanent employment to freelancer, which means if the redaction does not like the report you give them, you won’t get paid a dime for your work until you’ve “fixed” the assertion of your dispatch. Nothing there changed for the better since. (https://www.mdr.de/medien360g/medienpolitik/freien-kongress-ard-zdf-100.html)(in German)
When Covid was declared, only some few deviant voices dared to encounter the official narrative, and despite the status of the dissenters like very famous and generally admitted pundit of mRNA vaccination Dr. Robert Malone, were -in always similar sounding smear pieces- declared as being idiots and fools and crazy weirdows who endanger all of our lifes in next to criminal ways. Their social media accounts were shut down, their videos were deleted, and they were ejected from society, and without any scientific reason the lockdowns were declared. Dr Fauci became the Lord of THE SCIENCE, critizising him was similar to pure blasphemy.
I did quit both public sector news shows, and also the daily news shows from private owned TV broadcaster some years earlier, when I realized that what was told me about Syria and Assad from both and any other TV broadcast station was nothing but complete lies without any relation to what was really happening there. Things in Iraq after Husseins demise did not became better, but the whole former rich, free-spirited country, one of the cradles of humanity, was looted and destroyed by terrorists that were not fought but sponsored as “moderate rebels” with the tax payers of the western world’s money!
Unbelievable, as the whole Libyan affair was. Muammar al Gaddafi did built up a wealthy and well functioning society that was completely destroyed and he brutally assaulted with no reason at all! The US army attacked Afghanistan with no reason at all! And all of this was not rejected, but applauded from the TV news anchors. While Covid rules’ tyranny, TV became completely unwatchable in Germany, it degraded to a mere both state and globalist agenda uttering propaganda show. If I, what only very seldom happens nowadays, do a nostalgic zapping through the channels I find the TV completely unwatchable. It is as if they read all from an identical script, and this script is, simply stated, just and only bullshit.
About three years ago, I watched UK column’s daily news show, that starts at 1:00 pm, where they completely dismantled a BBC headline and story of the prior day with all the proof needed. I did feel really both amused and snubbed, when I watched ARD tagesschau that evening at 8:oo pm and they started their news show with literally the same BBC headline and story UK Column completely debunked eight hours before! What is the reason for trifles like this? I think, with this three events mentioned above and by using criminal means that absolutely not only neglect, but surely break the liberty rights both of United State’s constitution, and Germany’s Grundgesetz (i.e. Basic Law), and surely run against any form of freedom of press at all, some cadres with clandestine bonds took over the central positions in media and politics. Their huge salaries appear as if being nothing but bribes.
The problem of the captured media that spreads news I know were debunked as lies weeks or even month before with 100% credibility, is that if politicians of the governing parties do not care at all about this lack of information flow, they degrade themselves to a mere stage show where nothing is done about the real problems of society that urgently need to be fixed, like the more and more opening scissors of wealth distribution which concerns anyone with precarious salary, and nobody even talks about this in the mainstream media, the society might tear apart and nobody realizes it until the whole situation explodes and nothing is left but riots, violence and chaos.
I know that you owners feel quite safe in the luxury of your mansions and castles far away from the ghettos and the city quarters piled up with huge numbers of foreigners by the help of the strangest of all UN projects, the international migration pact. So I have only three questions: Have you servants, and how many? How often and how many security guards control your area? Do you know them personally?
You’ve been warned. And I am just kidding.
Thank you Larry for your service and continued investigative reporting on truth seeking in America ….and in the world….truth which is difficult for people to obtain, decipher and comprehend given the non stop US -NATO propaganda machine!
No. MSM is funded by billionaires at a “loss” to get their message out and will always be with us because it’s not a loss with very narrow overton window we are allowed to discuss. So are bots farms, most social media, and online magazines like Vox, politico etc.
Very very few places real news is allowed like this obscure site and if you ever get too big and get noticed you will be bought out too.
Then you got the feds saying what is and isnt disinformation paying for access too.
basically we are hosed.
Just to say I enjoy your blog and commentary. I learn a lot. And agree with… let’s say, half.
Regarding this post, for me legacy media is completely dead. I think it started in the USA, but now across the West we have just professional liars in the tv… lying all the time. That’s appalling.
There is no Democracy without free and independent press. Without journalism.
I just wish the interview had been more hard-hitting and informative. It was very funny, but this was a sloppy wet kiss softball interview by Tucker…surprised by this. The media landscape is indeed changing but the real numbers for the Tucker Trump interview are likely closer to 10-20 percent of the reported numbers, still very impressive. All you had to do was have your feed roll by on your screen and you were “counted” as a viewer. Heck, even in the old radio station ratings diaries you had to at least listen for 5 minutes to be counted.
I have this discussion with my wife all the time. I say MSM is irrelevant, nobody reads it or listens to it, they all know it’s propaganda–on a good day. Everybody in America knows Biden is the most corrupt pol to ever get into the white house. She says baloney. Then she goes on Google and scans a bunch of news aggregators and there isn’t a word about Biden and his scandals. But there’s plenty on Trump. My point?
A good 50% or more of Americans are as ignorant as rocks. I’m largely talking about people with phds, but it’s almost anyone who votes Democratic. They know nothing about Climategate, the fake Russian collusion, Ukraine, Biden, the corruption at FBI/CIA/DOJ/NSA, the never-ending pressure for censorship, the utter corruption of science, and, of course, Covid & CDC/FDA.
They listen to NPR and some of the others. As you say, the ratings are down. But these folks don’t research or question the government. Otherwise they would have found you at sonar21.
Science is not corrupt. People that form mainstream scientific community are. Those people are scientists in the the same way Zelensky is a democratic leader.