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Post by the Scribe on Mar 11, 2020 11:24:15 GMT
Pew Research has always been a trusted non-partisan entity where lots of valuable information can be obtained. You might not always like it but it can put the kibosh on some of the nonsense conservatives push. There seems to be a topic for just about everything and may set you straight on some of the wedge issues as well. Unfortunately as that famous conservative (my mother) once said "I choose my beliefs so it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks." And my reply as my father's WWII Army Airforce roommate Jack Webb (Joe Friday) would say...."just the facts ma'am."www.pewresearch.org/examples:
NEWS IN THE NUMBERS
JUN 6, 2019 5 facts about the abortion debate in America JUN 5, 2019 Partisans are divided on whether they associate the news media or Trump with ‘made-up’ news JUN 4, 2019 A majority of Americans think abortion will still be legal in 30 years, but with some restrictions JUN 3, 2019 Key findings about U.S. immigrants JUN 3, 2019 Recently arrived U.S. immigrants, growing in number, differ from long-term residents MORE FROM THE FACT TANK
www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank
JUNE 5, 2019 Many Americans Say Made-Up News Is a Critical Problem That Needs To Be FixedPoliticians viewed as major creators of it, but journalists seen as the ones who should fix it
BY AMY MITCHELL, JEFFREY GOTTFRIED, SOPHIA FEDELI, GALEN STOCKING AND MASON WALKER
www.journalism.org/2019/06/05/many-americans-say-made-up-news-is-a-critical-problem-that-needs-to-be-fixed/
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Post by the Scribe on Mar 11, 2020 11:24:35 GMT
Will Sommer - How Conservative Media Changed Under Trump - The Opposition w/ Jordan Klepper
Comedy Central Published on Jun 17, 2018 Daily Beast reporter Will Sommer discusses how the Trump presidency has upended traditional conservative media in favor of conspiracy-spouting fringe outlets.
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Post by the Scribe on Mar 11, 2020 11:25:01 GMT
Partisanship, Propaganda, and Disinformation: Online Media and the 2016 U.S. Presidential ElectionPublished Aug 16, 2017 cyber.harvard.edu/publications/2017/08/mediacloud
Executive Summary
In this study, we analyze both mainstream and social media coverage of the 2016 United States presidential election. We document that the majority of mainstream media coverage was negative for both candidates, but largely followed Donald Trump’s agenda: when reporting on Hillary Clinton, coverage primarily focused on the various scandals related to the Clinton Foundation and emails. When focused on Trump, major substantive issues, primarily immigration, were prominent. Indeed, immigration emerged as a central issue in the campaign and served as a defining issue for the Trump campaign.
We find that the structure and composition of media on the right and left are quite different. The leading media on the right and left are rooted in different traditions and journalistic practices. On the conservative side, more attention was paid to pro-Trump, highly partisan media outlets. On the liberal side, by contrast, the center of gravity was made up largely of long-standing media organizations steeped in the traditions and practices of objective journalism.
Our data supports lines of research on polarization in American politics that focus on the asymmetric patterns between the left and the right, rather than studies that see polarization as a general historical phenomenon, driven by technology or other mechanisms that apply across the partisan divide.
The analysis includes the evaluation and mapping of the media landscape from several perspectives and is based on large-scale data collection of media stories published on the web and shared on Twitter.
Overview of Methods
Cross-linking patterns between media sources offer a view of authority and prominence within the media world.
The sharing of media sources by users on Twitter and Facebook provides a broader perspective on the role and influence of media sources among people engaged in politics through Twitter and Facebook.
The differential media sharing patterns of Trump and Clinton supporters on Twitter enable a detailed analysis of the role of partisanship in the formation and function of media structures.
Content analysis using automated tools supports the tracking of topics over time among media sources.
Qualitative media analysis of individual case studies enhances our understanding of media function and structure. Key Takeaways
Donald Trump succeeded in shaping the election agenda. Coverage of Trump overwhelmingly outperformed coverage of Clinton. Clinton’s coverage was focused on scandals, while Trump’s coverage focused on his core issues.
Disinformation and propaganda are rooted in partisanship and are more prevalent on social media.
The most obvious forms of disinformation are most prevalent on social media and in the most partisan fringes of the media landscape. Greater popularity on social media than attention from media peers is a strong indicator of reporting that is partisan and, in some cases, dubious.
Among the set of top 100 media sources by inlinks or social media shares, seven sources, all from the partisan right or partisan left, receive substantially more attention on social media than links from other media outlets.
These sites do not necessarily all engage in misleading or false reporting, but they are clearly highly partisan. In this group, Gateway Pundit is in a class of its own, known for “publishing falsehoods and spreading hoaxes.”
Disproportionate popularity on Facebook is a strong indicator of highly partisan and unreliable media.
A distinct set of websites receive a disproportionate amount of attention from Facebook compared with Twitter and media inlinks. From the list of the most prominent media, 13 sites fall into this category. Many of these sites are cited by independent sources and media reporting as progenitors of inaccurate if not blatantly false reporting. Both in form and substance, the majority of these sites are aptly described as political clickbait. Again, this does not imply equivalency across these sites. Ending the Fed is often cited as the prototypical example of a media source that published false stories. The Onion is an outlier in this group, in that it is explicitly satirical and ironic, rather than, as is the case with the others, engaging in highly partisan and dubious reporting without explicit irony.
Asymmetric vulnerabilities: The right and left were subject to media manipulation in different ways.
The more insulated right-wing media ecosystem was susceptible to sustained network propaganda and disinformation, particularly misleading negative claims about Hillary Clinton. Traditional media accountability mechanisms—for example, fact-checking sites, media watchdog groups, and cross-media criticism—appear to have wielded little influence on the insular conservative media sphere. Claims aimed for “internal” consumption within the right-wing media ecosystem were more extreme, less internally coherent, and appealed more to the “paranoid style” of American politics than claims intended to affect mainstream media reporting.
The institutional commitment to impartiality of media sources at the core of attention on the left meant that hyperpartisan, unreliable sources on the left did not receive the same amplification that equivalent sites on the right did.
These same standard journalistic practices were successfully manipulated by media and activists on the right to inject anti-Clinton narratives into the mainstream media narrative. A key example is the use of the leaked Democratic National Committee’s emails and her campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails, released through Wikileaks, and the sustained series of stories written around email-based accusations of influence peddling. Another example is the book and movie release of Clinton Cash together with the sustained campaign that followed, making the Clinton Foundation the major post-convention story. By developing plausible narratives and documentation susceptible to negative coverage, parallel to the more paranoid narrative lines intended for internal consumption within the right-wing media ecosystem, and by “working the refs,” demanding mainstream coverage of anti-Clinton stories, right-wing media played a key role in setting the agenda of mainstream, center-left media. We document these dynamics in the Clinton Foundation case study section of this report.
Read the Introduction cyber.harvard.edu/node/99981
Related press coverage: Down the Breitbart Hole (New York Times) www.nytimes.com/2017/08/16/magazine/breitbart-alt-right-steve-bannon.html Study: Breitbart-led right-wing media ecosystem altered broader media agenda (Columbia Journalism Review) www.cjr.org/analysis/breitbart-media-trump-harvard-study.php Researchers Examine Breitbart's Influence On Election Information (NPR) www.npr.org/2017/03/14/520087884/researchers-examine-breitbart-s-influence-on-misleading-information The great divide: The media war over Trump (CBS) www.cbsnews.com/news/the-great-divide-the-media-war-over-trump/
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Post by the Scribe on Mar 11, 2020 11:25:26 GMT
Ben Shapiro, Steven Crowder and other right wing spokesmen and haters are well funded by corporate billionaires and idealogs. Don't think this is by chance. It is a well orchestrated effort to promote the cult of conservatism through a myriad of brainwashing and propaganda techniques. It is indeed a vast right wing conspiracy. You won't find anything like this on the left but maybe it is time to start.Ben Shapiro at Politicon on July 30, 2017, in Pasadena, California. Photo by John Sciulli/Getty Images for Politicon.Ben Shapiro ‘Owns the Libs’…But Who Owns Him?In TYT Investigates, Uncategorized by TYT InvestigatesJuly 31, 20181 Comment legacy.tyt.com/2018/07/31/ben-shapiro-owns-the-libs-but-who-owns-him/
By Alex Kotch
Ben Shapiro’s been called a conservative “wunderkind,” a “cool kid’s philosopher,” and a “principled gladiator.” While these types of profiles tend to ascribe some kind of preternatural persuasive skill to Shapiro, the reality is that his path to success has been gilded by a number of conservative billionaires and multimillionaires, many of whom are major Republican political donors.
Two organizations that promote Shapiro—Turning Point USA and Young America’s Foundation (both heavily pro-Trump)—are propped up with cash from wealthy conservatives. And both groups put Shapiro in the company of racists and Islamophobic figures.
Prominent GOP political donors to these groups include Charles Koch, Education Sec. Betsy DeVos and her family, Robert and Rebekah Mercer, Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, prolific GOP megadonor Richard Uihlein, Home Depot cofounder Bernie Marcus, and Wyoming gubernatorial candidate Foster Freiss.
While the funding behind Breitbart News and Shapiro’s current platform, The Daily Wire, is well known, a full picture of the money behind Shapiro makes it clear that his career depends on a much larger group of major conservatives than he would perhaps like to admit.
ONLINE MEDIA AND SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS: SHAPIRO’S PATH HAS INCLUDED A STINT AT BREITBART NEWS, AN ONGOING SERIES OF SPEAKING GIGS AT UNIVERSITIES, FACILITATED BY YOUNG AMERICA’S FOUNDATION, AND AT TURNING POINT USA EVENTS; AND HIS LATEST VENTURE, WEBSITE THE DAILY WIRE.
“I’ve never met the Kochs, DeVos[es], Mercers, Rauner, Uihlein, or Marcus, and I’ve only met members of the Bradley family and Freiss in passing,” Shapiro told TYT. “Not a single one of these people, or any of our funders at Daily Wire, have ever exerted an iota of editorial control. My opinions are my own, and they’ll stay that way.”
“WUNDERKIND”: BEN SHAPIRO HAS BECOME ONE OF THE MOST RECOGNIZED CONSERVATIVES IN AMERICA. HERE IS THE NETWORK OF WEALTHY CONSERVATIVES AND REPUBLICAN POLITICAL DONORS WHO HAVE HELPED HIS RISE TO FAME.
As the money has piled up, much of it from Trump supporters, Shapiro’s “never-Trump” stance appears to have softened, something Shapiro denies.
In March 2016, Shapiro resigned from the far-right site Breitbart News, known for its racist and anti-immigrant content and for its financial support from the billionaire Robert Mercer, saying that the site had become far too subservient to Trump for his liking. “It is now a propaganda platform,” he told Frontline.
BREITBART NEWS: SHAPIRO BECAME AN EDITOR-AT-LARGE FOR BREITBART NEWS IN 2012 AND LEFT IN 2016. BILLIONAIRE ROBERT MERCER INVESTED $10 MILLION IN BREITBART BUT HAS REPORTEDLY SEVERED TIES WITH THE OUTLET. MERCER AND HIS DAUGHTER, REBEKAH, ARE BOTH BIG GOP DONORS, AND THEIR FAMILY FOUNDATION HAS CONTRIBUTED TO RIGHTWING NONPROFITS IN SHAPIRO’S FUNDER NETWORK.
Following his departure from Breitbart. Shapiro quickly founded the Daily Wire with funding from its owners, brothers Farris and Dan Wilks, Texas fracking billionaires who supported Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the 2016 Republican presidential primary. The brothers and their wives combined to donate $15 million to a pro-Cruz super PAC in the early election season.
Shapiro told TYT that his support for Cruz predated his relationship with the Wilks brothers. “Now, usually, the follow-up question is whether I supported Ted Cruz because they supported Ted Cruz. The obvious answer is no: I backed him all the way back in 2012 when he ran against David Dewhurst.”
DAILY WIRE: SHAPIRO’S CURRENT VENTURE, NEWS AND OPINION SITE DAILY WIRE, WAS FINANCED WITH $15 MILLION FROM THE FRACKING BILLIONAIRE BROTHERS FARRIS AND DAN WILKS.
‘LOOK OUT SNOWFLAKES’
Young America’s Foundation (YAF) is a conservative nonprofit founded in 1960 that maintains the Reagan Ranch and books far-right speakers such as Dinesh D’Souza, David Horowitz, Dana Loesch, and Ted Nugent.
YAF has “Young Americans for Freedom” student chapters at colleges and universities around the country. The nonprofit helps organize and sponsor campus lectures, and Shapiro is one of YAF’s most prolific college speakers. Since 2015, YAF has organized over 35 Shapiro speaking gigs, according to the organization.
In November 2017, YAF announced that it would be the “exclusive home” of Shapiro’s 2018–2019 college speaking tour, funded by Fred R. Allen. (It’s unclear who Fred Allen is, and YAF did not return an inquiry about his identity.) The group announced on July 25 that six universities will host Shapiro this fall with the headline, “LOOK OUT SNOWFLAKES.”
YAF ✔ @yaf HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT: Following more than 1300 requests to host @benshapiro on campus, just SIX SCHOOLS were selected for his fall campus lecture tour ⬇️
252 6:24 AM - Jul 25, 2018 Twitter Ads info and privacy 55 people are talking about this YAF also recently announced sponsored speaking tours for two Daily Wire podcasters, Andrew Klavan and Michael Knowles.
Some YAF speakers, including Shapiro, Horowitz and former YAF speaker Ann Coulter, have faced protests at university speaking engagements due to their previous racist, homophobic, or Islamophobic rhetoric. Shapiro has a history of anti-Islam language.
Ben Shapiro ✔ @benshapiro Israelis like to build. Arabs like to bomb crap and live in open sewage. This is not a difficult issue. #settlementsrock
1,735 12:06 PM - Sep 27, 2010 Twitter Ads info and privacy 4,833 people are talking about this Backing YAF is a fleet of billionaire GOP donors from powerful conservative families. The Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation, named after the in-laws of Betsy DeVos, has directly donated the most to YAF. In 2012, the foundation gave YAF $2 million, and it reportedly gave $6 million from 2009 to 2011. More recently, the donations are smaller; the foundation gave $25,000 in 2014. The affiliated DeVos Urban Leadership Initiative added $1 million in 2012.
The Mercer Foundation donated $100,000 to YAF in 2016, and the Charles Koch Foundation and Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation ($65,000 in 2015 and $75,000 in 2016) have also contributed directly to YAF.
YOUNG AMERICA’S FOUNDATION: YAF IS A CONSERVATIVE NONPROFIT THAT BOOKS RIGHTWING SPEAKERS AND SPONSORS UNIVERSITY STUDENT CHAPTERS AROUND THE COUNTRY. SHAPIRO IS ONE OF ITS MOST IN-DEMAND SPEAKERS. FUNDERS OF THE GROUP INCLUDE THE WEALTHY MERCER, KOCH, DEVOS, AND BRADLEY FAMILIES.
In addition to direct contributions from their family foundations, all four families donate to donor-advised fund Donors Trust, which, along with its sister group Donors Capital Fund, masks the identities of its donors and gives money to YAF and other conservative causes. Koch family foundations are some of the biggest donors to Donors Trust.
TPUSA
An even more controversial organization that often books Shapiro at its events is the campus conservative group Turning Point USA, led by the young Trump devotee Charlie Kirk. Shapiro has spoken at various TPUSA events including the recent Young Women’s Leadership Summit, the 2017 Student Action Summit, and a Creighton University event hosted by the school’s TPUSA chapter.
The right-wing group has been the subject of recent controversy, including meddling in student government elections and a series of staff members who’ve made racist comments. YAF, which was aligned with TPUSA, circulated an internal memo in May condemning TPUSA for for falsifying numbers, “Boosting Numbers With Racists & Nazi Sympathizers,” and “unethical activity.”
“The long-term damage TPUSA could inflict on conservative students and the Conservative Movement can no longer be ignored,” wrote YAF Vice President and General Counsel Kimberly Begg.
Despite being a key speaker for YAF, Shapiro went on to speak at the Young Women’s Leadership Summit in June, after the memo circulated. Kirk “does a lot of great work for the country,” he said in his speech.
TPUSA and YAF share donors the Bradley Foundation and the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation. The student group has also taken in funding from other GOP billionaires including Rauner, Uihlein, Marcus, and Friess.
TURNING POINT USA: THE TRUMP-ALIGNED TPUSA SHARES SEVERAL FUNDERS WITH YAF AS WELL AS WEALTHY GOP DONORS RICHARD UIHLEIN, BERNIE MARCUS AND FOSTER FRIESS, AS WELL AS ILLINOIS GOV. BRUCE RAUNER.
From 2014 to 2016, the Ed Uihlein Foundation gave TPUSA $275,000, according to IRS tax records previously reviewed by this author. The family foundation of Republican Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, a former private equity executive worth an estimated $500 million, donated $150,000 to TPUSA from 2014 to 2015. In 2015, Home Depot cofounder Bernie Marcus’s foundation donated $72,600 to TPUSA. The Henry and Lynde Bradley Foundation gave TPUSA $20,000 from 2015 to 2016, and the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation gave $10,000 in 2015. Public records don’t reveal Friess’ donations to TPUSA, but Bloomberg reported that Freiss, a member of TPUSA’s advisory council, gave Kirk a “five-figure check.”
While Shapiro’s statements on Trump are mixed, TPUSA could not be more supportive of the president. TPUSA events often feature speakers from the Trump family, Trump administration officials, and personalities from the president’s favorite cable news outlet, Fox News. Shapiro says that this dynamic hasn’t affected his rhetoric.
“If you think I’ve stopped critiquing Trump at TPUSA events, for example, I’d recommend you actually watch my speeches at TPUSA. As for my perspective on Trump, I’ve always said that I’ll call balls and strikes—and while I’ve been pleased with a lot of his administration’s policies (particularly on judges and the Middle East), even a basic perusal of my work will show that I’ve been damned critical of him when I think he’s wrong (see tariffs or personal failings).”
CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE FULL INTERACTIVE MAP: “Ben Shapiro’s Gilded Path to Prominence” littlesis.org/maps/3266-ben-shapiro-s-gilded-path-to-prominence?%22Wunderkind%22
Alex Kotch is an award-winning investigative reporter whose work has appeared in The Nation, Vice.com, International Business Times, and Sludge. Follow him on Twitter.
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Post by the Scribe on Mar 11, 2020 11:26:18 GMT
The Power of Conservative Talk Radiowww.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/dovetail.prxu.org/106/630583cb-1bfb-462c-9c14-d967c4544483/20191214_ABC_PODCAST.mp3
blogs.wgbh.org/innovation-hub/2019/12/13/power-conservative-talk-radio/
When Rush Limbaugh’s conservative talk show hit Sacramento in the 1980s, no one could have guessed the power that he - and other right-leaning radio hosts - would eventually wield. Limbaugh’s show was part of an attempt to reinvigorate AM radio, which had been rapidly losing audience to FM, and he quickly gained a die-hard audience. Over the ensuing decades, as conservative talk radio grew in power and popularity, it dramatically reshaped the Republican party. And it may well have played a key role in President Trump’s ascent to the White House.
Brian Rosenwald is a scholar-in-residence at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the book, “Talk Radio’s America: How an Industry Took Over a Political Party That Took Over the United States.” He joined us to tell the story of how conservative talk saved AM radio, influenced American politics, and changed our political reality.
Three Takeaways:
Although Limbaugh’s show is conservative, his true priority is putting on a good show. And that has meant focusing on conservative politicians who, in his eyes, have failed to fight hard enough for conservative values. According to Rosenwald, adopting this “warlike” stance has contributed markedly to the polarization we see in American politics today.
Limbaugh’s listeners are loyal and politically active, which means that when he or another conservative host says that something needs to be done, their fans can frequently make it happen. This was evident in the 1994 election, when Limbaugh mobilized his listeners to bring about the “Republican Revolution,” and conservatives made massive gains in the House and Senate.
Rosenwald argues that the culmination of Limbaugh’s impact on politics became clear with President Donald Trump’s election. The right had been frustrated for decades with politicians who, they felt, wouldn’t fight for them. Trump, by contrast, embraced the language of conservative talk show hosts. He was a frequent guest on Laura Ingraham’s radio show even before he announced his intention to run for president, and had tested out his some of his ideas and talking points with her.
More reading:
Before Rush Limbaugh was a household name, he was just a guy with a shot at stardom. Watch this 1988 interview from Connecticut Public Access TV (it took place during the first year of his national radio show, which was under-the-radar at first) to get a sense of who Limbaugh was before he became famous.
According to Rosenwald, one of the consequences of the aggressive tone in conservative talk radio is an increasingly polarized conversation in politics. Revisit our recent conversation about polarization to hear more about what divisive politics means for the U.S.
Another name that may come to mind when it comes to conservative radio is Alex Jones. Take a look at this New York Times article from a former staff member for Alex Jones to get a glimpse behind the scenes. Republican Party, politics, conservative talk radio, brian rosenwald, Rush Limbaugh
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Post by the Scribe on Mar 11, 2020 11:26:44 GMT
Talk Radio's America: How an Industry Took Over a Political Party That Took Over the United Statesby Brian Rosenwald
Overview The cocreator of the Washington Post’s “Made by History” blog reveals how the rise of conservative talk radio gave us a Republican Party incapable of governing and paved the way for Donald Trump.
America’s long road to the Trump presidency began on August 1, 1988, when, desperate for content to save AM radio, top media executives stumbled on a new format that would turn the political world upside down. They little imagined that in the coming years their brainchild would polarize the country and make it nearly impossible to govern. Rush Limbaugh, an enormously talented former disc jockey—opinionated, brash, and unapologetically conservative—pioneered a pathbreaking infotainment program that captured the hearts of an audience no media executive knew existed. Limbaugh’s listeners yearned for a champion to punch back against those maligning their values. Within a decade, this format would grow from fifty-nine stations to over one thousand, keeping millions of Americans company as they commuted, worked, and shouted back at their radios. The concept pioneered by Limbaugh was quickly copied by cable news and digital media.
Radio hosts form a deep bond with their audience, which gives them enormous political power. Unlike elected representatives, however, they must entertain their audience or watch their ratings fall. Talk radio boosted the Republican agenda in the 1990s, but two decades later, escalation in the battle for the airwaves pushed hosts toward ever more conservative, outrageous, and hyperbolic content.
Donald Trump borrowed conservative radio hosts’ playbook and gave Republican base voters the kind of pugnacious candidate they had been demanding for decades. By 2016, a political force no one intended to create had completely transformed American politics.
How Rush Limbaugh in 1988 propelled Trump's 2016 win
Talk Radio's America: Book Report (by Brian Rosenwald)
Historian Brian Rosenwald talks the effects of talk radio on voters
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