Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! – Isaiah 5:20

There are four tactics favored by many mainstream media outlets, including the NY Times, that help them fulfill their two primary goals. Let’s start with their goals since they’re blatant: get more eyeballs for their paid subscription model and help Democrats win elections.

How do they do this? They have standard journalistic strategies that work for them well because they’ve been around for so long. They have access to people, manpower to cover stories, and resources to acquire assets necessary to make their stories popular. Those are the positive strategies they use, strategies that every news outlet strives to benefit from to various degrees. But they also use four tactics that help them with their secondary goal of pushing the left’s agenda:

1. Shock headlines. While they rarely go as far as smaller outlets or tabloids, they are masters among the “big boys” at generating headlines to make their points.
2. Credible experts with an agenda. One can argue that this is a technique all good outlets use to push their various agendas, but nobody is as adept at it as the New York Times. For example, if they’re pushing global warming, they get the best activists with science studies degrees to push the narrative.
3. Manipulative statistics. Again, this is a common tactic, but the NY Times has mastered it. They have stat-finders on staff who comb the various studies of the world to find data that supports their premise. If that sounds natural, let’s not forget the idea should be the other way around. They should use statistics to form their premise.
4. Begging the question. Contrary to the popular use of the phrase, it actually refers to a logical fallacy in which a premise becomes the basis of evidence for the premise. Similar to circular reasoning, it assumes a disputed notion to be factually correct.

In one editorial they published yesterday, they used the four tactics all at once. The title of the story is, “Pregnancy Kills. Abortion Saves Lives.”

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! pic.twitter.com/C2AhMqiH5D

— JD Rucker (@JDRucker) May 22, 2019

I won’t link to it.

The article itself is an exercise in begging the question. For the statement in the headline to be remotely true, one has to assume that the preborn baby that’s aborted is not a life. If it were a life, then the statement would be (and in fact, is) ludicrous.

Of course, it obviously makes excellent use of the first tactic, the shock headline. I rarely read anything from their news outlet anymore, but it got me to click through and read it. When I did, I realized exactly what they were doing. First, they used the second tactic, a credible expert with an agenda, to not only help with the article but to actually write it. In this case, the expert is Dr. Warren M. Hern. His expertise is being a physician and epidemiologist who specializes in late-abortion “services.”

Dr. Hern proceeds to use the third tactic, manipulative statistics, to make his point that abortions are less likely to kill the mother than pregnancy or childbirth. Is it true? Absolutely. I learned this myself when my wife nearly died as our fifth child was lost in a miscarriage. Both pregnancy and childbirth are risks to mothers, much more so than abortions.

Nobody can dispute this fact. But the way this fact and others are framed, such as a statistic showing African-American women were more likely to die as a result of pregnancy than Caucasian women, were intended to be terrifying to mothers and to support his claim that pregnancy kills the mother at a higher rate than abortion.

But again, his entire argument relies on the notion that the child in the womb is not actually a life.

We are faced with a society in which a large percentage feel the same way. They have to in order to maintain their own self-perception of not doing harm to another human. Otherwise, abortion becomes murder. The only way it can’t be seen as murder is if the baby inside the mother isn’t seen as life.

This is why it’s so very important we start looking at abortion in America as more than just a political or even religious issue. It’s a cultural issue, one in which we are failing to deliver the right message. Most people can be made to appreciate the value of the life within the womb if they’re allowed to look beyond the politics. They are getting bombarded with the same two messages. Pro-abortion activists say they’re defending women’s rights. Pro-life activists say they’re defending the baby’s rights. Both arguments can have merit based on how a person perceives the baby in the womb. If it’s seen as a life, it’s hard to say that life has no right to live. If it’s seen as a parasite, clump of cells, or “potential” human, then the rights of the mother prevail.

Articles like this one in the NY Times are meant to change the way culture perceives abortion. We must fight back by continuing to push reality, that a baby in the womb is a life. We have the truth on our side. It’s time to use it.

Democrats have been playing a dangerous game of politicizing their efforts towards and against impeachment ever since they won control of the House of Representatives with the 2018 midterm elections. They have all the information they need in order to make a definitive decision about whether to impeach President Trump, but they continue to delay. Their reason is very plain: They want the news cycle to stay focused on their efforts until something else other than illegal immigration can come along and save them.

We’ve actually talked about this once or twice before, but it bears repeating and reframing as more the process evolves.

The crisis at our southern border has been untenable for several months as reports of increases in migrants and decreases in options make it crystal clear the policies of the Democrats and the failure of the Republicans to change them have encouraged the breach of our borders. The blame may fall on both sides’ failures over time, but the current stance of the GOP and the constant proclamations of the President put the full brunt of the responsibility on the left’s open borders policies.

Whether Americans support impeachment or not is actually irrelevant to the Democrats. They want things to stay in the middle on the issue, ebbing and flowing between support and opposition. The longer they can keep the media focused on their latest set of subpoenas or new voices calling for impeachment, the easier it is for them to ignore the border crisis. It’s their crisis. They own it. But they don’t want to pay politically in either direction for it.

They can’t do anything about it because doing so would be to admit the President was right. They can’t ignore it indefinitely because eventually it will be so big that mainstream media will be forced to move impeachment talks to page two while they focus on the crisis. Between the two options, Democrats are hoping to avoid the second by ignoring the first. They believe if they can keep media looking at the Mueller report and screaming about obstruction, something will eventually happen that’s even bigger than the border crisis. War with Iran? Economic collapse? Big mass shooting? Another abortion bill? Whatever it is, they’re using impeachment talk to fill in the gaps.

Democrats have to keep talking about impeachment and doing impeachment-related activities without actually impeaching. Once they pull the trigger, it’ll be over soon enough and Americans will look at other news like the border crisis.

FRAMING THE DISCUSSION

How often have you read words to the effect that a highly placed source close to the investigation revealed xyz today under condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the case… Blah… Blah… Blah…. ?

Is your first thought that just really must be something juicy that I can barely wait to read? Or do you stop and wonder how untrustworthy is the person who was supposed to protect information who instead divulged it?

Do you also think about how unscrupulous the person was who received the information and published it without concern for the consequences? The more fundamental question is do you believe that the whole world has a right to know everything a government agency is doing?

Is there ever a need to protect anything from public disclosure? The government sometimes has to classify information to protect sources whose lives would be in danger and to avoid revealing methods by which the data was collected.

Whatever the American public knows, our enemies around the world also know. That is simply a fact of life.

Do you feel sympathetic for Bradley Manning revealing sensitive U.S. military information? Do you admire Julian Assange for making it known? Do you think Edward Snowden is a traitor or a hero or somewhere in between?

Have you delved into all the nitty-gritty details of the incident in San Francisco? Is there a legitimate reason a law enforcement agency would want to stop a leak within their Department? That is a totally separate issue from how they go about trying to plug the leak.

Does a journalist have a right to publish anything he or she becomes privy to? Without understanding the entire case, how would the writer estimate the implications of such disclosure?

Does it even matter or is just getting a scoop and public acclaim an uncontested ultimate goal which overrules all other considerations? War correspondents often have to agree not to disclose locations and other sensitive info.

I still remember when Geraldo Rivera went on Fox News live shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and drew marks in the dirt showing where they were and how they got there. He was quite appropriately disinvited from accompanying the troops.

It all comes down to whether one considers his or her own career as tantamount to the national well-being.

SELECTIVE COVERAGE

The next point of contention comes into play when a journalist is convinced that their role is that of apologist for a particular ideology. The flipside of the disclosure of secret information is the suppression of matters which the public has every right to know.

All the major influential news media in Hawaii are controlled by the Democrat Party. Oh, I doubt there is any actual deed of ownership. Not even a signed agreement. Just a tacit understanding that perpetuating the status quo is the media’s proper role.

Therefore any conservative upstart candidate does not deserve to be heard and his or her message should be buried. The most effective way to do that is simply to ignore and refuse to cover the campaign.

It’s really hard to say whether a liberal society leads to a liberal media or whether a liberal media leads to a liberal society. One thing for sure is that they go hand-in-hand.

During the last 25 years or so in this internet age, print media has lost its dominance in influencing public opinion. 24×7 cable news coverage was a big deal 35 years ago. Now websites and social media provide real-time access to both breaking news and analysis.

PUTTING THINGS INTO PERSPECTIVE

There is now a real opportunity for conservatives to get our message to the people. Most of our fellow travelers in this world are followers and lurkers. They are the lemmings who plunge over the cliff if somebody charismatic leads them there. So, we need to recruit qualified men and women to provide objective alternatives without trying to lead anybody anywhere.

Many misuse their rhetorical talents for self-aggrandizement and personal enrichment. But journalists must recognize their responsibility to the public trust. It is an awesome privilege to be one of those who document an epoch in human history.

We know what has gone before us in the world only through the eyes of those who wrote about it either contemporarily or in retrospect. If this world is still here a hundred years from now, and there is some doubt about that, what will people know about the year 2019? None of us is going to be around in 2119 to reminisce about it.

THE STAKES ARE HIGH

We could go back 160 years to the administration of President James Buchanan in 1859 and read about events that led up to the War Between the States. Now we mostly hear it called the Civil War, but it used to be more commonly understood as what it really was. It wasn’t civil. It was a conflict that tore this country apart.

Lest we go that route again, we all need to start thinking of ourselves collectively. Rather than fanning the flames of divisiveness, journalists would be commended to emphasize those common beliefs and objectives that draw us together as a nation.

It really is not complex. It is the simplest thing in the world. Have integrity. Do what is right. Write the truth.