Below is my column in The Hill on the recent “disinformation conference” held by leading democrats and media figures. It was a confab of the liberal politicians and journalists over how to deal with problems like Republicans, Fox News, roughly half of the voters and most television viewers. The solution for some seemed to be reeducation led by the media through even greater advocacy journalism and censorship.
This weekend MSNBC analyst John Heilemann and Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa) added their own suggestion for such reeducation. Dean agreed with Heilemann that Democrats “have to scare the crap out of [the Democratic base] and get them to come out. They can’t motivate them on the basis of hope or their pocketbooks or any of these accomplishments. They have to scare the crap out of them.”
Here is the column:
Tennessee Williams once lamented, “If I got rid of my demons, I’d lose my angels.” That fear came to mind this week when former President Barack Obama called upon “our better angels” at the ironically named “Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy” conference at the University of Chicago.
The conference was a confab of media and political elite, gathered to discuss how to defeat their common demons: Republicans, Fox News, and apparently half of the electorate and most television viewers. In fact, the conference offered a chilling display of not just disinformation but delusion in dealing with current controversies.
It proved fascinating as the media and political elite openly worked through intractable problems like the backlash over burying the Hunter Biden scandal before the election. For that reason, it was particularly ironic that the conference was sponsored by The Atlantic magazine, which has been a source of some of the most criticized coverage.
One of the figures in special counsel John Durham’s ongoing investigation is Atlantic staff writer Franklin Foer, who has been identified as “Reporter-2″ in Durham’s investigation of former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann. Foer allegedly sent an early draft of the article for review by operatives working with the Clinton campaign, according to Durham, and the campaign later used the article to spread a false story involving Russia’s Alfa Bank and the Trump campaign.
Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, declared this week that “only one party in the American system has currently given itself over so comprehensively to fantasists.” He further denounced “social media-Big Data” for not censoring such views. Apparently, the extensive censorship of conservatives by Big Tech is not sufficient because any access to such forums “makes it easier and easier to inject falsehoods into political discourse.”
The Chicago conference resembled a mainstream-media version of a car show, featuring new political-narrative models for eager buyers. One came from Atlantic writer Anne Applebaum, who joined CNN figures in denouncing conservative media. That’s when University of Chicago student Daniel Schmidt delivered a haymaker question:
“A poll, later after that, found that if voters knew about the content of the [Hunter Biden] laptop, 16 percent of Joe Biden voters would have acted differently. Do you think the media acted inappropriately when they instantly dismissed Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation, and what can we learn from that in ensuring that what we label as disinformation is truly disinformation, and not reality?”
Applebaum responded by saying that she really did not care if the laptop was legitimate because she did not find it “interesting”: “My problem with Hunter Biden’s laptop is I think it’s totally irrelevant. I mean, it’s not whether it’s disinformation … I didn’t think Hunter Biden’s business relationships have anything to do with who should be president of the United States.”
It appears that laptop is no longer Russian disinformation. It is now just uninteresting or irrelevant, even though the president’s son may soon be indicted on this evidence.
Applebaum was one of those pushing the Russian disinformation claims in calling for censorship by Big Tech of conservatives. Back then, the Hunter Biden scandal was “relevant” as Russian disinformation. For example, in a column titled “The Science of Making Americans Hurt Their Own Country,” Applebaum praised the killing of the Hunter Biden “saga” and encouraged even greater efforts to control information for voters. She criticized those who “argue … that these 2020 efforts don’t need to be taken so seriously, because they failed.”
CNN media correspondent Brian Stelter also was confronted by a student, Christopher Phillips, who listed false stories run by CNN, from the Russia collusion stories to the Jesse Smollett case. Phillips then asked: “All the mistakes of the mainstream media and CNN, in particular, seem to magically all go in one direction. Are we expected to believe that this is all just some sort of random coincidence, or is there something else behind it?” Stelter responded dismissively that it was all just “a popular right-wing narrative” before returning to the narrative of the true demons on the right. Stelter has previously embraced censorship as part of a “harm reduction model” for media.
The conference was more about the demons than the angels of the mainstream media. The sense of frustration was palpable.
While pushing for greater private censorship, the conference adopted an almost clinical tenor of conservatives and Fox News-watchers being brainwashed or cognitively challenged. Yet, despite years of such attacks, Fox remains the most popular cable news network; it not only often doubles the viewership of its rivals, but more Democrats watch Fox than CNN. (For the record, I work as a Fox legal analyst. I previously worked for NBC, CBS and the BBC.)
Obama denounced “anger-based journalism” while promoting an advocacy-journalism model in which the media shape the news for citizens who supposedly need help to properly frame ideas. He and many other speakers highlighted a much-touted study by political scientists David Broockman and Joshua Kalla. The study has been featured by the Washington Post and many of these same outlets for its conclusion that Fox News viewers change their views when exposed to “good” news sources like CNN.
Obama declared the study as hopeful since it showed “how easy it is to shift people’s views on issues by changing their media diet.”
But the study itself is a study in bias. The researchers at Berkeley and Yale only subjected Fox viewers to this type of re-educational viewing; they paid Fox viewers to watch CNN but did not do the opposite to see how CNN viewers changed their views after being exposed to Fox. Moreover, the study assumed as fact what would be viewed as a contested viewpoint. For example, they assert that “Fox News largely did not inform viewers of Trump’s failure to protect the U.S. from the COVID-19 outbreak, whereas CNN extensively did so. This is concerning for democratic accountability.”
In the end, the study found the change was often slight, with less than 10 percent shifts on most questions and short-lived results, as viewers returned to their original viewing preferences.
The “hopeful” message — that we just have to change what people watch in order to save democracy — is hardly a new idea. Just last year, some Democratic members of Congress sought to pressure cable companies to take Fox off the air.
There is another possibility: As Obama summons the “better angels” of the left, they might consider promoting free speech. After all, we once believed good ideas can prevail over bad ones in an open marketplace of ideas. Instead, this crusade to rid liberals of their demons would kill the most angelic part of who we are as a people.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.
Chilling and delusional, indeed.
Like when Barry Soetero was reimagined as Barack Hussein Obama, the Bringer of Hope and Change for America’s Fundamental Transformation.
What a fraud.
Go buy more large mansions, Barry. You know, like your Marxist pals at BLM.
*Soetoro
Seven years after we had terrorist attack our homeland the idiot leftists put up a candidate, Obama, who got his start at the home of Bill Ayers, a leader of a known terrorist organization that BOMBED the pentagon and POLICE STATIONS in America.
Does anyone think that a person that lead an organization that bombed abortion centers would get to be rehabilitated and have Wikipedia call him a “educator”?
it is quite clear that the ONLY solution –besides get faux off the air and cnn back in airports–is to implement an approach suggested decades ago to deal w capitalists by obama advisor billy ayers: reeducation camps. if the camps fail…then terminate those are uneducable. https://youtu.be/3O4EHISQ6Uw
Unless you missed you /sarc tag do us all a favor and go back to North Korea.
Here are the two faces of Barack Obama.
Obama said a while back when asked about the relation between the President and the press…
Turley wrote…
First it appears that Obama was speaking against advocacy journalism, now it seems that he is speaking in favor of advocacy journalism. It seems to me that Obama is all for advocacy journalism when it agrees with his partisan views and is against advocacy journalism when it opposes his partisan views, that shows me that Obama is a morally bankrupt partisan hack.
it is really unseemly that you use Professor Turley’s blog to promote yours.
Anonymous wrote, “it is really unseemly that you use Professor Turley’s blog to promote yours.”
That folks is what a pure ad hominem trolling comment looks like, there was absolutely zero content in his reply that addressed the content in my comment! What a trolling jerk!
For anyone that’s interested: I’m NOT using Turley’s blog to promote my own, in fact, I never ever share anything from my blog unless I think it’s directly related to content here, period. There is absolutely nothing wrong with sharing information from outside sources if it’s on-topic, and I do share from various sources not just my own blog. I bet I’ve shared far, far more from Ethics Alarms than my own blog.
I think it’s signature significant that you choose to attack the messenger (me) like this specifically when the messenger is posting something that isn’t favorable to Barack Obama.
Stop your nonsensical trolling!
You hypocrite, anonymous! Enigmainblack does the same thing, but you withhold criticism. Both refer to their blogs when the blog’s content matches the content of the discussion. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, such sharing is a good thing. Reasonable people recognize that. You don’t.
That tone and that sincerely vindictive smile REALLY reminds me of an Inquisitor asking if any Jews in Spain would like to see “The Light” and convert.
I smiled as I noted how the media redundantly focused on new SCOTUS Jackson’s words that “it took 232 years and 115 prior appointments for a Black woman” to join SCOTUS. —-Not a single word from media reporters that NO woman was on the Court, white or black, until Sandra Day O’Connor, and that was only 50 years ago. This blatantly distorted and selective-fact statement by Jackson not only showsd her triue colors, but also fed into the SELECTIVE-FACT agenda manifesting in uor schools, our media, and our government.Justice O’Connor was one of the best and I miss her BALANCED, objective analyses.I don’t recall her making a big deal about being the first woman, and that’s why I respected her.
I HAVE ALWAYS THOUGHT OBAMA WAS A CHARLATAN. HE NEVER HAD A “REAL” JOB BUT ACTED AS IF HE WAS THE LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD.
HOPEFULLY, WHEN THE REPUBLICANS TAKE OVER BOTH CHAMBERS, MR. OBAMA AND THE LIKE WILL QUICKLY FADE AWAY TO THEIR MANSIONS.
Mar-a-lago where Trump holds court IS a non plus ultra mansion!
Oblunder gave away the US House and Senate while occupying the White House, gave Republicans numerous State Governor Mansions and produced America Donald Trump. His 60 bday bash on Martha’s Vineyard flaunting maskless party goers sealed his grifter status as a consummate hypocrite. Their relying on him now is a marvelous idea to slaughter the Dems outright. Go Barry Go!
White Iowans who supported Obama in 2008 not embracing the Black woman running for governor
https://thegrio.com/2022/04/11/white-obama-iowa-not-embracing-diedre-dejear-governor/
Apparently there are no more people the left can buy and get hooked on government largess (Stage I). Stage II is brainwashing the next tranche of voters. I wonder what Stage III will hold?
Maybe one day suburban white women will wake the freak up and realize there is more to life than abortion and saving the non-aborted from themselves…Then the national disgrace, which is the DNC will wither and die.
Suburban white women seem to only wake up when it is their daughters losing swimming positions to trans men playing at being a woman, or when they get their Lexus carjacked. Other than these times the leisure class of white suburban women vote as their book clubs and the View tell them to vote.
God save us from the terminally banal.
Such smugness and disdain for the common person tends to end badly for societies which delude themselves. You may end up with a totalitarian government formed by these same people or a totalitarian government in opposition to this deluded society. Hopefully, in a democratic society, it may mean a long sentence in the wilderness as the deluded struggle to find what they have lost and rediscover their better angels or even TRUTH.
Mr Obama was the high priest of smugness. And his views and accomplishments have not aged well at all. Especially his “toughness on Russia”. His affordable care act was the greatest lost opportunity for a first rate national health plan in recent memory. With the votes the democrats had at the time, they could have pushed through a comprehensive plan that brought prices under control in pharmaceuticals, healthcare delivery, comprehensive access, hospital costs, etc. and they would probably have had sustained longer term control of the government because of it. The control of health care costs would have dropped, if done right, to about that of Germany at 11% of GDP. That would have brought American Industry a tremendous competitive edge. It was there and they let it go because he failed to take charge and lead.. They would not have needed a single Republican vote. And I am both a republican and a conservative, but they blew it. I note he did not talk much about the affordable care act.
The Harvard School of Public Health, at the highest levels, supported the plan but the minions that did the work and the real projections kind of trashed the plan. Thats why it’s great to go to Harvard CME. In little corners away from the lights, you get the real story and the comments while the plan is being presented. Priceless.
The Plan should have been written by people that actually knew how to run a plan and set it up. The man who thought the American electorate was “stupid’ and designed the plan knew absolutely nothing about the day to day running of a health plan. Designs can be great but the victory is all in the details and incentives, and utilization management. Too many people, at that time, assumed utilization management was simple. They went broke. And medical costs continue to rise.
When the brainwashing fails, it must mean the libs need a bigger hammer, to pound it through our thick heads. I have witnessed the left, I am like Ronald Reagan. “I didn’t leave the democrat party, the democrat party left me” Power certainly does corrupt. hunter is an albatross around the big guys neck. Uninteresting, like the watergate break in I suppose. I vote for the candidate, not the party. I like Tulsi Gabbard, but not cnn. “Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” Carl Sagan
Sounds more like a Wannsee Conference “how to deal with problems like Republicans, Fox News, roughly half of the voters”?
Are we getting to a point in the words of Amadeu de Prado from Night Train to Lisbon “When dictatorship is a fact, revolution is a duty“.?
There was interesting interview of David Mamet discussing how far down the toilet the Democrat elites have brought us.
Margot says:
“Sounds more like a Wannsee Conference “how to deal with problems like Republicans, Fox News, roughly half of the voters”?”
No kidding? And what was the Final Solution proposed by those liberal murderers at the conference? Gassing Conservatives or shooting them at the edge of mass graves?
Anyone want to keep saying that JT is really a Democrat? This article is straight out of Republican talking points.
REGARDING ABOVE
Act Blue paid troll, user of many sock puppet accounts, copies / pastes talking points for DNC.
Sammy, everybody knows Our host is a libertarian, that centers his core values around individual freedom, and the written constitution.
To leftists, that sounds conservative. What you insist is Republican Talking Points, is actually Prof Turley explaining the Constitution of the United States to his readers.
The language and tone is inline with Republican talking points. Libertarian language is quite different.
I wouldn’t say this article indicates he is either. He’s simply a fervent free speech advocate. And we could use more like him in both parties.
Alternatively, today’s Democrat playbook strayed from that of JFK and is now a playbook dedicated to crazy ideas meant to damage social cohesion and give advantage to America’s allies. Are you Russian or Chinese? If you are Chinese do you then say your counterpart is Russian?
JT sounds like a JFK Democrat. Do you find something wrong with that? Unless you say differently, we have to assume you believe JFK to be a right-winger.
The disdain that absolutely drips from Obama and his ilk is astonishing. They really do think the serfs are idiots, or serfs to begin with. That they engage in these conversations in public now proves high level delusion bordering on narcissism or sociopathy. All of these folks can get bent. We do not have to go gently into the endless winter, and globalist control is absolutely not an inevitability. They are going to learn, as did the global aristocracy centuries ago, that money and privilege ain’t everything.
James, your comment is a good example of how frustrated a great majority of us feel . Anyone that got to see Anne Applebaum’s dripping disgust with some kid having the gall to dare question her about the political left’s view of the media’s coverage of Biden’s corruption vis a vis all of the coverage of Trump’s peccadillos saw a perfect example of haughtiness, arrogance, narcissism and coastal elitism in action. Her attitude, her insouciance and her dripping disdain should render her unusable as a reporter going forward. It was a beautiful microcosm of what will cost the Democrats many seats in November.
I can’t say anything but very much agreed. I appreciate your thoughtful response.
Hullbobby says:
“Trump’s peccadillos”
Turley described him as a “carnival snake charmer,” that is, a “bullsh*tter.” Hardly a peccadillo! Nice try!
Jeff, I defended you the other day from some maniac that was trying to bully the life out of you, but one complaint I have against you is that you need to LET OTHER PEOPLE COMMENT. Jeff, stop commenting 100 times on each story, it is getting boring.
hullbobby,
You defended me boychik? How nice. Can I see it?
I find humor – that most of the clips shown of this “Liberal” conference are being shown on “conservative” media and I find optimism – that the most revealing answers are sparked by questions from students – to CNN protector Brian Stelter and the uninterested “reporter” Anne Applebaum. They protest (complain) just enough to reveal who they are – maybe Biden’s basement is the best strategy for these comrades for the next election. It worked in 2020.
i feel that way too – observe what is happening in Sri Lanka and Pakistan – the exact same type of obfuscation and manipulation (and the videos of massive crowds in Pakistan have already been debunked, that was footage from separate events that had nothing to do with anything in the present), the globalists are working hard to install Bidens there, too. The thing that strikes me about this is that they are non-Western countries. This is global now. The aristocracy, neo-liberals, ‘The Great Reset’ whatever one chooses to call them, will not be tolerated, anywhere. Our DNC is 1000% complicit in this.
But- money be damned. i personally think this is the last and very desperate gasp of despotism on earth. Our modern DNC is Mao, it is Stalin, it is bordering on Hitler. It would appear that free thinking people across the globe that actually value freedom will not tolerate it. The era of aristocracy is just over.
Whatever you do, do not vote dem in November. If you can’t vote Republican or Independent, or Libertarian, then don’t vote, because voting for the left at present only compounds everything we discuss here. We can still turn this around, and there is a stunning amount of support around the world. The parallels across the globe are clear – no one wants what the globalist, elitist left are selling. No one. Not a single actual free person.
Ms Applebaum is a historian with a disdain for facts and integrity.
And contempt for conservatives.
Consider that if you contemplate reading one of her books.
The article is lame duck. And I don’t want to belittle ducks. They can be lame but this article is footless.
Aside from the Russian collusion to defame Hunter, the article is mostly pro media.
My favorite part of the fake disinformation conference was when a handful of journalism students from a Chicago-area college stumped several members on the panel when they were asked pointed questions about their own records on spreading disinformation.
stelter, wouldn’t know the truth, if it bit him on his giant head.
Spoken with “truth and conviction,” the former president now has three mansions, all near or on the coast where the global warming ocean will rise and swallow up his investments. Yeah sure. These über rich elites preach at us while using dirty fossil fuel to jet around the globe. Like the lords of old, they want us in our place.
I see smugness and disdain for the common citizens who can think for themselves.
Re-education is definitely the way to go. Voters are too stupid to be entrusted with voting. The liberal media should advocate for leveraging the experience of our Russian comrades in methods, perhaps even establishing gulags. Stalin would be so proud.
Shame the America Media has turned into a WORSE version of Pravda