Integrity and Irony. Two Words the Media Can't Even Spell

I read the Calgary Herald yesterday. This is not something I do often since I know longer expect to find anything truthful in the paper. I do have to light my wood stove however and the Herald newsprint is at least good for that. Once again I got what I expected from the herald. ½ the news was covid porn and the other ½ explained how Donald Trump is the devil incarnate.

The covid porn was run of the mill stuff that we have been seeing since March. They take numbers out of context and group several days together to make the numbers seem scarier than they really are. All you need to do is toss in a few quotes from sky is falling experts and you have taken care of half of the day’s news without ever leaving your office. I think they write these stories a month in advance and just leave blanks to fill in different numbers.

The “Donald Trump is the antichrist” stories were also very uniform. Every author relayed with great certainty that the “riot” last Wednesday was caused by Trump’s “unfounded” claims of election fraud. I found the choice of language quite interesting.

All summer we saw peaceful protests that resulted in billions of dollars lost due to arson, vandalism, and looting. Armed peaceful protesters attacked and killed civilians and police officers. On Wednesday the vandalism was curbed by rioters themselves who also took the time to clean up after they were done. None of the rioters produced any weapons even after an unarmed rioter was shot to death by police. One police officer died but the media has been strangely quiet about the circumstances of his death.

So now peaceful protesting can be recognized by the following attributes

theft
arson
vandalism
fire arms and other improvised weapons

Rioting on the other hand includes

preventing theft, vandalism, and arson
Not carrying weapons of any description
Cleaning up after yourself when you leave

It has been a long time since I have been in school but the definitions of peaceful and rioting have certainly changed over the years. The same is true of unfounded. That used to mean there is an absence of supporting evidence. There is a mountain of evidence of election fraud in the US. The definition of unfounded now seems to be anything the media ignores or refuses to investigate.

I like this new definition and I look forward to the media using it with respect to Covid. Since the media has steadfastly refused to do any actual journalism when it comes to Covid everything can be described as unfounded. I can see the headlines now;

Pandemic response plans centered on the unfounded accuracy of PCR tests.
Jason Kenney extends lockdown measures based on unfounded claims of lockdown effectiveness.
Justin Trudeau exonerated by unfounded reports he never left the country during travel restrictions.

Since the days are gone when the media reports information that has been investigated, the possibilities are endless. I expect we will see the word unfounded used quite lot in the future.

There was one article in the paper that did not fall in to either the covid porn or Trump is evil categories. One reporter noticed that the copy write on George Orwell’s novel 1984 has now expired. So in amongst the double speak and misinformation was an article about a novel. That novel is the most famous warning about the evil of double speak and misinformation. Not only are there no honest journalists in Canada there aren’t any that understand irony either.