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2021 was a difficult year. Many things happened and for the media there were 12 months with too much information. Unfortunately, the way things are in journalism, that translates into tons of lies.
This article could go on forever. In fact, I had a hard time choosing only five lies, but I think that by remembering these, we will have enough to distrust during the following years absolutely everything the mainstream media tells us.
1- The “plot” for Biden to win the presidency
TIME magazine explicitly agreed with former President Donald Trump about the “plot” against him. At the beginning of February 2021, the magazine published a report entitled: “The secret history of the shadow campaign that saved the 2020 elections.” In the text, they made public the details of a plot that they presented as a heroic act, thanks to which they saved the United States from terrible Trump.
“A well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information.”
TIME magazine
The matter is completely dirty and scandalous, TIME literally revealed that in secret the powerful from different sectors joined forces to control information and change laws so that their candidate, Joe Biden, would win. The brazenness is such that it was presented as an act of heroism.
Surely it was a quick move to reveal the information themselves before others did, so that they could impose the narrative that it was a laudable act and for the good of the country.
The conspiracy that many conservatives complained about was not a paranoid dream but a reality that ended up putting the left in power.
“They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding. They fended off voter-suppression lawsuits, recruited armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time,” the report revealed.
Moreover, they acknowledged the role of Big Tech and how they censored what didn’t suit Biden while promoting what would hurt Trump. “They successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and used data-driven strategies to fight viral smears,” TIME notes.
They also claimed that “in November 2019, Mark Zuckerberg invited nine civil rights leaders to dinner at his home, where they warned him about the danger of the election-related falsehoods that were already spreading unchecked.”
They also evidenced a plot to change voting laws, which they branded as a “plan to save the country.” In addition, they talked about censorship of what did not suit them, calling it “control of falsehoods.”
The great mind behind the conspiracy, Michael Podhorzer —political director of the AFL-CIO, the largest union federation in the United States— held meetings “with his network of contacts throughout the progressive universe”: the labor movement; the institutional left; institutions like Planned Parenthood and Greenpeace; resistance groups like Indivisible and MoveOn; state-level organizers and others. Their efforts had such an effect, the magazine notes, that “As 2020 progressed, it stretched to Congress, Silicon Valley and the nation’s statehouses.”
“Led by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, more than 150 organizations signed a letter to every member of Congress seeking $2 billion in election funding. It was somewhat successful: the CARES Act, passed later that month, contained $400 million in grants to state election administrators.”
TIME magazine
TIME also revealed that “securing the vote” required resources, so “in March activists asked Congress to send Covid’s aid money to the election administration.”
For months, social media denied censoring people for their conservative views; hasty changes in laws to expand mail-in voting were portrayed as simply in the interest of defending rights; they said Trump was crazy when he claimed that powerful people from different sectors were plotting to defeat him. Months later, TIME revealed the plot, but again mocked Americans by presenting it all as a laudable strategy to save the country. As if Americans were fools, as if they had no right to information and to choose their president.
2- The uncovered immigration crisis
During President Biden’s time in office, the United States has experienced an immigration crisis of such magnitude that by October 2021 there were more than 15,000 people crowded under the international bridge in Del Rio, Texas. Immigration authorities have even said this is a situation they cannot cope with.
But during all this time, did we see the media reporting the stories of thousands of people detained in the cages built by Obama? What would have happened if it had been the Trump administration that for weeks banned the media from detention centers? Did anyone see the liberal media complain to Biden about the dramatic images of children at the border and in the caravans? No. Condescension is what abounds for Biden.
In fact, what we saw was a media that covered the crisis with absolute flippancy. Journalists who used to look like wild beasts looking for ways to attack Trump for everything that happened at the border, this year waited quietly and calmly until they could report something, without making any major claims.
The immigration crisis got so bad that after a few months President Biden and Vice President Harris began to give statements that could have been given by former President Donald Trump. “I can say quite clearly: Don’t come,” Biden said in March.
The Washington Post covered Trump and Harris’ messages as follows.
“Harris warns Guatemalans they will be turned back if they come to the U.S. border illegally,” the WaPo published after the vice president’s remarks. Yet, when Trump sent the same message, the headline was, “‘Our country is FULL!’: Trump’s declaration carries far-right echoes that go back to the Nazi era.”
NBC News covered Trump’s immigration policies this way: “Trump’s brand is his xenophobic immigration policy. That’s why he’ll go to any lengths to enact it.”
On the other hand, with Kamala Harris NBC said: “On her first foreign trip since taking office, the vice president announced task forces to address the corruption and human trafficking viewed as potential drivers of migration.”
On Biden, the headline was, “Incoming Biden administration to migrant caravan: Don’t come, you won’t get in immediately.”
It has already become clear to us that for the left it is not the what, but the who, which shapes the headlines.
3- The “conspiracy theory” of Wuhan’s lab leak
In May of this year, the world learned that, according to a State Department report, several Chinese researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology became ill in the fall of 2019 and needed hospital care, that happened before the first official case of coronavirus reported in China. When the report was made public, Dr. Fauci changed his mind, after repeating for months that there was no scientific evidence that the virus had come out of a laboratory, he had to state that he is not convinced that covid-19 developed naturally.
In addition, it became public that in late 2020 the State Department launched an investigation to try to determine whether the virus came out of the Wuhan lab, but in the spring the Biden administration ordered that investigation closed.
It is still unclear whether the coronavirus came out of a lab or whether it all originated in an exotic animal market, but increasing evidence points to the former. What is absolutely clear is that the mainstream media insisted for a year on declaring it impossible for the virus to have come out of the Wuhan Institute of Virology and branded anyone who dared to talk about it as conspiratorial and racist.
Washington Post referred to the idea as a “conspiracy theory.” CNN talked about a theory out of a “comic book” and gave voice to the Chinese Communist Party saying it was a Republican strategy to win the presidency. BBC News also spoke of a “conspiracy theory” and even quoted China suggesting that the virus was created by the US.
Even when for months former President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo talked about the evidence supporting a lab leak, and it was known that the US was investigating along those lines, the mainstream media — so as not to prove Trump right — not only ignored the possibility, but engaged in ridicule of anyone who mentioned the matter. In large part, the little we know about the coronavirus and its origins is the media’s fault.
4- The media’s outrage against the successful Governor DeSantis
Ron DeSantis is one of the most talked about governors. His administration has contributed greatly to Florida shining as one of the most outstanding states in this country. Low taxes, respect for economic and individual freedoms, as well as refusing to turn the state into a totalitarian regime that persecutes the unvaccinated, have made Florida a haven for those fleeing blue states. Surveys show that nearly 1,000 people move there every day, many from states like New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Florida was the state where most people moved to in 2020.
All this good performance has made DeSantis a target of lies and dirty techniques by the left-wing mainstream media to discredit him. For example, in April, the program 60 Minutes, aired on CBS News, published an edited video where reporter Sharyn Alfonsi insinuates that DeSantis handed out contracts to close businessmen and donors to his campaign. In her question, Alfonsi suggests that the Florida governor and the Publix company had reached an agreement for the company to donate money to the DeSantis campaign and then obtain the contract for the distribution of vaccines against COVID-19. In the edited video it seems that the governor evade the questions, which is false. In the full video, it is possible to see DeSantis’ forceful explanation to the matter.
After the full video was released, the networks were full of reactions to the brazenness of 60 Minutes. One of the most important was that of Jared Moskowitz, a former Democratic state representative who is now the director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management.
“60 Minutes, I said this before and I’ll say it again. Publix was recommended by the Florida Division of Emergency Management and the Florida Department of Health as the other pharmacies were not ready to start. Period! Full Stop! No one from the Governor’s office suggested Publix. It’s just absolute malarkey,” the Democrat wrote on Twitter.
Another of the lies that the press published was the absurd idea that DeSantis wants to have a Guardia similar to the “colectivos” of the tyrant Maduro in Venezuela. Any sane Hispanic understands the level of ridiculousness of this claim. There are 22 states in this country that have independent National Guard forces but when the Governor of Florida announces this, Democrats and the leftist press are crying foul because surely DeSantis has already started to become a dictator…
Yahoo News published a story titled: “This must be stopped”: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis plans to establish a militia that answers only to him. It then adds a paragraph in which it talks about the governor’s record as if he were a potential dictator: “DeSantis’ track record, including violently quelling protesters has some Democrats sounding the alarm over the governor’s plan.”
Ron DeSantis simply announced the revival of the Florida State Guard that has been dormant since 1947 and called for the state Legislature to provide adequate funding for some 200 civilian volunteers to “be trained in the best emergency response techniques.” The role of this Guard that some crazies compare to Maduro’s paramilitaries will be primarily to respond to emergencies, which is essential in a state like Florida that has hurricanes often and where the National Guard is overworked.
5- The lies in the Kyle Rittenhouse Case
The Kyle Rittenhouse Trial is a fundamental fact for Justice in this country. The only thing to celebrate is that Justice, despite the pressure from protesters and the media, ruled in law. Otherwise it was a regrettable event in which nobody won, two people died and a young man who was not even 18 years old when the confrontation occurred, had to live a long trial, the condemnation of the media, and surely his life will never be the same again. Virtually the entire country knows him, including those who despite the evidence still see him as a cold-blooded killer.
Kyle’s case was surrounded by a huge amount of fake news published by major media outlets. They said Kyle killed two BLM protesters, when in fact what happened was a case of self-defense in the midst of violent protests in Kenosha on August 25 of last year, and none of the three men who were hit were of African descent.
CBS News’ Mark Strassman said on “Face The Nation” that “Rittenhouse drove in from Illinois armed for battle.” The idea that Kyle is simply a killer who drove armed to go vent his instincts was promoted by several media outlets that blatantly omitted that while Rittenhouse lives 20 miles from Kenosha, his father, grandmother, his paternal family and best friend live in Kenosha. They declined to report that Kyle worked as a lifeguard in Kenosha and that he had helped clean up graffiti left by protesters at the local school in those days, also they forgot to say that Kyle was invited by adults to join a community group that would guard a car lot where the night before violent protesters had incended dozens of vehicles.
At least CBS, after Strassman’s statement, issued a correction. But many other media outlets spread that misconception, MSNBC’s John Heilemann said, “The 17-year-old vigilante, arguably a domestic terrorist, picked up a rifle, drove to a different state to shoot people.” MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said, “He crossed state lines with an AR-15, threw himself in the middle of all this and started shooting people.”
They said he was a white supremacist when all he did was a couple of posts defending the lives of police officers, they said he was connected to the militia and the Proud Boys and it was clear at the Trial that there is absolutely no proof of that. The lies were so many and the brazenness so absurd that we could write several articles about it. The only good thing, as I said before, is that this case proved that Justice works and that the disinformation and pressure from the media did not manage to affect the ruling.
Vanessa Vallejo. Co-editor-in-chief of El American. Economist. Podcaster. Political and economic analysis of America. Colombian exile in the United States // Vanessa Vallejo. Co-editora en jefe de El American. Economista. Podcaster. Análisis político y económico de América. Colombiana exiliada en EE. UU.
Good article but sounds a little silly when the author assumes BLM protesters need to be black. I wanted to send this to some lefty family members, but they would pick up on that right away.