I know how to save The Washington Post! Just have Jeff Bezos, net worth $196 billion as of June 4, 2024, owner of the newspaper, give it to MacKenzie Scott, net worth $33.3 billion as of June 4, 2024, Mr Bezos’ ex-wife and a noted philanthropist who has no problem in giving away her money. Just a straight-up reassignment! Mr Bezos stops losing $77 to $100 million a year on the Post, and Miss Scott, with five times as much money as Patrick Soon-Shiong, net worth $6.3 billion as of June 4, 2024, and who is finding the Los Angeles Times’ losses too much to bear, can easily handle losing money, because she doesn’t seem to care if she makes money or not. Continue reading
Category Archives: Freedom of Speech and of the Press
The inclusion of bias in news articles is subtle, but you have to be aware of it
This site has expressed some amusement at The Philadelphia Inquirer referring to gangs as “street groups.” It began when we were reliably informed by The Philadelphia Inquirer that there are no gangs in the city, just “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families,” who sometimes had “beefs” with other cliques, so we must replace the term “gang-bangers” with “cliques of young men” or “clique beefers”. District Attorney Larry Krasner and his office seem to prefer the term “rival street groups“. Continue reading
The Lexington Herald-Leader has not died, but it has definitely been moved into a nursing home. One foot in the grave, and the other on a banana peel?
On Tuesday, April 30th, I attended a meet-and-greet seminar held by the Lexington Herald-Leader at the Marksbury Family Branch Library off Versailles Road. Executive Editor Richard Green was there, as was Managing Editor Lauren Gorla, who did most of the presentation work. I was standing next to Austin Horn — it was standing room only! — the Frankfort politics reporter.
There were several issues discussed, including from one seventies-looking gentleman from Mt. Sterling, who noted that there was very little coverage from his town and other places outside of Lexington. I paid special attention to him, because I grew up there, being graduated from Mt. Sterling High School shortly after we ceased using quill pens and ink bottles. A point a couple of other people, and I, made was that delivery of the newspaper outside of Lexington was spotty at best. Now living in Estill County, home delivery is not available. This is an important issue to me, because, in the late 1960s, I delivered the morning Lexington Herald and afternoon Lexington Leader in my hometown.
I have to wonder: I was not the only paperboy in Mt. Sterling, but do the fewer than 100 customers I had outnumber the total number of subscribers in Montgomery County today?
While the newspaper does have “Lexington” in the name, it was the newspaper for much of central and eastern Kentucky for years and years.
And now? Instead of taking action to make the newspaper more valuable, the Herald-Leader is making it less so:
Herald-Leader to change print publication days, delivery method in next step of digital push
Going to jail for telling the truth? That’s what Europeans risk! "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." — George Orwell, 1984
In 1984, country music singer Lee Greenwood released his song, “God Bless the USA.” I was reminded of that song, when I read the article below, and the stanza:
I’m proud to be an American
Where at least I know I’m free
And I won’t forget the men who died
Who gave that right to me
And I’d gladly stand up next to you
And defend Her still today
‘Cause there ain’t no doubt
I love this land
God Bless the U.S.A.
The article?
Transgender Spanish Actor Sues French Politician For Calling Him A “Man”
By Genevieve Gluck | Saturday, June 1, 2024
Spanish actor Karla Sofía Gascón, a trans-identified male previously known as Juan Carlos, has filed a legal complaint against French politician Marion Maréchal, alleging she committed hate speech by calling him a “man.” Maréchal could face one year in prison and a €300,000 fine (£255,300) if found guilty.
On May 26, Maréchal, the head of France’s Reconquête! party for the European elections, made a comment on social media about Gascón after it was announced that he had won an award for “Best Actress” at the Cannes Film Festival. Gascón had won the award for his role in ‘Emilia Pérez,’ wherein he plays the titular role as a ruthless Mexican drug lord who decides to “transition” in order to evade law enforcement.
“So a man has received the prize at Cannes for… female performance. Progress for the left is the erasure of women and mothers,” wrote Maréchal in response to the news of Gascón’s win.
Apparently in Europe, a politician can face up to a year in jail for telling the truth!
Well, sort of the truth. Juan Carlos is most certainly a male, but it’s clear that he isn’t actually a man. The rest of this article is below the fol, because I have included Mr Greenwood’s music video. Continue reading
Journolism: The credentialed media don’t exactly lie, but they conceal politically incorrect facts Journalists should try telling us the whole truth for a change
No, that’s not a typographical error in the title: the spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. We use the term ‘journolism’ frequently when writing about media bias.
Journalism at least used to be a profession concerned with the 5 Ws + H: who, what, when, where, why, and how. Those were the questions reporters were supposed to answer if at all possible. Now that print newspapers have been in great decline, and newspapers in digital form are the wave of whatever future newspapers have left, the space limitations that used to hem in stories as measured by word count of column inches are mostly gone. Editors may have to pare down things that are going to be printed in the dead trees editions, but digital bandwidth is incredibly cheap. And Associated Press reporter Nicole Winfield left out a really big answer to “why.” Was it because the “why” is completely politically incorrect? Continue reading
Anti-Semitism at Hahvahd is nothing new.
Our good friends on the left have been assuring us that the many protests against Israel’s policies against the poor, poor Palestinians is simply support for an oppressed people, and is in no way anti-Semitic. Steve Keeley, of Fox 29 News, reproduced and tweeted out the message of John Fry, President of Drexel University in Philadelphia, concerning the new encampment of pro-Hamas protesters there:
While protest encampments such as this one are not legally protected, we had hoped last night that this demonstration would remain peaceful and respectful of others. Regrettably, that is not the case here. This demonstration already has proved intolerably disruptive to normal University operations and has raised serious concerns about the conduct of some participants, including distressing reports and images of protesters subjecting passersby to antisemitic speech, signs and chants.
There’s more of Dr Fry’s message, which can be seen at Mr Keeley’s tweet. The Philadelphia Inquirer covered the creation of the ‘encampment’ at Drexel, but, in an article last updated at 10:14 PM EDT on Saturday, had nothing on Dr Fry’s message or the anti-Semitic behavior of many of the protesters. Continue reading
What part of “the right of the people peaceably to assemble” don’t they understand? Hamas are not peaceful, so I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that their collegiate supporters have not been either
Gaza Rally, May 1, 2024, photo by Abbey Cutrer, Kentucky Kernel. How many were there supporting the rally, and how many were just spectators?
No one has been more supportive of the right of the pro-Hamas demonstrators to exercise their freedom of speech and right to peaceably assemble to proclaim their positions than The First Street Journal has been. We have pointed out how the keffiyeh-wearing activists — and I regard wearing the black-and-white Palestinian keffiyeh as qualitatively indistinguishable from wearing a Nazi swastika armband — had their demonstration at the University of Kentucky, made their points in a rally in front of the school’s main library, waved their Palestinian flags, and, when it was over, picked up their stuff and went home. I have supported the right of the Princeton University hunger strikers to starve themselves to make their point, even as I mocked them, because I unequivocally support Israel in their war against Hamas and I support freedom of speech. I have even said that it’s a bit pointless to use force to break up the protest encampments, because, with the semester ending, these encampments will just wither away.
As it happened, the powers that be at the University of Pennsylvania decided against just leaving the encampments alone, and the Philadelphia Police broke it up and arrested some of the campers. They were definitely the Usual Suspects, as Fox 29 News reported that only 7 of the 33 people arrested for ‘defiant trespassing’ were actually Penn students. Continue reading
We all have #FreedomOfSpeech, but that does not come with freedom from consequences The anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas protesters are finding out that some people have listened to them, and don't like what they've said
I spotted this on my feed this morning, and the different reactions are humorous.
Conservative judges say they will boycott Columbia University students
The judges accused Columbia of becoming “ground zero for the explosion of student disruptions, anti-semitism, and hatred for diverse viewpoints on campuses.”
By Tobi Raji | Tuesday, May 7, 2024 | 6:42 PM EDT
More than a dozen conservative federal judges are threatening to not hire law clerks who attend Columbia University or its law school starting this fall — an attempt to show the judges’ displeasure over the institution’s handling of pro-Palestinian protests.
“I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” The pro-Hamas demonstrators have completely ignored the truth.
We have previously noted the idiocy of those holding a “Queers for Palestine” banner, something that even the homosexual activist publication The Advocate said was stupid.
But the image of te guy on the right? You can tell that he’s an American or Brit, because the signs are in English for English readers, and he’s enjoying his Western civilization world of freedom of speech, because if he wore that shirt in Tehran or Cairo or just about anyplace in the Muslim Middle East, he’d be taken straight to jail, doubtlessly beaten, and could well be prosecuted for blasphemy.
Well, maybe not. Try wearing a shirt which proclaims “Allah is Gay” in Riyadh, and you might not even make it to jail, you might well be beaten to death even before the police got there.
Then there’s this: Continue reading