TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE: Just the News is reporting that Holden Thorp, who oversees news, research and opinion for the Science family of journals, repeatedly told the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic that he and his peers fell short by failing to better explain to the public that science is a “work in progress” and that scientists are “opinionated” but should change their minds “when we see new data.”

“Rather than journals being a wealth of information and opinions about the novel virus, of which we knew so little, they helped establish a party line that literally put a chilling effect on scientific research” on COVID origins and scientific communication, Chairman Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio said.”

It’s a small walk-back, but really the “trust the science” people (who are also the same people who use the pejorative “science-denier”) ought to be ashamed of themselves.

But they won’t. It’s all Lysenko, all the time.

ANOTHER ONE GETS RED-PILLED: Just the News is reporting that Uri Berliner, a National Public Radio veteran editor who authored an essay that was critical of the news outlet’s liberal bias, resigned Wednesday.

“Today, those who listen to NPR or read its coverage online find something different: the distilled worldview of a very small segment of the U.S. population. If you are conservative, you will read this and say, duh, it’s always been this way. But it hasn’t,” he wrote last week in an essay for The Free Press.

He’s probably in line for the same insane demonization the Margaret Sullivan and MSNBC crowd have leveled against Bari Weiss, Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi.

If you step off the reservation and think for yourself, you’re dead to us and we must destroy you. Because we’re liberals. That means we embrace dissent, except when we don’t agree.

ALMOST ALWAYS A VERY HARD DECISION: Reflections of a Newsman.

I saw this article where country singer Ashley Judd talked about being on the “other side” of coverage of tragedies. It made me take pause and reflect.

As a former photojournalist turned newsroom lawyer, I’ve had to wrestle with this from time to time. My watch-words (especially in the Media Law and Ethics classes I teach) has always been “good taste and common sense win the day.”

But it’s always a tough call. My dear friend, the late Hal Buell was the long-time Photo Chief for the Associated Press. A truly decent guy in every way. When the legendary Nick Ut made the iconic news picture below, Hal told me years later that they debated for several hours about whether they should move the file on the wire.

(Credit: Nick Ut/AP under Creative Commons license)

They decided that despite its somewhat gruesome and certainly invasive nature, it depicted a moment too important to keep from the public. IIRC, some newspaper members simply chose not to run it.

Flash forward a few years to the wild and wooly ’80’s. The standard became “if it bleeds, it leads.” Little thought was given to the sensitivities of the victim’s families, let alone the readers. Photographs like this were common:

(Credit: Paul DeMaria/NYDN via Wikimedia Commons)

As a shooter myself, I was guilty of making pictures that today might be “insensitive.” I made the photo below after hearing a police call of a shooting outside an elementary school:

(Credit: Charles Glasser/Miami Beach Sun)

Apparently this fellow was a Marielito who owed about $50 to another drug dealer. Without warning, the murderer (never caught) simply walked up behind this guy and pumped a few .38 rounds into the back of his head. (FYI: Years later, Facebook blocked this photo from view for violating “community standards.”)

Did I consider anyone’s “privacy”? Hell, it was on a public sidewalk (in front of a school, no less) and the guy wasn’t a “somebody.” No relatives to complain, no objections from readers, I even won a Florida Press Club in Spot News award for it.

Let’s flash forward to my being a newsroom lawyer a decade or so later. I’m the Global Media Counsel for Bloomberg News. In the early days of the Enron collapse, one of the top executives — a real Boy Scout — committed suicide. An outstanding reporter named Loren Steffy, got a hold of his suicide note from the Sugarland PD. What to do?

The family’s lawyer begged us not to publish it. The note itself revealed nothing personal, and didn’t name names about Enron. I had a long, deep discussion with the Editor-in-Chief. If we didn’t publish, I argued, the family would be subjected to endless conspiracy theories. By publishing, we could put the matter of his suicide to rest. He knew bad things were done, as an honest guy he couldn’t deal with it, and it was going to get worse: He wanted to apologize to his family.

We ran the note. Thoughts?

UPDATE (From Ed): 50 years on: Revisiting the myths of the ‘Napalm Girl,’ a photo ‘that doesn’t rest.’

The napalm attack was carried out by propeller-driven Skyraider aircraft of the South Vietnamese Air Force trying to roust communist forces dug in near the village – as news accounts at the time made clear.

The headline over the New York Times report from Trang Bang said: “South Vietnamese Drop Napalm on Own Troops.”

The Chicago Tribune front page of June 9, 1972, stated the “napalm [was] dropped by a Vietnamese air force Skyraider diving onto the wrong target.”

Christopher Wain, a veteran British journalist, wrote in a dispatch for United Press International: “These were South Vietnamese planes dropping napalm on South Vietnamese peasants and troops.”

The myth of American culpability at Trang Bang began taking hold during the 1972 presidential campaign, when Democratic candidate George McGovern referred to the photograph in a televised speech. The napalm that badly burned Kim Phuc, he declared, had been “dropped in the name of America.”

McGovern’s metaphoric claim anticipated similar assertions, including Susan Sontag’s statement in her 1973 book “On Photography,” that Kim Phuc had been “sprayed by American napalm.”

(The Associated Press, in an article posted online yesterday, erroneously described the aerial attack at Trang Bang as “an American napalm strike on a Vietnamese hamlet.” See screenshot nearby. The news agency later in the day corrected the error after it was noted on Twitter.)

Read the whole thing.

“DEMOCRACY…I do not think it means what you think it means”:

Google (“Don’t be Evil”) shut down access to The Daily Caller‘s outstanding documentary “Rigged” that dares to ask reasonable and fair questions about the electoral process.

But it seems merely raising fair questions is in itself too much liberty. According The Daily Caller, “Google shut down our ads promoting our documentary about election fraud because they could “undermine trust in [the] democratic process.”

So blind obedience is the way to go, right? Anything else is…disinformation or worse, treason?

**Disclosure: I am outside counsel to The Daily Caller on libel and ethical issues, and review their documentaries before publishing for accuracy and fairness **

I DON’T KNOW WHICH PART OF THIS HEADLINE I LIKE BEST:

“Recreational use of erectile dysfunction drugs is rising — for doctors, it’s a hard no.”

Unless you are complete puritan, isn’t all use of ED drugs, um, recreational? And of course, being the glorious New York Post, getting the word “hard” in there was brilliant.

“SWING…AND A MISS.” In the freakout reaction about an NPR insider calling out their totally biased reporting, (I know, “duh”) NPR President CEO Katherine Maher sent out this mealy mouthed note to supplicate her troops and the snowflake believers who still take NPR seriously.

I mean, I never had a lot of faith in outfits who use Norwegian Whaling Zither Folk Music as lead-ins, but maybe that’s just me.

Much more importantly, I dare any Insta-readers to look at her message and find the words “truth,” “accuracy,” or “fairness.” What does that tell you?

They. Just. Don’t. Get. It.

UTTERLY OUTRAGEOUS: The Daily Caller is reporting about a snot-nosed child at the Washington Post demanding verification from a Navy SEAL’s wife about her husband and Republican Montana Senate Candidate Tim Sheehy’s military service.

Not that anyone at the WaPo would know what a DD-214 is, but how can they disregard the photographic evidence Sheehy posted on X?

Now, do let’s talk about Senator Blumenthal…

** Disclosure: I was an embedded photojournalist with US units in Central America in the late 70’s and have the most profound respect for our vets. And even more personal, my older brother served in the USAF in Phan Rang from 67-69, which were pretty hairy years. So you’re G-D right I’m pissed off. **

HE’S NOT EXACTLY CORRECT, BUT HE’S NOT EXACTLY WRONG: CNN faceplanted themselves by assuming that RFK Jr. would agree with their supposition that Trump represents a greater “threat to democracy” than Biden. As The Good Professor pointed out here, RFK wasn’t buying it.

But history matters. RFK erred wildly in saying Biden was “the first and only president to censor political speech.” That’s just not so. I wouldn’t expect a dope from CNN to challenge him on this, but any of us who studied US history, let alone the First Amendment, know that President John Adams signed the Alien and Sedition Acts into law in 1798. According to the Bill of Rights Institute:

“Federalists enacted the Sedition Act of 1798 to silence the opposition of the partisan Jeffersonian-Republican press. Most newspapers were favorable to one of the parties, and although parties had emerged early in the decade, there was no idea in American politics at the time of a loyal and legitimate opposition. Members of both parties considered the other party to be enemies of the republic. The new law prohibited publishing or saying anything “false, scandalous, and malicious” against the federal government, the president, or Congress. Those convicted were fined up to $2,000 (an enormous amount in the 1790s) and imprisoned for up to two years. Congress passed the Sedition Act, once again along party lines, with Federalists supporting and Jeffersonian-Republicans opposed.”

Newspaper editors who did not toe the government line were imprisoned. Moreover, eerily predictive of the “threat to Democracy” line espoused by Adam Schiff (D-Crazyworld) and others, none other that Abraham Lincoln’s government ordered arrests of editors who were accused of “supporting” the Confederacy by publishing dissenting views:

“In New York and New Jersey, two grand juries drew up presentments against newspapers that had been critical of the Union effort, which one paper called the “unholy war.” One grand jury presented a list of newspapers that encouraged the rebels, explaining, “The Grand Jury are aware that free governments allow liberty of speech and of the press to their utmost limits, there is, nevertheless, a limit. If a person in a fortress or an army were to preach to the soldiers submission to the enemy, he would be treated as an offender. Would he be more culpable than the citizen who, in the midst of the most formidable conspiracy and rebellion, tells the conspirators and rebels that they are right, encourages them to persevere in resistance and condemns the effort of loyal citizens to overcome and punish them as an ‘unholy war’?”

So, to be clear, I agree with RFK that the Obama-Biden regime presents a far greater threat to democracy than we’ve seen in centuries, but I wish politicians did their homework. I suppose it’s asking too much that so-called “journalists” do the same.

I SEEM TO REMEMBER THE DEFINITION OF INSANITY AS “REPEATING THE SAME MISTAKES AND EXPECTING A DIFFERENT OUTCOME”: The Biden administration wants to shape the final settlement of the Israel-Hamas war to give a “revamped” Palestinian Authority control of Gaza.

What color is the sky in Joe Biden’s world? JustTheNews reporting that:

“The Biden administration’s plans for post-war Gaza center on boosting the Palestinian Authority (PA), which currently controls significant portions of the West Bank and is ruled by the Fatah party, to take control over the coastal strip despite consistent corruption warnings and poor governance.”

***

“Former Chief of Staff of the National Security Council under the Trump Administration, Fred Fleitz told Just the News that the Biden administration’s effort to boost the PA while overlooking both corruption and security concerns stems from a naive view of international security and domestic political motivations. “It’s politics,” Fleitz said, explaining that the Biden campaign is concerned over alienating reliable Democratic Muslim voters in key swing states such as Michigan, with a dense Arab population.”

Democrats are willing to trade Israel for Michigan, it seems.

I ALMOST NEVER EAT AT MICKEY D’S, BUT THIS MAKES ME HAPPY. WHY? Perhaps I just enjoy a poke in the eye of the nanny state. But JustTheNews is reporting that:

“Popular fast-food chain McDonald’s is going to start selling Krispy Kreme donuts as part of a new partnership. Both companies told CNN earlier this week that three different types of donuts will start being sold at McDonald’s starting later this year.”

Fat and sugar. Is there anything it can’t do?

BEHOLD THE POWER OF RACISM! (Is there anything it can’t do?): The National Electrical Grid is teetering on collapse. The shift away from full-time available power (like fossil fuels, LNG, etc.) to so-called “green” sources has deeply impacted reliability.

Hey, guess what? Solar farms don’t work at night! Who knew?

Also, as more whale-killing off-shore wind farms are planned, the Biden administration forgot to plan for the thousands of miles of transmission lines that will be needed. And in a perfect example of leftist autophagy, there is considerable opposition from enviro-groups who will tie up the construction of wind farms and transmission lines in court for decades. Snail darters and sacred tribal land, you know.

But Representative Cori Bush (D-Crazyland) has it all figured out. It’s not the science, cost or technology that puts our energy grid at risk: it’s racism!

JustTheNews reporting that Bush said recently that:

“We also cannot ignore the actions of domestic extremists, including white nationalists and white supremacist who have violently attacked electrical grids, to stoke chaos and fear,” Bush said. She did not cite any examples of white nationalists being accused, let alone held responsible, for attacks on the grid […] Bush pointed to two incidents, including a 2022 attack on two substations that left 45,000 people without power, resulting in the death of a woman who relied on an oxygen tank. That case has resulted in no arrests, and so the identities, races, and motives of the person or persons who carried out the attack are still unknown.“ (Emphasis added).

But wait, there’s more! Bush continued: “She also claimed that impacts of increasing extreme weather from climate change was another factor impacting the nation’s grid reliability.”

White supremacists combined with “climate change.” Wow! That’s better than Jews with weather machines and space lasers. Although that’s probably next…

IT’S NOT A LIE, IT’S A “STUTTER”: Biden has a considerable record of incoherently slurring words into gibberish, but that’s not really news. And many of his apologists blame his frequent word salad on his “stuttering.” That’s not news, either.

But tell me, gentle readers, will they blame stuttering on what is clearly an outright lie? The Daily Caller is reporting that:

“Hur’s report detailing the president’s handling of classified documents made several notes about Biden’s memory, including that he forgot the date of his son’s death and when his vice presidency began and ended. Biden held an unexpected press conference a few hours after the release of the report, criticizing Hur for questioning his late son’s death. The president, however, was the one who raised the date of his son’s death, according to the transcript the Daily Caller obtained.”

As many of you may know, two years ago I suffered the loss in a fire of my girlfriend of 22 years. I had to say kaddish for her two weeks ago, and as any of you who has ever lost a loved one, those dates are burned into your soul. The idea that Biden dissembles about Beau’s death (no, he did not die in Iraq)  is terribly troubling.

Either:

• he is outright lying;
• his brain is truly oatmeal;
• his handlers find it a convenient “outrage” topic; or
• we embrace the power of “and.”

**Update***  JustTheNews published a detailed list of Biden’s mush-brained responses to Special Counsel Hur. There just ain’t enough Adderall to keep this guy’s sh*t together.

CNN reporting that “At least five people were killed and 10 others injured when airdropped aid packages fell on them in the Al Shati camp west of Gaza City, according to a journalist on the scene.”

THIS JUST IN: Supreme Court rules Trump can remain on ballot.

Just The News reporting that:

Donald Trump can remain on the 2024 presidential ballot in a decision that comes one day before the Colorado Republican primary after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that the top Republican contender is ineligible.

Ruling itself at link.