Amazing story of an intense, large scale propaganda campaign waged in the U.S. over health care
A detailed expose, by a participant, in a massive, highly coordinated propaganda campaign that trashed Canada’s health care system during discussions about the ACA. Ultimately, the ACA’s first draft was written by the former legal counsel of a health insurance company – who had been hired by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) to do just that. In other words, the ACA was, to a large extent, written by the health insurance industry itself. Source: Health insurance whistleblower: I lied to Americans…
Winner of best fake news headline award: “UK researchers warn of only ’50 percent’ success for COVID vaccine trial | Fox News”
Headline makes it sound like there is only a 50% chance the Oxford vaccine will work against Covid-19. But that is not what this is about – at all. The real world incidence of Covid-19 is falling rapidly and might be so low that they are unable to see how the vaccine effects individuals contracting Covid-19 – because you can’t get the disease if the disease has largely vanished.
The researchers think that because of this, there is a 50% chance they will have insufficient data by September to say the vaccine meets requirements by then – and the tests may take longer. The headline is intended to lead you astray and emotionally thinking “Oh no! Vaccines won’t work”, which has been a mainstay of speculative scary reporting for the past 2 months.
Journalism: Anyone they want to call an expert is an expert
CNN says Greta Thunberg is an expert on corona virus. Face plant. This. Is. Journalism. What. A. Joke.
Journalism: “How to Infuse Subliminal Bias into Your Education Reporting, a Primer”
Executive director of Choice Media explains how to bias news stories in favor of traditional, unionized public educational programs.
Business: Everything about a restaurant menu is designed to trick you into spending more money.
Lengthy descriptions, flowery wording, made up names of farms of origin, the type font used, the order that items appear, the weight of the menu paper, the binding, the colors, the photographs – every aspect of a restaurant menu is working to manipulate your decision.
Communications: A propagandist is manipulative when they attempt to persuade you of something they know is a lie
When someone tries to persuade you of something that is not actually true, and the persuader knows it is not true, then the persuader is engaged in manipulation – versus argument or discussion.
Social media propaganda: This poster is essentially correct
Rare do we see a propaganda poster that is, essentially accurate 🙂
Propaganda method: Recycle old stories that are years out of date-“The American Dream Is Killing Us”
Recycling an old opinion column by an author who focuses on persuading you that life is miserable, not fair and getting worse – is an interesting twist on propaganda. The date – its old -is not presented until a footnote at the very end of the very long column; the column was written during the recovery from The Great Recession, immediately after significant economic turmoil. This is the media’s usual focus on negativity by an author who makes his living on negativity.
Propaganda methods: Framing the story
We all have “frames” of reference that describe various life scenarios. When we walk into a restaurant we have a “frame” that pretty much explains how we expect the restaurant experience to go. We each carry around a lot of subconscious “frames” about how we think the world works. Effective propaganda messaging links to the frames we expect the target to already have. This is not all that surprising but what is old is now new again 🙂