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This is the key issue. And the fact that the New York Times today treated the “cement milkshake” story as if it might be true is completely irresponsible.
33% of the paragraphs in this story contain the words cement or concrete. 0% of the journalists who were on site have uncovered any evidence of this propagandistic claim. nytimes.com/2019/07/01/us/…
This is the way propaganda works. It doesn't have to be literally true, it has to feel morally true to the community of people you are trying to activate with your propaganda. Propaganda needs airtime to function, even if that airtime takes the form of "unconfirmed reports."
I'd wager that "cement milkshakes in Portland" will become a right wing talking point in the coming months. It is utterly tangential to what happened this weekend, however, because it is fake news. But a whole bunch of folks are working to feed that story.
I'm not saying the NYTimes is intentionally engaged in propaganda. What I'm saying is by allowing the story of this weekend in Portland to be a debate about something that did not happen (cement milkshakes) they have allowed the far right to set the frame for the conversation.
That was the goal of the right wing protestors. Their goal was not to be assaulted, that's not what I'm saying. Their goal was to create a national media story about "the violent left." They seem to have succeeded.
Why, for example, is there no reporting on this video by one of the conservative protesters in which they express a desire to bait leftists into "throwing sh*t at the police?" Not very pro-police, it would seem.
I have said innumerable times that assault is wrong. My point is not to defend assault, but to ask, why this particular assault (of the thousands that happened in America this weekend) is getting so much attention.
Ben Shapiro tweeted 21 times about Portland this weekend. None of the any other assaults that happened in America were worthy of even a single tweet by him. The right desperately needs this narrative of "the violent left" and will glom on to anything that feeds it.
By treating "cement milkshakes" as if they are even worthy of attention, the NYTimes is not being "evenhanded." It's getting played by right wing propagandists.
Why, for example, is the media not talking about the fact that the group that organized yesterday's conservative protest showed up to a Portland protest last summer wearing these T-shirts.
How about this for a frame, counter-protestors armed with silly string and milkshakes confronts pro-Trump group who proudly refer to themselves as "Right Wing Death Squads." Everything in that sentence is true.
Imagine if THAT was the framing that NYTimes readers encountered, rather than some BS hand-wringing about entirely fictional cement milkshakes.
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