Antifa has taken control of what you are seeing coming out of Portland and they’re not being very gentle about it.
Nancy Rommelmann at Reason gives us a glimpse into a sophisticated media operation by antifa that looks to bend the narrative in the direction they want it by intimidation and outright thuggery.
“YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO FILM!” is a cry you hear incessantly at protests in Portland, Oregon, always shouted at close range to your face by after-dark demonstrators. You can assert that, yes, you can film; you can point out that they themselves are filming incessantly; you can push their hands away from covering your phone; you can have your phone record them stealing your phone—all of these things have happened to me—and none will have any impact on their contention that “YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO FILM” and its occasional variation, “PHOTOGRAPHY EQUALS DEATH!”
Rommelmann, who has been covering the protests since July, believes the narrative being foisted on the American people is “90 percent bulls**t.”
I wondered, the first time I attended the protests at the federal building back in July, who all these young people with PRESS emblazoned on their jackets or helmets were. I asked one such guy who he worked for.
“Independent Press Corps,” he told me. As it turned out, dozens of other young PRESS people happened to work for the same outfit, which I at first assumed was a fancy way of saying “I want to report stuff and stream it on my Instagram.”
This turned out to be naive. The IPC is an organized group in league with the activists, and it is usually their footage you see streamed online and recycled on the news: mostly innocent protestors being harassed and beaten by police.
Where did this operation come from? Who’s funding it? It may be unique in American history—an organization of media manipulators along with a thug army to intimidate everyone who wants to report any alternative point of view.
Welcome to antifa’s Brave New World.
Reporters seen as not sufficiently sympathetic to the cause—which is defined by the Ten Demands for Justice, and includes most notably the abolition of the police—will be followed, be harassed, have their notes photographed and their phones blocked or stolen. (All these things have happened to me in the last month. A photographer friend has been repeatedly doxxed and placed on a list of “enemies.”)
Even the commies aren’t this efficient.
“Approved journalists” include a freelance writer whose reports have appeared in the New York Times and another freelancer who tweeted approval of the burning of the police association building.
https://twitter.com/IwriteOK/status/1284793130114445317
Evans called the arson a “win” because police had “tear-gassed and beaten” some protesters — after weeks of provocations that included more arson targeting the cops.
Another approved “journalist” was the Washington Post’s Kate Shepherd. It’s nice to know, when you’re reading the Post, that you’re getting antifa propaganda.
Modern politics is all about controlling the narrative. You can be helped or hurt by whether the national media picks up on it or not. As the media becomes increasingly ideological in their coverage of what’s happening, manipulating the press becomes easier.
If you aren’t lying, why do you have to control the video coverage?
Way back during the Iraq war our media stupidly relied on “stringers.”
Stringers were locals who (supposedly) were able to get in on the ground because they knew everybody.
Therefore, their “stories” were assumed (by our media) to be an accurate snapshot of what was really happening.
Our actual reporters stayed in nice bars in safe “Green Zones,” and paid these stringers.
So, what happened?
We got a skewed story.
Those stringers were the source (or should I say the “source?”) for the 100,000 Iraqis were dead Lancet article.
It was false because it was merely stringers asking the same people who all knew one another the questions then counting, recounting and counting some more, the same one death they ALL knew about!
Fox News has joined with the rest of the leftist media in using antifa-sourced news footage.
There are better alternatives for fair reporting that isn’t narrative driven.
WGN has 3 hours of very fair news each evening.
There is Andy Ngo’s twitter feed.
There is Reason magazine.
There is 100% Fed Up https://100percentfedup.com/
There is the Beige Page https://www.beigepage.com/
There is Press California https://presscalifornia.com/
And there are plenty more links to news sources inside each of the above.
Want to know where a candidate stands on issues and where that puts him/her on a grid, plus actual quotes on each issue?
Go to https://www.ontheissues.org/default.htm click on your candidate and see for yourself!