Newsmax, Fox News air outdated, out-of-context photos of empty shelves in segments bashing Biden

• In recent segments, both Newsmax and Fox News displayed old, out-of-context photos in a misleading way that suggested they showed empty shelves in the U.S. today.

• For example, six photos that Newsmax represented as pictures capturing the current situation in the U.S. actually showed London in March 2020; Los Angeles in March 2020; Japan in September 2020; Australia in May; London in July; and Berlin in March 2012.

• Social media users have similarly circulated outdated photos that show grocery stores with depleted shelves due to early-pandemic panic buying or other circumstances.

Newsmax and Fox News have aired old, out-of-context photos of empty grocery store shelves in recent segments bashing President Joe Biden for the jammed-up supply chain that experts say is backlogged due to the coronavirus pandemic’s strain on the global economy.

Shortages of labor and raw materials have certainly created bottlenecks at a time when shoppers are looking to spend. And photos of depleted shelves, like these from the Associated Press in October, have legitimately helped to illustrate that story.

But other photos that appeared on Newsmax and Fox News were taken as early as March 2020, and some were snapped in other countries. The conservative networks represented them as though they were current and taken in the U.S.

"It is unprofessional and unethical to repurpose images from another time and place to illustrate a story that has nothing to do with the original context in which those images were made," said Nina Berman, the director of the photojournalism program at Columbia Journalism School.

"Using a photograph which shows empty shelves because of a coming typhoon in Japan, or old images from the early days of panic pandemic buying, to make a point about the current state of the U.S. economy is a classic case of disinformation," Berman added.

Newsmax and Fox News did not respond to requests for comment about the misleading photos.

Social media users have also circulated several outdated empty-shelf photos out of context. In one instance, conservative commentator Kimberly Klacik shared a photo of a British grocery store from March 2020 and falsely claimed that it offered "a look at" Biden’s economic policies. 

But when TV networks do the same thing, it reflects poorly on all journalists and contributes to distrust of other news organizations, said Lee Wilkins, an author on media ethics and professor emerita at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism. 

PolitiFact reached out to Getty Images and the Associated Press, the services that supplied the empty-shelves photos that Newsmax and Fox News used out of context. We did not hear back. 

Newsmax poaches photos from London, Japan, Australia and Germany

On Oct. 18, Newsmax host Chris Salcedo interviewed Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., about the supply chain issues. Comer shared a clip from the interview on Twitter, writing that the "high prices and empty store shelves are a direct result of Joe Biden's reckless spending policies."

In the short clip, Comer faulted Biden’s economic policies and COVID-19 vaccine requirement for large employers for labor shortages, high prices and depleted store shelves. 

But as Comer spoke, Newsmax filtered through six old, out-of-context images of empty shelves on screen, leaving the false impression that they depicted the situation Comer described. Here’s what the original photos actually showed, according to their captions on Getty Images:

• The first photo showed empty shelves and long lines at a London supermarket in March 2020.

• The second photo showed an aisle of empty shelves at a Hispanic specialty market in Los Angeles in March 2020, back when former President Donald Trump was in office and the coronavirus pandemic was first breaking out.

• The third photo showed shelves that had been depleted at a convenience store in Japan as the country prepared for a typhoon to make landfall in September 2020.

• The fourth photo showed empty toilet paper shelves at a supermarket in Melbourne, Australia, as the city began a seven-day lockdown in late May.

• The fifth photo showed a sign seen at a London supermarket in July that read, "Please bear with us. We’re experiencing high demand."

• The sixth photo showed a customer walking through a drugstore in Berlin on the last day the store was open before permanently closing in March 2012.

Newsmax did not label any of the six photos on screen, an omission that media ethics experts said was deceptive toward viewers.

"If you’re going to run a story with a photo of empty shelves from Japan, be sure to say that they’re in Japan, and not in the U.S." Wilkins said.

Early pandemic photos on Fox News

A similar scene played out at Fox News Oct. 19, when host Laura Ingraham opened her show by teasing an interview with GOP Reps. Jim Jordan and Mark Green about the supply chain.

"A new piece in the Washington Post reveals what the left wants for America: to have less, and to suffer, of course," Ingraham said, referring to an Oct. 18 column on the supply chain woes.

As Ingraham spoke, two photos from the Associated Press displayed on screen. But neither was current. The two photos showed rows of empty shelves at a Nebraska supermarket and a Pennsylvania grocery store in March 2020.

A day earlier, Fox News host Will Cain also aired a photo from March 2020 as he blamed Biden for the depleted shelves and the chyron read, "Vaccine mandates are hurting America." Fox News had previously used the same image in a March 2020 report on its website.

https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/oct/22/newsmax-fox-news-air-outdated-out-context-photos-e/

 

Are racially, culturally or ethnically diverse democracies viable in the long run?

Culture compared to ethnicity

This post focuses on the difficulties that democracies are have in dealing with racial, cultural or ethnic diversity. Inherent in the human condition or mind are traits that can make social harmony and tolerance of diversity difficult. People and interests, typically demagogues or authoritarians, that want to divide societies to serve their own social, economic or ideological interests and goals know how to play on these human traits. 

A global surge in refugees in recent years has elicited powerful emotional backlash responses in various democracies. Anti-immigrant backlash typically includes what many people had thought to be long dead social responses such as chauvinism (jingoism), ultranationalism which tends to be associated with a resurgence of authoritarianism, and prejudice and discrimination against out-groups. These social traits are not always anomalies. They were prominent features of American society when major waves of immigration occurred. Traditionally diverse countries such as India and the US are experiencing serious problems associated with diversity and how different groups are either manifesting their diversity or in how other groups that perceive threat are responding. Stopping immigration was a major factor in how the 2016 elections turned out. Anti-immigration sentiment was accompanied by explicit denigration of immigrants with bigoted and sometimes outright racist rhetoric and border tactics.

That innate human trait raises the question of the long-term viability of diverse democracies. One can argue that dealing with diversity is a much more difficult and anti-democratically dangerous problem than most people probably believe. Global responses to recent waves of immigrants have tended toward anti-immigrant sentiment more than immigrant acceptance and support. That sentiment can be enhanced by political demagoguery as has happened in the US.  

Recent anti-immigrant backlash arose with a refugee crisis in Europe in 2015. Anti-immigration and nationalist-populist parties in both Europe and the US gained in prominence, e.g., as exemplified by Brexit in the UK and MAGA in the US. Countries including Sweden and Denmark have experienced an immigration backlash that forced them to face a new cultural diversity somewhat akin to what exists in the US. New immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries are testing long-standing, self-proclaimed national tolerance, openness and acceptance of different cultures and value systems. The previously fringe Swedish Democrats, a party with historical racist roots, have mounted an all-out assault on Muslim immigrants as unwelcome, destructive, crime-ridden moochers. SD popularity and representation grew and in 2018 they were Sweden's 3rd largest party. The SD party has negotiated with the other large parties (Christian Democrats, The Moderate Party) in the EU as part of the ECR (right wing, euroskeptic, anti-immigration coalition).

Denmark's response was also surprising. Although it is among Europe's most secular societies, the Muslim influx backlash included instituting Christian literacy laws that include such topics as how to celebrate Christmas properly. Also, Denmark recently announced a new policy goal of accepting zero new asylum seekers. Other laws intended to "preserve Denmark's national culture" and to facilitate "assimilation" included forced hand-shaking, despite knowledge that some Muslims are required to abstain from touching members of the opposite sex, including handshakes. Toddlers were separated from parents at young ages for about 25 hrs. a week to receive "cultural education."[1] 

Denmark apparently seriously believes in the social melting pot concept, by coercion if necessary. Maybe that is best for democracy in view of the human condition. America seems to have abandoned the melting pot and replaced it with celebration of diversity with racial, cultural or ethnic group distinctness. That mindset change has left at least some Americans feeling betrayed and angry. Those bad feelings arise because a significant number of Americans, maybe a majority, have repudiated melting pot values that melting pot believers adopted and lived by. These days, one does not hear much or anything about the American melting pot.

The nativist and discriminatory social responses that some countries are in the midst of suggests that a backlash may be inevitable when democracies are experiencing either (i) a wave of increasing diversity or multi-ethnicity, or (ii) the rise of a demagogue playing on existing diversity to foment social division, distrust and intolerance. Waves of immigration sparks backlash. So can waves of demagoguery. If anti-immigrant or more broadly diversity backlash is not inevitable, how can it be circumvented or significantly reduced?

Maybe due in large part to a myopic sense of American exceptionalism and/or limited or no contact with members outside mainstream White culture, many Americans don't appreciate the unusual degree of heterogeneity in cultures, religions (and lack thereof), languages, ethnic groups and subgroups here. Our representative democracy is supposed to navigate and manage this social milieu, while trying to keep intergroup/intercultural conflict, distrust, intolerance and prejudice to a minimum. That is preferably done within the confines of democratic political norms that used to prevail. Those political norms have been obliterated since 2017. A significant minority of American society has become cruder, crueler and more disinformed, and that intolerant mindset often spills over onto immigrants.

Race compared to ethnicity

Some Americans respond by contemplating leaving the US for Canada where things aren't quite so polarized or threatening. Canada, which has some diversity, is not close to the densely populated and increasingly urbanized and heterogeneous society in the US. But despite, or because of, that relative homogeneity, even Canada had had problems with separatism (the question of French Québec) and a dirty record on indigenous First Nations, e.g., as evidenced by ongoing revelations of mass graves of unknown native American children that went to their "boarding schools" as recently as the 1970s.

Other democracies are experiencing significant social turmoil related to frictions arising from internal or imported diversity. That includes Hungary and India.[2]

Acknowledgment: The idea for this post and most of its content came from PD in extended comments here in a different post. He also described some the biological and evolutionary basis for social discord that arise in democracies from frictions grounded in various kinds of diversity. That will be the topic of a second post. 

Questions:

1. Given that demagoguery is usually legal in democracies and demagogues and authoritarians exist in all populations, are racially, culturally or ethnically diverse democracies viable in the long run, or can they withstand the human traits that try to tear them down?

2. It is reasonable to at least argue that (1) America has mostly abandoned the melting pot concept in favor of preservation and celebration of diversity, and (2) if so, that is a rational basis for some Americans to feel some degree of betrayal and/or anger?

Footnotes:

1. The New York Times wrote this in 2018:

COPENHAGEN — When Rokhaia Naassan gives birth in the coming days, she and her baby boy will enter a new category in the eyes of Danish law. Because she lives in a low-income immigrant neighborhood described by the government as a “ghetto,” Rokhaia will be what the Danish newspapers call a “ghetto parent” and he will be a “ghetto child.”

Starting at the age of 1, “ghetto children” must be separated from their families for at least 25 hours a week, not including nap time, for mandatory instruction in “Danish values,” including the traditions of Christmas and Easter, and Danish language. Noncompliance could result in a stoppage of welfare payments. Other Danish citizens are free to choose whether to enroll children in preschool up to the age of six.

Denmark’s government is introducing a new set of laws to regulate life in 25 low-income and heavily Muslim enclaves, saying that if families there do not willingly merge into the country’s mainstream, they should be compelled.

2. India bills itself as "the worlds largest and most diverse democracy," with 23 official languages, a vestigial caste/jati system. Its Hindu-Muslim religious diversity has a history of tremendous religious conflict that culminated in the India-Pakistan partition. It also has a history of extreme urban-rural cultural contrasts that persist to the present. Although the pace of development and modernization quickened and brought increasingly cosmopolitan liberal values, India experienced a rapid rise of a frankly bigoted Hindu nationalism under BJP strongman, PM Nerendra Modi? (His affiliations include RSS, the group from which Gandhi's assassin came; the assassination being motivated by Gandhi's wish to have one India that embraced both Hindus and Muslims, while the RSS conflate "Hindu-ness" or Hindutva with India as a nation-state). The Indian resurgence of Hindu nationalism seems to fit a certain pattern of reactions to globalization and cosmopolitanism that get accentuated whenever there is a sense of accelerating culture clash.

Tyranny in the digital age: Censor the internet

One of the targets of high value for tyrants and demagogues is the free flow of information, political criticism and inconvenient but honest speech. That needs to be shut down as much as possible to allow demagogues and dictators more freedom to create unrebuttable false realities and real divisions within societies. 

The undisputed world leader in in digital tyranny is the demagogic Chinese government dictatorship. However, the demagogic Russian tyranny has finally gotten around to starting to shut down the internet. It is surprising that it took Putin this long to get serious about clamping down on online inconvenient facts, truths, reasoning, criticism and reporting. The New York Times writes:

Russia’s boldest moves to censor the internet began in the most mundane of ways — with a series of bureaucratic emails and forms.

The messages, sent by Russia’s powerful internet regulator, demanded technical details — like traffic numbers, equipment specifications and connection speeds — from companies that provide internet and telecommunications services across the country. Then the black boxes arrived.

The telecom companies had no choice but to step aside as government-approved technicians installed the equipment alongside their own computer systems and servers. Sometimes caged behind lock and key, the new gear linked back to a command center in Moscow, giving the authorities startling new powers to block, filter and slow down websites that they did not want the Russian public to see.

The process, underway since 2019, represents the start of perhaps the world’s most ambitious digital censorship effort outside China. Under President Vladimir V. Putin, who once called the internet a “C.I.A. project” and views the web as a threat to his power, the Russian government is attempting to bring the country’s once open and freewheeling internet to heel.

The gear has been tucked inside the equipment rooms of Russia’s largest telecom and internet service providers, including Rostelecom, MTS, MegaFon and Vympelcom, a senior Russian lawmaker revealed this year. It affects the vast majority of the country’s more than 120 million wireless and home internet users, according to researchers and activists.  

Russia’s censorship efforts have faced little resistance. In the United States and Europe, once full-throated champions of an open internet, leaders have been largely silent amid deepening distrust of Silicon Valley and attempts to regulate the worst internet abuses themselves. Russian authorities have pointed to the West’s tech industry regulation to justify their own crackdown.

New Russian technology -- slowing down inconvenient truth

from 4 seconds to 34; the next step is completely blocking it 

The image is of Russian police crushing a street protest

The NYT goes on to report that what Russia is doing can be done easily by dictators anywhere. The censorship technology operates in cyberspace between internet access companies and people browsing the web on a phone or laptop. The process is akin to intercepting mail. “Deep packet inspection” software amounts to data filters in internet networks. The software can either slow websites down or simply remove content has been programmed to be blocked.

Over time, this will eliminate most digital exchange of political information and content. The internet is the last place in Russia where foreign content, activism, and political humor and criticism is still freely available. In essence, censoring the internet is likely to push Russia to deeper isolation, akin to the situation in the Cold War era. That would be perfectly fine with Putin and his successor kleptocratic tyrant.

Putin uses censorship, other strong-arm tactics and legal intimidation to coerce Western internet companies. In September, the Russian government threatened to arrest employees of Google and Apple, forcing the companies to remove apps run by supporters of the prominent political opponent Alexei A. Navalny before Russian elections. Navalny is a jailed opposition leader. Western companies had to censor themselves or employees would face physical violence.

No wonder that so many Russians want to get out of that sad, hopeless country.

What about American authoritarians?

Meanwhile, back here in the US, the FRP (fascist Republican Party) bitterly complains on the one hand that criticisms from professional news sites are lies, slanders and motivated reasoning.[1] But on the other hand, the FRP slams private sources for censoring the propaganda and lies the FRP routinely poisons political discourse with.[2] For this issue, the FRP leadership arguably is not much different in attitude toward inconvenient facts, truths, sound reasoning and criticisms than the demagogic tyrants that run China or Russia. They want to shut it down, but cannot manage it yet. Uncensored free speech is one of the last lines of defense that democracy has against the FRP’s onslaught on democracy and civil liberties including free speech they dislike.

The big problem this raises is the difference between honest speech and dark free speech (DFS) (lies, deceit, unwarranted opacity, irrational emotional manipulation, partisan motivated reasoning, etc.). That raises the question of what, if anything, can be done without empowering demagogues and tyrants by passing laws banning or punishing DFS without seriously weakening democracy and the rule of law. 

Obviously, demagogues and tyrants want to censor honest speech and set their own DFS free to poison people’s minds. In theory, Democrats should want to censor DFS and leave honest speech free to do social good, including combatting DFS. In practice its not clear that is possible without undermining the democracy the law is intended to protect.

Questions: 

1. Given that demagogues and tyrants shut down criticisms and access to inconvenient facts and truths, is it reasonable to believe that honest free speech is mostly anti-authoritarian, but dark free speech is mostly anti-democratic? 

2. Short of passing laws to ban or punish it by, e.g., imposing taxes on provable but un-retracked lies and falsehoods, is there anything a democracy can do to defend itself against the authoritarianism inherent in DFS?

Footnotes: 

1. For example:

President Trump hates the press. He spends nearly as much time attacking CNN and the “failing” New York Times as he does attacking Democrats. He’s referred to journalists as an “enemy of the people” both on Twitter and in public appearances. In March, he asked then-FBI Director James Comey to examine options for jailing reporters who published leaked information.

A fairly large plurality of Republicans — 45 percent — support allowing media organizations to be shuttered. A scant 20 percent oppose the idea; that’s less than half the number who support it. The remaining 35 percent of Republicans have not made up their minds.

By contrast, more Democrats and independents oppose shutting down media organizations than support it (by a 21-point margin among Democrats and 2-point margin among Independents).

Let that sink in for a second: More than twice as many Republicans support giving the government power to shut down media organizations that it deems either “inaccurate” or “biased” than oppose it. Such a proposal isn’t something you see in democracies, as it would essentially end freedom of the press entirely. It’s along the lines of what you see in Vladimir Putin’s Russia or Recep Tayyip Erdoǧan’s Turkey.

What is surprising is how many independents are open to shutting down speech they dislike or are unsure. Also, Democrats are not all that reassuring, with 18% wanting to shut down speech sources they dislike and a whopping 43% saying they are unsure.

2. For example:

American conservatives have been having a shrieking panic attack over free speech for the last several months. When Donald Trump was banned from Twitter for trying to overthrow the government, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) wrote it was a "PURGE" and suggested "a handful of Silicon Valley billionaires have a monopoly on political speech," while Donald Trump, Jr. wrote "Free speech is dead and controlled by leftist overlords." When the estate of Dr. Seuss pulled a handful of books with racist imagery from publication, Glenn Beck yelled "This is fascism!" When Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) temporarily lost a book contract for voting to overturn the 2020 election, he said he had been victimized by the "woke mob" and that the decision was "a direct assault on the First Amendment." And for years now, every time there is a protest against some racist speaker on a college campus, conservatives throw a wobbler about supposed censorship.

Lauren Boebert Documentary

 

LAUREN BOEBERT

RACIST, QANON SYMPATHIZER

Sycophant Websites

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DevinNunes2022.com

DaveLaRock.com

OANNetwork.com

GymJordan2022.com

CongressmanGaetz.com

GovernorGregAbbott.com

FindMAGALove.com

BIG thanks to research from many people, including:

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Lauren Boebert Is Trash

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Rural Colorado United

https://www.thelaurenboebert.com/

just a little light hearted fun for y'all on this here Saturday!