by Selwyn Duke, The New American:
It could be Exhibit A for why people don’t trust government and the legacy media. Only, well, there are so many damning exhibits to choose from. The story?
We’ve heard much about “collusion,” such as the Trump/Russia-collusion hoax. But here’s a story of real collusion, from the people who gave us that hoax:
Years ago, CBS couldn’t find real-life negative impacts of a government “shutdown” that was taking place and which the Democrats were blaming on the Republicans. The solution?
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
Be party to the Democrats’ faking of a negative impact.
This bombshell was revealed, too, by a reporter who was with CBS at the time: Sharyl Attkisson.
Smoke and Mirrors
Attkisson was obviously inspired to relate the information by the recent budget battle, during which a Government Shutdown™ loomed. As she wrote Thursday on X:
Quick story about govt. shutdowns and the theatrics behind them. One year when I was reporting at CBS News during a govt. shutdown, I think 2013, we were sincerely searching for real life impact. When we couldn’t find any, *that* should have been part of the story. Instead, we kept trying to create the appearance of an impact. It wasn’t really trying to be dishonest. It was, in my retrospective view, because the general editorial idea for the story was to show how bad the “Republican” shutdown was for ordinary Americans, and the answer simply couldn’t be that it wasn’t. I’ve written quite a bit about this but we, as journalists, too often “decide” the story in advance and shape the facts to fit our narrative, rather than gathering information and letting that tell the story, whatever it may be. Anyway, the Ds were blaming Rs for the shutdown, so we were calling Ds and the Obama administration for ideas to report what was the real impact. Taking our cue, these officials fabricated impact that we could report. For example, they cordoned off outdoor public monuments in Washington DC. We knew and even discussed in the newsroom that this made no sense. These monuments weren’t “manned” to begin with. The only reason to cordon them off from the public was so that visiting tourists would see the “impact” of the shutdowns and the news media would have something to take pictures of and interview people about. There are other examples but this is the one I remember the most.
Here’s Attkisson’s tweet:
Quick story about govt. shutdowns and the theatrics behind them. One year when I was reporting at CBS News during a govt. shutdown, I think 2013, we were sincerely searching for real life impact. When we couldn’t find any, *that* should have been part of the story. Instead, we…
— Sharyl Attkisson 🕵️♂️💼🥋 (@SharylAttkisson) December 20, 2024
Stealth Dishonesty
Telling the tale in the above, however, is Attkisson’s statement that it “wasn’t really trying to be dishonest.” For not “really” being dishonest also means not really being honest. (Apropos to this, too, I just penned a “Last Word” column on honesty. It will appear in the New American issue being released this week.) As I explained, responding to Attkisson on X:
Except, Sharyl, that it WAS an example of being dishonest.
Look, I’m a fellow journalist and appreciate the work you’re doing now. But if you want to avoid dishonesty in the future, you must acknowledge what it is. And what you’re really saying (it’s important to define this precisely) is this:
Your team was rationalizing; that’s when one lies to oneself.
And, of course, once self-deception is achieved, fooling others happens as a matter of course.
“Honesty about honesty is the best policy,” I then added in a second post (tweets below).
Read More @ TheNewAmerican.com
