Category Archives: Media watch

Access Journalism, Agnotology, and Breeding for Elite Incompetence

There’s nothing quite like watching systems deliberately made worse, all in the name of better propaganda.

One rapidly escalating trend among officials and government agencies is making more and more information, including decades-old material, either impossible to obtain or accessible only to journalists who are “trusted,” meaning they are deferential to authority and will put the best possible spin on what they are fed.

Ilargi: In The Lie Of The Beholder

Yves here. Ilargi uses strained messaging in response to recent market upsets, the Argentine default, and the failure of Banco Santo Espirito to address one of NC’s pet topics, propagandizing. Most people think of propaganda as the deliberate crafting of false or misleading messages, or the simple Big Lie. However, there’s also the variant of the deeply vested partisan. As Upton Sinclair stated, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” And a lot of those salaried-by-the-status-quo folks have access to media megaphones.

Banks Scapegoat Regulations for More Costly Loans Post Crisis

Banks and their allies have been using every opportunity possible to blame regulations for changes in their business models after the crisis, particular if they can make it sound like the broader public, as opposed to their bottom lines, is what is suffering. Normally this messaging effort stays at the background noise level, but sometimes the lobbyists succeed in getting their message treated as a story in its own right.

A recent example is a Financial Times story early this week…

Orange County Register Attacks Lack of Public Pension Fund Transparency, Cites Our Suit Against CalPERS

Another California newspaper criticizes the giant public pension fund CalPERS for its lack of transparency around private equity.

New York Times Hit Piece on Tom Steyer and Fossil Fuel Divestment

Word came recently that both the Philadelphia Quakers and the Unitarian General Assembly have decided to divest from fossil fuels. It followed by a few weeks the news that the Roman Catholic University of Dayton and Union Theological Seminary, the home of many a great thinker, had done likewise.

ISIS and Iraq: The T-Shirts, the Cats, the App, the Hasbara

ISIS has mastered digital strategy. But whose strategy? And what for?

Sacramento Bee Takes Up Our Fight Against Private Equity Firms’ Secrecy

On Monday, the Sacramento Bee published an editorial that took up many of the issues that we’ve raised in recent months about private equity firms’ fee abuses and the extraordinary shroud of secrecy that the industry has thrown over most of its activities.

New York’s Schneiderman Accepts Red Cross’ “Trade Secrets” Excuse to Hide Sandy Spending

It’s not clear what to make of an attorney general who opens an investigation and then accepts lame excuses for maintaining secrecy from its target, in this case, the American Red Cross. We’re flagging this example because it exemplifies an effort by organizations to use “trade secrets” as a pretext for hiding more and more of their dealings with governments. This is absurd, since the premise of Federal and state Freedom of Information Act laws is that government records should be open to the public, and that includes records of entities doing business with government agencies. In other words, if you want to have government bodies as your customers, one of the costs of doing business is having your formal interactions with them subject to public review.

New York Times Snipes at Neil Barofsky Yet Again

I was naive enough to think that the New York Times’ vendetta against former SIGTARP prosecutor Neil Barofsky was limited to bank propagandist Andrew Ross Sorkin and Administration mouthpiece Jackie Calmes, who penned a particularly ham-handed hit piece on Barofsky’s book Bailout.

It turns out the depth of loyalty of reporters at the New York Times is much deeper than I imagined. Ben Protess and Jessica Silver-Greenberg work hard to snigger and finger-wag at Barofsky for being about to land a plum assignment that will again make him a big bank nemesis: that of serving as monitor to miscreant Credit Suisse.

How the Troika, the WSJ and the NYT Keep the Public Befuddled About Austerity and Deflation

Deflation proves that austerity policies are failing, but the media is doing a remarkable job of keeping readers confused and ignorant.

The KKR Capstone Scam: A Picture Worth 10,000 Words

A revealing image, and more investigation of KKR’s all-too-clever wordsmithing strongly indicate its claim that KKR Capstone is not an affiliate does not stand up to scrutiny. This is a serious charge because if the critics are right, KKR is embezzling.

Media Starting to Wake Up to Private Equity Grifting

It’s encouraging to see Dan Primack, a seasoned private equity reporter who has been careful about taking up negative stories about his industry, take the latest wave of private equity fee-skimming reports seriously.

New York Times’ New Editor Buries Important Story on Private Equity Fee Shenanigans on Holiday Weekend

In an important, well-reaserched article, Gretchen Morgenson flags several types of private equity fee abuses. Did the incoming New York Times editor, Dean Baquet, bury her story by running it Memorial Day weekend?