media

Newspaper Nit Picker Fact-Checks This Comic

This entry was posted in comics and tagged 2024 election Donald Trump Glenn Kessler media on by
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This week the columnists whose whole schtick is “fact-checking” contorted themselves into knots trying to find as many untruths and straight-up lies in this week’s DNC as last month’s RNC. They went so far to claim things he actually did in his first term don’t count because he’s said he’ll be different in a second one.

It would be gullible if they weren’t so obviously trying to smooth over his many disqualifications in order to keep this a horse race.

I focused on Glenn Kessler as the avatar of this whole genre of goofy “fact checkers” who use silly icons and graphics to add some razzle-dazzle to what’ve become essentially opinion columns. There are countless real fact checkers who do the thankless job of verifying the details in actual reporting. But all these bozos do is tediously parse language and figures of speech to grease the wheels of false equivalence.

Trump and his courts are still a very real threat, but you can tell the public is bored of his antics and was itching to move on. Unfortunately, the media is not.

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Leaked Emails from the Trump Campaign!

This entry was posted in comics and tagged 2024 election AG Sulzberger Donald Trump JD Vance Kevin Sorbo media New York Times Roger Stone on by
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Someone or some government agency successfully phished the Trump campaign and obtained its emails. They then contacted several media outlets about leaking them, but all refused citing “ethics in political journalism” or some other horseshit.

They famously didn’t do this in 2016, when it was Hillary Clinton’s emails. Back then, everything was published on Wikileaks first, so they had the veneer of covering important documents that were “already out there” despite the illegal provenance. This doesn’t explain why the NYTimes spent months breathlessly covering even the most benign of those emails in the hopes of generating a scandal, or at least a quantity of coverage that implied there was one.

As the polls look worse for Trump, the media will work harder to prop him up. Not necessarily for ideological means, but because a close race is good for readership and advertiser numbers.

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This is a wordy comic, and I’ve had trouble getting alt-text to work with it. Here’s the full transcript:

(panel 1 – Title in the style of the Trump/Vance logo.)
Leaked Emails from the Trump Campaign
(panel 2 – An email from Roger Stone.)
Subject: HACKED!
From: Roger Stone roger@weirdheads.biz
Hey man,
I clicked a link for Nixon nudes (for research purposes only), but it turned out to be a phishing attack.
Just a heads up.
Whoops,
Rog
(panel 3 – An email from Kevin Sorbo.)
Subject: RNC SPEAKING SLOT?
From: Kevin Sorbo K.Sorbs@dlist-divas.geocities.org
Mr. President,
Why didn’t I get a spot at the convention? I was more famous than Hulk Hogan for a few minutes in the ’90s.
No worries though! If you want, I can post a really racist tweet about your new opponent. Let me know.
Kevin
(panel 4 – An email from Steven Cheung.)
Subject: EPSTEIN’S PLANE
From: Steven Cheung Cheung@donaldjtrump.com
Boss,
We’ve leased Epstein’s plane while yours is in for repairs. I don’t anticipate any bad press from this.
Steven
P.S. Because you’ve stiffed so many contractors, none will agree to get the Dershowitz stains out.
(panel 5 – An email from J.D. Vance.)
Subject: WRONG RALLY LOCATION?
From: JD Vance pigboy@donaldjtrump.com
Dear Sir,
No one’s here and there wasn’t any advance work done. Please send me the correct location and I’ll hop on a bus A.S.A.P.
JD
(panel 6 – An email from A.G. Sulzberger.)
Subject: ALL GOOD
From: A.G. Sulzberger nepobaby@nytimes.com
President Trump,
Don’t worry. We’re not going to make a whole thing about your emails because we want you to win.
Maggie says hi.
Dash

Summer Movie Duds

This entry was posted in comics and tagged astrology Chris Pratt Joan Quigley media movies Reagan Richard Dreyfuss Ronald Reagan on by
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Apparently this year’s Memorial Day weekend movies were busts compared to last year’s. I’ll definitely check out Furiosa and the latest Apes as soon as they reach my living room cinema, which will probably be before this summer’s even close to being over.

The studios are trying to blame the strikes, but the problems were already there before the picket lines halted production. There are always these boom and bust cycles with movies, but studios used to weather them with diversified releases. Now it’s going on a quarter century of the same genre stuff or some nostalgia revival.

Now that the unofficial start of summer has passed, I had to get a Jaws reference in, and Richard Dreyfuss being a dick at a screening was a good excuse. I know the narrative reasons why Quint had to be eaten, but it was fun drawing Bruce chewing the shit out of Hooper instead.

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Nostalgia Movie Marathon

This entry was posted in comics and tagged climate change entertainment media movies on by
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It’s summer blockbuster season already, and even I saw Dune Part 2 in a theater; my first time in one since before the pandemic. Most of the trailers were variations on existing properties. More than the usual beating intellectual properties to death, there’s a trend of maudlin revivals that take themselves way too seriously. If it’s not in one already, the next Ghostbusters movie will reveal Slimer (AKA Onionhead) has a tragic backstory that it’s the ghost of a child who died from a famine and that’s why it loves hot dogs so much.

There are lots of good movies still being made, but this is the season for garbage. I like garbage too! But not as much as I love to complain.

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NBC’s Pundit Search

This entry was posted in comics and tagged 2024 election coup Lee Atwater media NBC Republicans on by
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NBC hired former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel for a few minutes before rescinding the offer after employees and viewers voiced their disgust with having a coup-enabler on TV to lie about another election. The problem they and every other news outlet has is that there are no more mainstream Republicans who oppose doing another coup.

So they either have to point this out, or pretend the guy who’s been at the top of the Republican ticket for nearly a decade now is some weird aberration, instead of the standard-bearer of America’s fascist party. Presenting the fiction probably makes selling ads a lot easier.

Only a little more than six months for NBC and the rest of the media to figure out that both-sides-ing fascism won’t save them.

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Flea Marketplace of Ideas

This entry was posted in comics and tagged fascism free speech media New York Times on by
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A lot of right-wing chuds assume their right to free speech means they have a right to say whatever they want to a captive audience everywhere they go. And if someone uses their own free speech to tell them to fuck off, they whine about cancel culture until they get a glowing profile in the New York Times.

Deplatforming works. Anyone claiming they can defeat racism, fascism, or any form of extremism through honest debate is either stupid or a collaborator. People spewing those views need to be ostracized from society. Humoring them just gives them oxygen and drags that poor Overton Window so far to the right it causes the entire house to collapse.

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America’s Assignment Editor

This entry was posted in comics and tagged AG Sulzberger Bret Stephens Donald Trump fascism Joe Biden media NYTimes on by
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The NYTimes was never the bastion of the liberal media people claim it is, but it’s definitely taken a hard right turn since nepo baby AG Sulzberger took over the family business. He oversaw James Bennett becoming opinion editor, who let Bari Weiss and Tom Cotton run insane 4chan shit for a couple years before the normal employees put up enough of a stink to run him out. (With a few notable exceptions, the opinion section still sucks shit though.)

The rightward tilt of the “straight” news side were always there, with the Iraq War propaganda being the most blatant in my lifetime. But Trump has sent them over the deep end; either to appear neutral with both-sides bullshit, or actively targeting a minority to signal their willingness to work with fascists.

None of this will save them if they succeed in getting the second Trump term they want so bad. He hates their fancy high society guts and will send them to the camps with the rest of us.

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2024 Valentines

This entry was posted in comics and tagged Elon Musk Federalist Society Leonard Leo media Valentines vulture capital on by
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Fake valentines are an (almost) annual tradition since I first started drawing weekly cartoons over 22 years ago. The little cut-out dots and scissors are vestigial artifacts from when my comics regularly appeared on paper products called “alt-weeklies.”

While there’s apparently a lot of decent economic news these days, things are pretty grim for tech and especially media jobs. Execs are either hollowing out their staffs to boost dividends, or simply getting bored with their media toys and moving on to the next big grift.

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