MSNBC

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Starting a section on MSNBC and their bias is like starting one on listing all the names in the Holocaust. This is a Sisyphusian task to try to create a comprehensive list -- so I won't do that. Heck, it'd be impossible to list all the failures of any on of their personalities alone (Ed Shultz, Chris Matthews, Tom Brokaw, Mika, Maddow, and the other Hurricane Katrina's of journalistic ethics). So I'll just cherry pick, and offer a few nuggets, links to aggregate sources, greatest misses, and things that can point out the obvious to those capable of getting it.


History of Cable News Channels
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  • CNN entered the left-wing propaganda-as-news market in 1980, and invented the 24 hour Cable News format, and started to gain respectability.
  • However, by 1996 Rupert Murdoch had recognized that the there was room for competition. Since CNN and the broadcast networks were all left leaning, there was a huge gap in the market for centrist to right leaning News, and Fox News was born.
  • MSNBC was started the same year as FoxNews, but with Fox going to the right of the other left-leaning News, and NBC's already leftward slant, they decided to carve their niche to the left of even CNN: where they floundered for decades... until after the election of Trump, and they got a huge influx of pouty Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferers, that wanted their propaganda even less balanced than CNN.

With 5 mainstream left channels , and only 1 right leaning one (FoxNews), FoxNews flourished and quickly surpassed CNN. The others struggled under hyper-competition. There were just too many suppliers for the same consumers, and FoxNews was peeling away too much of the untapped center/right audience. If CNN had been smart, they could have pivoted to the center (or soft right) and peeled off some of FoxNews's audience (especially later as Fox News drifted more right wing) -- but CNN was founded by ideologues and instead devolved from soft left to hard left, and made blunder after blunder, as their market eroded away from them, and Fox News beat them in ratings for two decades.

CNN was squeezed from all sides. They had broadcast channels beating them on hard news coverage. On cable, they had MSNBC offering more far-left talk shows. FoxNews peeled out most centrists news and right leaning talkshows. Leaving CNN with small gaps in the middle. And they stupidly tried to fill those gaps with far-left Clinton and Obama cronies posing as Journos. So the right, far left, and center are all better served elsewhere: and Obama/Pelosi/Reid era suffocated the moderate left as a movement, leaving CNN without an audience (and their ratings reflect that). Efforts to be be like MSNBC with perma-trolls like Jim Acosta, grates on their historic audience, and any new audience that isn't emotionally 15 year olds. more...

Background

1 items

  • Ariana Pekary Resigns - MSNBC producer (Ariana Pekary) resigns from network with scathing letter: They block 'diversity of thought' and 'amplify fringe voices'... it goes on to detail that everything the right has complained about with that outlet (and others), is true... if not understating the issue.


FakeNews

FakeNews (Junk News or yellow journalism) is when legitimate stories or facts are suppressed, journalistic standards aren't adhered to, half truths are told, or a narrative spun to where the story becomes misleading or false. Think: manufactured crises, hoaxes, clickbait (sensational teasers/headlines with buried facts), bias or selective fact-checking, anonymous or paid sources, minor stories obscuring more significant news, delaying or ignoring newsworthy events, are all forms of FakeNews. Most retractions or corrections are evidence of shoddy standards and/or editorial bias creating FakeNews. This area doesn't get the attention it deserves, but I just can't watch MSNBC and type that much. It's kinda not fair to hold them to the same standards as others, because others have both News and Opinion shows, MSDNC only does opinions, an only far left opinions. But examples of getting it wrong include: 22 items

  • NYT and Brian Williams math moment - Brian Williams (MSNBC) and Mara Gay (New York Times Editorial Board Member) were discussing Bloomberg’s failed presidential campaign and the $500M ad spend, and were agreeing with a shocking twitter post that they could have $1M to each and every one of the 327M Americans and had money left over. It's actually $1.53 per person, not $1M -- and anyone with a triple digit IQ should have known something didn't add up. But that's the best and brightest on MSNBC and NYT.
  • Lysolgate -
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    After a COVID briefing on how to kill COVID w/UV light and disinfectants, Trump made a passing comment to the presenter about using these ideas in vitro (in the body). That was all. The Press lost their nut, and was claiming he's trying to get people to breathe drain cleaner or shoot Lysol into their veins or something. You can't make this up.
  1. The idea of using UV light or disinfectants in the body is the basis for much of medicine like Chemotherapy, blood scrubbing, and UV blood treatment was studied for SARS.
  2. As Scott Adams put it, how stupid do you have to be to (a) not know that (b) think the President suggested people go out and mainline Lysol, like they reported? Or run with a story before asking what he meant, and so on.
  3. They started piling FakeNews on top of this FakeNews, by pretending that there was a spike in poisonings because of this statement. Yes, poisonings were up year-over-year, but not week-over-week or day-over-day. Ever since the lockdown, poisonings had been up. Which is a statement against the lockdown, but the Press screwed that angle up (by not noticing or mentioning it).
  • Jared Lee Loughner - FakeNews Media (CNN, NYT, etc.) and the Democrats blamed Republicans (Sarah Palin) for a political ad with crosshairs target the district, for the shooting. Something Democrats had run multiple times as well. It came out that Loughner had never seen the ad, oh and he was a fan of Karl Marx, conspiracy theories, and far left political views. Also a known drug and alcohol abuser, sent letter threatening to assassinate Gifford. Stopped by Joseph Zamudio a CCW holder. For years, the media continued to blame Republicans/Sarah Palin after admitting the facts in other places. Palin sued NYT, but lost because NYT successfully used incompetence as a defense. (Their own editors and fact checkers couldn't be expected to read their own paper and know the facts).
  • COVID is a hoax - Politico ran a piece titled, "Trump rallies his base to treat coronavirus as a ‘hoax’". (CNN, MSNBC, leftist polemics and politicians repeated it). This is a bald-faced lie, at a rally Trump called the effort to blame him for COVID a hoax. Even FakeNews Fact Checkers had to admit it.
  • Andrea Mitchell - The smartest voice on NBC/MSNBC claimed, "None of these members of Congress are socialists, but that is the way the Republican leadership wants to frame this election face-off.... There’s not a single member of these congressional representatives (the Squad) who are avowed socialists, so I don’t know where that is coming from other than opposition research.”. If you have a basic clue you'd know that three of them (AOC, Tlaib and Omar) are all members of the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America), or at least Omar said she was proud to call herself a Democratic Socialist. AOC has condemned Capitalism (“capitalism is irredeemable”) and openly advocates Socialism, as does the DSA. Their causes have ranged from a 70% tax (or more), the Green (and Red) New Deal (which was about wealth redistribution), medicare/higher education for all, and so on. But if you listen to NBC/MSNBC it's all just made up by the Republicans.
  • 2019.10.27 Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi -
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    The founder of ISIS, terrorist, rapist and murderer died by blowing himself up (and the children with him) as U.S. special forces were closing in. The leftstream media fucked up this victory as much possible:
  • Washington Post (Bezos Blog) reported it with the headline, "Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, austere religious scholar at helm of Islamic State, dies at 48" This generated a twitter storm (#WaPoDeathNotices) of mocking. Like, "Mohamed Atta, skilled aviator and leader of men, dies at 33.", and hundreds of other like examples of downplaying enemies of the U.S. and freedom. WaPo modified their headline, a couple of times, to settle on, "Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, extremist leader of Islamic State, dies at 48."... which was a little better, but still had this "austere religious scholar" bullshit in the article, and showed how much they were downplaying the victory by the Trump administration by ending him.
  • MSNBC, took ISIS's side claiming this would help ISIS, and that it shows how bad Trump is.
  • NBC criticized Trump for "taking a victory lap" (unlike Obama, who did 30 laps when he finally got Bin Laden), and screwed up their SNL skit mocking Trump for supporting ISIS (as news of this was leaking out)
  • CNN put on discredited perjurer James Clapper to criticize the action and Trump.
  • NYT (and others) were outraged that Trump wouldn't inform the leakers and terrorist supporters in the DNC (Pelosi/Schiff) in advance of the raid. (While if it had leaked, and he'd gotten away because of it, they would have criticized the President for botching it). They also said this had nothing to do with his foreign policy, despite it obviously having to do with it.
  • Obama Photographer (Pete Souza) suggests Trump Situation Room Photo was doctored/made-up and not taken during the Baghdadi Raid -- and a bunch of leftwing sources jumped on that and retweeted it. It was shown that he was wrong and can't do time zones, but only after the damage was done and rubes on the left bought in.
  • 2019.08.25 NYT outraged that people are quoting their journalists offensive posts -
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    So the NYT and other media outlets have a history of combing through anyone who doesn't agree with the far-left agendas past, and outting them for the worst things they said (out of context, and with no idea of scale). (If not directly, then through proxies like MediaMatters). They think this is speaking truth to power, ignoring that they're the power. Well, now that some have flipped it, and done it back, they're outraged! Warning: people are going through our "journalists" old twitter feeds and social media, and finding out that they're partisan douchebags, and exposing us for who we are. While I'm not a fan of the technique, I wasn't a fan of it for the last decade or three that the media has done it... and now that they're getting turn-about, it's hard for me to be as outraged as I once was. What did you think was going to happen? We warned them to cut this shit out, but they didn't listen. Now that it's become an accepted norm, it's only just desserts that they're not immune and getting it back.
  • 2019.03.28 Yashar Ali bullied - Yahir (NYT/HuffPo contributor) explains how head of NBC/MSNBC politics (Dafna Linzer) called Ali, and tried to bully him on behalf of the DNC, in what was a wildly inappropriate and unethical way. Of course neither she, nor the network would comment on this atrociously partisan behavior.
  • 2019.03.02 Lies about Sanders' Speech - While MSNBC has always been the propaganda arm of the DNC, when they get caught making mistakes (like claims about Bernie Sanders), will they correct them? The answer would be "no", like most mistakes. Bernie is a threat to the DNC establishment, so the truth takes a backseat to the agenda. And the Intercept earns a gold star for doing actual journalism and calling them out on it.
  • 2019.02.05 Don Jr's Call Logs - For months Maddow inflamed her watchers with the FakeNews that Don Jr. was in contact with "the Russians"... then when the story is debunked, Maddow brings on the accuser (Shifty Shiff), has him repeat the claims, then fails to correct or challenge him or the record. No clarification, retraction or correction, just the FakeNews crickets, chirping distractions so her viewers clues die in darkness.
  • 2019.01.29 Jussie Smollett - 💩 Jussie (star on show TV show "Empire") was allegedly attacked in Chicago, in what was initially being investigated as a hate crime. The first report was 2 men in ski masks making racial and homophobic slurs, assaulted him, poured bleach on him, and put a noose around his neck -- then stopped the attack for no reason. (Claims of them saying "this is MAGA country" were added later). Those with any skepticism wondered things like (a) what are white Trump supporters doing in sub-zero Chicago gay neighborhood ambushing a guy they seemed to know (b) then stopping for no reason (c) Why wouldn't Jussie share his phone records, drop his sandwich bag during the assault, or take off the noose off after going home and waiting more than 20 minutes to call the cops? The haters accused the skeptics of being racist for asking obvious questions -- but the story is falling apart, as is seems that Jussie staged the whole thing because he was going to be cut out of his TV show, and wanted to make it harder to fire him (the pity and famous name scam).
  • 2019.01.28 More Press Briefings to ignore - CNN whines on one day that they need more press briefings, then they (or MSNBC) won't break into their far-left opinion shows, to show those briefing live, preferring to mis-paraphrase or omit context at their will (trying to forward their message, instead of honestly sharing the administrations message).
  • 2019.01.20 Covington Catholic High School - 💩The New York Times published an article “Boys in ‘Make America Great Again’ Hats Mob Native American Elder at Indigenous People’s March,” and many other outlets (CNN, WaPo, etc), piled on without verifying. OrangeMan is so bad, that just wearing his hat makes you a racist. Only, the details leaked out that it was the Catholic teens minding their own business (on a class trip) when the Native American demonstrator/activist (Nathan Phillips: not a Vietnam War Veteran as WaPo and other claimed) marched up, beat drums, push into center of student group, call teens names, and then accused the kids of surrounding him and saying racist things, all false.
  • 2019.01.17 Impeachment - Buzzfeed released an article that said Trump had ordered his Attorney (Michael Cohen) to lie to investigators, which set off the Democrats impeachment Tourettes again. ("Get the noose!") Nevermind that: it was implausible, from an unreliable author and publication, with anonymous sources, and made no sense -- the left and their media was all over it, and Congress was already demanding an investigations: which forced Mueller to release an unprecedented statement (during an investigation), that said the story was bullshit. And the left-press was crestfallen over the truth.
  • 2018.06.19 Space Force - In response to China's increased militarization of space, and Russia creating a Space Force, Donald Trump announced that he wanted to split the Air Force Space efforts into a separate agency. The Democrats and their media attacked the idea, because Orange Man Bad! ABC news spun it as racist because he used the phrase it would be a "separate but equal" agency to the Air Force (so they talked about civil rights and Plessy v. Ferguson). MSNBC and other outlets just mocked the idea and omitted context and balance in the discussion. The real news was suppressed: whether this was a good response to our frenemies actions or not.
  • 2018.05.03 Cohen Wiretap - MSNBC/NBC broke the story, "“Feds tapped Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s phones,” -- and later altered the story to say, "Feds are monitoring, not listening to Cohen’s calls”: Instead of a wiretap, investigators obtained what’s known as a pen register warrant, where they get to see a log of calls made and durations, not audio of what was said.
  • 2017.08.28 Ted Cruz Ambush - To give you an idea of the kind of ambush politics they play, in the middle of a Natural Disaster, where Ted Cruz is talking about disaster relief Katy Tur drops a bombshell attack, "a lot of people are pointing out that you voted against aid for Sandy" (back in 2012)... and saying, "You're asking for money now when you weren't willing to help the people in the Northeast. What do you have to say to them?” Talk about the classic, scummy, "do you beat your wife often?" kind of question.
  • 2017.06.01 Paris Climate Accord - The ACLU moronically claims that pulling out of the do-nothing Paris Climate Accord was fostering racism, other outlets claim it's the end of civilization (or American leadership). If they could do basic economics, they'd remember that the 400,000 jobs that the billions of dollars to Paris would have cost, would most likely have to come from somewhere, and that's usually those on the bottom end of the employment scales (which are often minorities). Every place that repeated that claim without mocking it, was propagating FakeNews.
  • 2017.05.10 anti-Wikileaks -
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    WikiLeaks has 100% perfect record of authentic and accurately-vetted releases, so NPR and MSNBC tried to trash them by pointing to non-Wikileaks content, and pointing out that since some of it isn't valid, then you shouldn't trust Wikileaks.
  • 2017.05 James Comey Firing - For 6 months the media and Democrats had demanded the firing of James Comey. Trump waited until an FBI report cited evidence of gross misconduct, and then the AG fired Comey after consulting with Trump. The Democrats and their Media (NYT, WaPo, Politico, CNN, MSNBC), switched sides and screamed that this was illegal, obstruction of justice, proof of Russia collusion, and other things that were all later debunked.
  • 2017 Republicans funded the Dossier - If you heard that Republicans funded the Steele "Pee Pee" Dossier, you're a victim of FakeNews. Many Democrat operatives are guilty of repeating the lie: New York Magazine (Jonathan Chait), CNN (Brian Fallon), MSNBC’s (Velshi & Ruhle and Rachel Maddow), NBC (Christina Ginn), AP, New York Times, even James Comey. AP issued a correction, NYT clarified in later articles, but most others let the lie/confusion stand, or underplayed the truth: that it was bought and paid for by the DNC and Hillary campaign, and used to get illegal warrants and put a paid spy in the Trump campaign.
  • 2016- Russia Trump-Collusion FakeNews Fiasco - 🔥 CNN, NYT, WaPo, MSNBC and all the left leaning media has been promoting this FakeNews Fraud that there was Trump-Russia Collusion, that collusion is a crime (it isn't or Carter, Kennedy, Bill and Hillary Clinton and Obama would all be in prison).
    • The FBI/CIA and finally James Comey testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee that the New York Times (and other reports) that accused Trump associates of “repeated contacts with Russian intelligence” was “almost entirely wrong" or “just dead wrong". There's no evidence of Trump collusion. For over a year the media still reports/misreports the Russian collusion: CNN and others still quoting from the debunked NYT report.
    • While the FakeNews was harping on the issue for a year, the only real evidence of collusion was of the Hillary campaign and DNC paying for the Fake Dossier (what real collusion looks like), the FakeNews outlets ignored it (lie of omission).
    • Finally, it ended with 3 of CNN's reporters getting fired. But no apology or correction issued for the prior year of FakeNews.


Personalities

Stephanie Ruhle
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I'd never heard of Stephanie Ruhle (D) NBC/MSNBC correspondent, but then I don't usually pay much attention to the trolls and MSDNC because they so rarely get anything right, but are often drawn to my attention when they get something wrong. She talked about guns, on MSNBC, you know that's an "Oh shit, this is going to be funny" sort of thing. I wasn't disappointed. She/they did a Special Report on the AR-15 and it was head-banging desk wrong. She should read my articles on What is an assault rifle?, Why banning then won't work, and Who needs an AR15? for starters. But if she did that, she wouldn't look like a clueless ditz on TV.
Rachel Maddow
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Rachel Maddow lowlights -- again, this isn't to be a fair and balanced piece about her career and achievements, you can listen to her or MSNBC, CNN or any progressive if you want to hear that claptrap. This is more about some of the many of reasons her detractors are not fans.
Mika Brzezinski
Mika Brzezinski embarrassed herself and journalism by revealing her gossip on what someone said off-camera in a private conversation (when they weren't there to defend themselves). If Mika isn't fired, it shows how low of standards that MSNBC, NBC has. You destroy your credibility as a journalist by revealing private gossip as news. And who honestly believes Mika as the paragon of truth and non-exaggeration? Tucker Carlson eviscerated her for that.
Lawrence O'Donnel
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He started his careers as a Pat Moynihan's page. A classic DC joke was, "Why don't congressmen use bookmarks? Because they like their pages bent-over!" and that explains Lawrence O'Donnel's reflex for bending over at the site of any Democrat who came on his show, and being a nasty human towards those he doesn't agree with (politically or otherwise). He's an admitted, "European Socialist" and "I lie to the extreme left," (his words), so he deserves credit for being open about his anti-liberty and anti-American bias. And he's actually got a quick wit (and quicker temper), but he only uses his powers for evil. He wrote/co-wrote/helped produce dozens of episodes for Aaron Sorkin's show, The West Wing, which won an Emmy award. And has a history of being a contentious host... for conservatives. But he saves his best idiocy for his views on Gun Control, like not knowing that pistols and rifles have the same rate of fire, or claiming that because an AR-15's bullets are faster, that you can't kill them with a pistol's slower bullets?
Katy Tur
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(D) NBC/MSNBC correspondent/anchor - she became famous by dating far-lefty Keith Olbermann, and not knowing basics of Republican positions, and what semiautomatic or Glock means before talking about guns. She doesn't know the difference between automatic and semi-automatic, and thinks "Glock" defines a rate of fire, instead of a brand. The problem is since the questions are usually scripted, it implies no one on the staff knew either. So I'd say to her, "Honey, next time, do your research before you do your segments, like a big-girl journalist".
Joy Reid
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MSDNC talking head Joy Reid, is a dimwitted partisan polemic, that gets as much wrong as right. But she made a fatal flaw for her culture.... she got caught being a bigot. Well, that's not a problem if you're bigoted against conservatives, libertarians, religious folks, pro-lifers, fiscally responsible people, Jews, taxpayers, asians, or one of the groups that you're allowed to be bigots against. She did that a lot. She got caught being a bigot to one of the minority groups that you're not allowed to be bigoted towards: LGBTQ's. And when caught she claimed she was hacked.

Joe Scarborough
Joseph Scarborough is an American FakeNews host on MSNBC and former congressman from Florida. He was once a conservative, but since starting the show and marrying his 3rd wife, far-lefty Mika Brzezinski, he's become an "independent"... the kind that never sides with anything the right supports.
Jared Lee Loughner
FakeNews Media (CNN, NYT, etc.) and the Democrats blamed Republicans (Sarah Palin) for a political ad with crosshairs target the district, for the shooting. Something Democrats had run multiple times as well. It came out that Loughner had never seen the ad, oh and he was a fan of Karl Marx, conspiracy theories, and far left political views. Also a known drug and alcohol abuser, sent letter threatening to assassinate Gifford. Stopped by Joseph Zamudio a CCW holder. For years, the media continued to blame Republicans/Sarah Palin after admitting the facts in other places. Palin sued NYT, but lost because NYT successfully used incompetence as a defense. (Their own editors and fact checkers couldn't be expected to read their own paper and know the facts).
Chuck Todd
Charles "Chuck" Todd is college drop-out and an NBC partisan moderator of NBC's Meet the Press (and on-air political analyst), ex-Chief White House correspondent for MSNBC, and Political Director for NBC News. Which makes him a partisan with some sketchy events posing as Journalism
Chris Matthews
Chris Matthews, he's ignorant, dishonest, and holds 34 honorary degrees, and one real one (liberal arts). A female assistant producer on his CNBC show (circa 1999) accused him of sexual harassment, and Matthews was reprimanded and she was awarded a $40,000 settlement. Since few have been as partisan, made as many mistakes or gaffs, and he was a sexual harasser, he's of course been the recipient of many leftist accolades in journalism.
Brian Williams
Not a very sharp an American "journalist" at NBC News and MSNBC anchor, who's far left and not very bright.
Andrea Mitchell
The smartest voice on NBC/MSNBC claimed, "None of these members of Congress are socialists, but that is the way the Republican leadership wants to frame this election face-off.... There’s not a single member of these congressional representatives (the Squad) who are avowed socialists, so I don’t know where that is coming from other than opposition research.”. If you have a basic clue you'd know that three of them (AOC, Tlaib and Omar) are all members of the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America), or at least Omar said she was proud to call herself a Democratic Socialist. AOC has condemned Capitalism (“capitalism is irredeemable”) and openly advocates Socialism, as does the DSA. Their causes have ranged from a 70% tax (or more), the Green (and Red) New Deal (which was about wealth redistribution), medicare/higher education for all, and so on. But if you listen to NBC/MSNBC it's all just made up by the Republicans.

Corruption

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Conflating charges/conviction with criminal activities is the perfect example of the kind of propagandized FakeNews they do.

  1. The quality of the sourcing is such that they can't spell Geroge W. Bush's name right
  2. or know enough to be consistent with middle initials shows a certain sloppiness
  3. Using the Daily Kos as a source, where there are so many better places to get this info...

But all that pales compared to the point itself.

Rather than actual number of criminal activities, convictions and indictments only proves that Republicans let their side be convicted, or that they aren't a sloppy with spurious allegations, or the Democrats obstruct justice better. And since some of the people served in both administrations, just that Republicans aren't willing to let the same people get away with the same activities once they're in office. And there's a whole lot of slop in how you account for stuff. (One person on 9 charges, or 9 people with one charge each). It doesn't even show what they think it shows.

To have any depth of understanding, you'd have to count number and severity of scandals. There are no indictments on things like Hillary's pay-for-play deals, or email scandals, but they were felonies far more severe than some of the lying to congress charges they got some others on. So you actively get dumber (less informed) by listening to MSNBC.

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📚 References

Organizations
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There are many good organizations, many bad organizations. I'm more likely to comment on organizations whose reputation doesn't match their reality. If I hear too much corporatism (corporate worship), whether that's a Union, University or "Non-partisan" organization... or too much corporate bashing (by the same folks that rationalize worse behavior of other companies), then I'm probably going to write something on it.
Media