Thursday, September 12, 2024

Propaganda as press releases


I've mentioned several times all the mailing lists I have ended up on, probably due to my newspaper column making my email address public. Lists I really don't want to be on, but that I don't usually immediately unsubscribe from because I know I can learn things from them.

I've learned something new. Or, at least I've recently noticed something.

The "conservative"/Republican newsletters don't pretend to be anything other than biased opinion-- even when they present it as "news", they don't try to pretend to be neutral. They don't try to look like press releases.

The "progressive"/Democrat newsletters pretend to be unbiased press releases. They pretend to only be presenting the facts-- facts no one could argue with.

I get them all the time on the issue of "climate change". They have language about "how to talk about the climate", and all the experts they offer come down on the climate crisis side, but they still present themselves as unbiased information. As a neutral press release for "science".

I got one just now on the topic of "immigration". Again, all the talking points and all the experts were on one side of the issue. None on the other. Since it was presented as a neutral press release, all the bias was pro-"immigration". All the voices were obviously Democrat-adjacent.

Make of this what you will. It's just interesting data to me.

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Thank you for reading.