Main stream media reporting this is evidence the https://t.co/9hmpXdLncY COVID pivot is happening.https://t.co/X2Lx30GkOM

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) January 21, 2022

You don’t say?

Microsoft News reports, “People who had previously been infected with COVID-19 were better protected against the Delta variant than those who were vaccinated alone, suggesting that natural immunity was a more potent shield than vaccines against that variant, California and New York health officials reported on Wednesday.”

Read the entire story.

The post Mainstream media finally admitting natural immunity is a thing appeared first on Liberty Tree.

Reason’s JD Tucille writes, “It’s no secret that governments worldwide are increasingly hostile to scrutiny of their conduct. But, at a moment when too many media outlets see their role as working with the state to reinforce official narratives, one advocate of press freedom reminds us that the struggle isn’t over the ‘disinformation’ and ‘misinformation’ called out by opportunistic politicians, it’s over control of information. Will people be free in the future to decide for themselves what’s truth and what’s BS? Or will we be spoon-fed whatever the powers-that-be endorse?

‘Governments realize that they are in an existential battle over who controls information, who controls the narrative, and they are waging a frontal assault against independent journalism around the world,’ Joel Simon, the exiting head of the Committee to Protects Journalists (CPJ), told CNN’s Brian Stelter…

Governments are in no position to save us from bad information because they’re a major source of the stuff themselves and, if allowed, can use force to impose their versions of reality on dissenters. https://t.co/KJtiWMOrHr via @reason

— J.D. Tuccille (@JD_Tuccille) January 10, 2022

Free societies recognize that it’s a lot more dangerous to let government officials designate what constitutes capital-T Truth than it is to respect people’s rights to decide for themselves. When officialdom makes the call, legitimate news outlets get called ‘fake,’ as former President Trump often smeared his critics, extremists get conflated with opponents of school policies, as the Justice Department did last fall, and claims that COVID-19 originated in a lab leak in China are suppressed as conspiracy theories before later earning respectful treatment.

Truthful information doesn’t require a government seal of approval because government officials are as flawed and biased as anybody else.”

Read the entire column.

The post We can’t let politicians and officials decide what constitutes ‘truth’ appeared first on Liberty Tree.

Fox News reports, “The National Institutes of Health (NIH) admitted Thursday that it funded gain-of-function research on bats infected with coronaviruses at a lab in Wuhan, China despite repeated denials from Dr. Anthony Fauci that U.S. tax dollars were used.

Journalist Drew Holden, who is known for pointing out media hypocrisy in lengthy Twitter threads, brought receipts proving mainstream news organizations were wrong when they declared that accusations against Fauci and the NIH over the funding were false.

‘I hope that outlets will correct the record,’ he wrote before sharing the evidence.

?THREAD?

The NIH announced a bombshell: despite what Dr. Fauci said under oath, US taxpayers paid for gain-of-function research in Wuhan.

I hope that outlets will correct the record from when they assured us this wasn’t happening.

If they’ve forgotten, I’ve got screenshots

— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) October 21, 2021

‘You may remember a dust up in July between Dr. Fauci & [Rand Paul] around precisely this point. It seems inarguable that what Fauci told Congress isn’t true. And the press uncritically helped him convince the American people otherwise,’ Holden wrote, referring to Fauci’s July congressional testimony in which he clashed with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., while claiming that no NIH money went towards gain-of-function research in Wuhan.”

Read the entire story.

The post The media defended Fauci’s false claims about Wuhan lab funding in feud with Rand Paul appeared first on Liberty Tree.

Grocery prices have risen at a 4.3% annual pace since February 2020, marking the sharpest increase since 2012. American families are feeling these increased prices across the economy, especially for food, energy, and housing. https://t.co/FnYNt7Bs1O

— Congresswoman Kat Cammack (@RepKatCammack) September 15, 2021

FEE’s Brad Polumbo writes, “It’s no secret that the mainstream media has a left-leaning bias. So it’s not exactly surprising that when alarming new inflation data were released on Tuesday, many journalists and media outlets attempted to downplay the story. After all, rising concerns about inflation could hamper the federal government’s ongoing efforts to massively increase government spending and expand the welfare state…

The Washington Post dubbed the new numbers “an early sign that inflation could be easing.”

And CNBC went with a different spin in its headline: “Consumer prices post smaller-than-expected increase in August.”https://t.co/GQyYDDfIRv

— FEE (@feeonline) September 14, 2021

Yet when one looks at the actual report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this rosy spin seems utterly unwarranted. It shows that the Consumer Price Index, an average sample of typical consumer prices, rose 0.3 percent in August. This is less than the 0.4 percent increase that had been predicted, prompting the media spin to suggest that August saw ‘less inflation than expected.’ While perhaps true, this is misleading, because the new figures still show prices seriously on the rise.

On an annual basis, from August 2020 to August 2021, prices rose 5.3 percent. That’s nearly a 13-year high!”

Read the entire column.

The post Media downplays alarming new inflation report appeared first on Liberty Tree.

Coverage of Rand Paul’s YouTube ban reveals the danger of media enforcing their own news narrative

When Sen. Rand Paul was suspended from YouTube for seven days this week, the social media company said he had violated the rules by saying that masks were ineffective against COVID-19.

A YouTube spokesperson told NBC News, “We removed content from Senator Paul’s channel for including claims that masks are ineffective in preventing the contraction or transmission of COVID-19, in accordance with our COVID-19 medical misinformation policies.”

So there you have it: Masks are effective. The government says so. Rand Paul said the opposite and now must pay the price.

Check out the headline in the NBC story:

JUST IN: YouTube suspends Sen. Paul over a video falsely claiming masks are ineffective against Covid-19.

The lawmaker has described the suspension as “a badge of honor.” https://t.co/iM9nehXQem

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) August 11, 2021

“Falsely claiming.”

Paul argues that his mask comments are supported by two peer reviewed articles he cites in the video.

But forget that for a moment. Journalist Glenn Greenwald immediately made the point that President Joe Biden’s own former COVID-19 adviser basically has expressed the same view as Paul on mask efficiency.

Amazing: Google’s YouTube suspended @RandPaul — a US Senator and a medical doctor — for disputing the efficacy of cloth masks.

JUST LAST WEEK: Biden’s former COVID adviser, the epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, told @camanpour exactly the same thing.https://t.co/QUfjY1Ae6U

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) August 11, 2021

Better yet, here is former Biden health adviser, epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, on CNN saying exactly the same thing Paul got punished for by YouTube, particularly that only N95 masks work and cloth facial covering are not effective.

Here’s Dr. Osterholm on CNN saying exactly the same thing that @RandPaul just got suspended from YouTube for saying: that cloth masks, as opposed to N95s, provide very, very little protection. Why can yo say this on CNN or PBS but not YouTube????pic.twitter.com/gHJodnERL7

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) August 11, 2021

“Many of the cloth coverings people wear are not very effective in reducing any of the virus movement, in or out,” Osterholm told CNN. “Either you’re breathing out or you’re breathing in.”

Olsterholm added, “We need to talk about better masking. We need to talk about N95 respirators, which would do a lot for both people who are not yet vaccinated or not previously infected. Protecting them as well as keeping others who might become infected, having been vaccinated from breathing out the virus.”

In the now banned video, Paul said, “Most of the masks you get over the counter don’t work. They don’t prevent infection.” He also cited the superior efficiency of N95 masks.

Paul basically said exactly what Doctor Osterholm said on CNN.

Back to the NBC News headline, which assumes Paul is in the wrong and signals to the reader the same thing before they even read the article. Does the peer reviewed articles Paul cited matter? Does the advice former Biden Covid adviser Osterholm matter?

At all?

Is NBC going to update their story to show there is a credible, expert-backed view that runs counter to the CDC mask guidelines? Of course not.

Because the role of modern major media is not to challenge authorities and pursue truth, but to enforce the narratives and dictates of governments they favor.

Just look at the number of liberals cheering and justifying YouTube’s suspension of Rand Paul for his comments on masks — ones echoed by Biden’s own former COVID adviser — and you’ll see why this faction is completely authoritarian.

They crave corporate speech policing.

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) August 11, 2021

This is not new. If the press had an adversarial relationship with former President Donald Trump (which is preferable), it now seeks to paint the Biden administration in the best light.

This dynamic is not always about Republican vs. Democrat. It can be ideological, but also what’s best for business.

Over a decade ago, CNN’s Jessica Yellen spilled the beans that her bosses at MSNBC during the run-up to the Iraq War in 2003 pushed her and other journalists to present the news narrative in ways that were friendly to the administration and mood of the country, post 9/11.

Yellin revealed to CNN in 2008, “The press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president’s high approval ratings.”

“And my own experience at the White House was that the higher the president’s approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives — and I was not at this network at the time — but the more pressure I had from news executives to put on positive stories about the president, I think over time….” Yellin added.

Politico noted, “But then a shocked Cooper jumped in, asking, ‘You had pressure from news executives to put on positive stories about the president?”

“Not in that exact…. They wouldn’t say it in that way, but they would edit my pieces,” Yellin said. “They would push me in different directions. They would turn down stories that were more critical, and try to put on pieces that were more positive. Yes, that was my experience.”

What is NBC News experience with this president as opposed to the last one? Again, will the outlet update their story to reflect Osterholm’s CNN comments to show that there is a credentialed alternative view on mask efficiency?

No, they will instead they will instead just leave it as this: “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and countless public health experts, including epidemiologists, have said since the start of the pandemic that masks protect against the spread of Covid.”

One formerly high-ranking epidemiologist disagrees. So does one U.S. Senator who is also a doctor.

But when your job becomes creating and enforcing news narratives rather than just reporting the facts, truth and the honest pursuit of it no longer matter.

YouTube has suspended Republican Rand Paul over a video that lies about masks and COVID. https://t.co/NEJmKeEXGr

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 11, 2021

The post Coverage of Rand Paul’s YouTube ban reveals the danger of media enforcing their own news narrative appeared first on Liberty Tree.