MEDIA CRITICISM

S. LENDMAN—An Oxford University Internet Institute’s study titled “The Organizational Behavior of RT” was based on dubious questioning of 23 unidentified current and former company sources — only two still with RT. A total of 240 current and former company staffers were contacted for the so-called study. Over 90% declined to be interviewed. Study results lost legitimacy for its small sample size, over 91% comprised of former staffers. No polling organization would ever conduct or publish opinion research this way and consider results representative of a larger universe.

KIM PETERSEN—Given the paucity of rigorous reporting in news media, especially among state and corporate media, RT has for the most part been a necessary and much appreciated breath of fresh air. For this media consumer, RT, CGTN, and Press TV (of those media that I am most aware) are among the most credible of news media. RT has a slogan it promotes: “question more.” It is excellent advice, and RT on-air personalities should abide by it. However, episodes like this one hosted by Malzberg make “question more” seem like an empty slogan.

TREVOR NOAH—The night before Rittenhouse’s arrest, onlookers alerted police that the 17-year-old — who, as a minor, was not legally allowed to openly carry a weapon — was walking the streets with the rifle slung around his neck. The teen, who attended a Trump rally this year and has shown social media support for the pro-police Blue Lives Matter movement, told reporters at the scene that he traveled to Kenosha to protect businesses from vandalism.

“Some guy decided to drive to Kenosha with his ‘militia’ buddies to protect a business and apparently ended up shooting three people and killing two,” Noah said. “But don’t worry — the business is OK. And let me tell you something: No one drives into a city with guns because they love someone else’s business that much.

“No one has ever thought, ‘Oh, it’s my solemn duty to pick up a rifle and protect that TJ Maxx.’ They do it because they’re hoping to shoot someone. That’s the only reason people like him join these gangs in the first place. And yes, I said it: a gang.

PATRICE GREANVILLE—My colleague Peter Man is much too kind in classifying Dianne Feinstein’s lifelong tenure in the US Congress as “public service”. Only recently she was among the senior US political figures pushing to strengthen “national security laws” —the “Patriot Act” and NDAA multitude of vague clauses—a clear judicial abuse—at the expense of citizens’ freedom, especially citizens who disagree with the US government official narratives. Like all Wall Street Democrats, Feinstein is also strongly opposed to universal healthcare, supporting instead the notoriously fraudulent Obamacare, a rehash of a libertarian approach to medical services once tried (and quickly dropped) by Republicans.

ALEX COCKBURN—The narcotizing, humorless properties of the ‘MacNeil/Lehrer Report,’ familiar to anyone who has felt fatigue creep over him at 7:40 Eastern time, are crucial to the show. Tedium is of the essence, since the all-but- conscious design of the program is to project vacuous dithering (‘And now, for another view of Hitler …’) into the mind of the viewers, until they are properly convinced that there is not one answer to ‘the problem,’ but two or even three, and that since two answers are no better than none, they might as well not bother with the problem at all.