Enter the Firms and Lawyers    

PART 3

   Reporters once covered stories such as pharmaceutical dangers. Problems with otherwise "wonderful" medicine affect millions and need to be exposed.

   Along came the industry, manipulating and shaping reports, in partnership with media through direct-to-consumer ads. Journalist Sharyl Attkisson said, "Advertising prescription drugs on TV used to be illegal. But once the media and industry lobbied to legalize these ads, we were beholden to the tune of millions of dollars to this industry."  

   From there, "The same PR firms and global law firms (representing pharmaceutical companies) took on other corporate clients. And bragging and advertising they could to stop or shape news stories by bullying news reporters. And using tactics that we see the smear industry use on a daily basis." 

   Her interviewer ask Attkisson about "100-plus media mistakes in the era of Trump," written in her book, Slanted. She said "the tone was set by a Time magazine false report on Inauguration Day that claimed he (a racist?) had removed the bust statue of Martin Luther King from the Oval Office." If the reporter had bothered to look behind a door, the bust was still there. 

   She noticed that all press mistakes were "going in one direction. There was never a mistake that benefited Donald Trump...mistakes that journalism students would know not to make, sloppy and irresponsible."  

   What about the 2020 election?

   She answered, "If we were a neutral news media...we would have gone in with a rational skepticism of things on the ground, with reporters in swing states watching for fraud (regardless of party). We know there are domestic actors, some still working in our government, accused of or allegedly found to have interfered politically with President Trump." 

Tomorrow: Nothing to see here

       Jimmy