“Truth”: the press, the movies, and the present-day Minitrue
The title of this post is taken from George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four. The book’s genius is in part its nomenclature, and most definitely its insight into the political propaganda process.
Thus, the Ministry of Truth, or “Minitrue” for short:
As with the other Ministries in the novel, the Ministry of Truth is a misnomer and in reality serves the opposite of its purported namesake: it is responsible for any necessary falsification of historical events. In another sense, and in keeping with the concept of doublethink, the ministry is aptly named, in that it creates/manufactures “truth” in the Newspeak sense of the word. The book describes a willful fooling of posterity using doctored historical archives to show a government-approved version of events.
The government in the US does its share of that sort of thing, but under President Obama the practice has reached new heights (or depths, if you want to look at it that way). But the left is not limited to governmental publications. It now has the full cooperation of the press, an institution that is supposed to bring us the truth and can serve to counter government propaganda (well you might bitterly laugh). The left also has the movies, TV and other popular entertainment, and the vast majority of entertainers.
That can serve as an introduction to the latest movie wonder, a film called—oh-so-appropriately—“Truth.” Its subject is the Rathergate scandal of 2004. Here’s the movie’s take on it:
It was the great Henry David Thoreau who once said, “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.” And it’s the Thoreauian tenets of self-reliance””the pursuit of unvarnished truth and resistance to institutional authority””that motivates many in the journalism profession. If James Vanderbilt’s new film Truth is to be believed, this quest led 60 Minutes producer Mary Mapes and veteran CBS News anchor Dan Rather to air the segment “For the Record,” which questioned then-President George W. Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War. The controversial 60 Minutes piece aired on September 8, 2004, just two months before the presidential election, and ultimately led to the dismissals of Mapes, several other producers, and Rather forced into an early retirement.
Vanderbilt’s film is based on Mapes’s memoir, Truth and Duty: The Press, The President, and The Privilege of Power, so it provides a very sympathetic portrait of Rather (Robert Redford, charming) and his longtime producer Mapes (Cate Blanchett, electric).
Sure, let’s base a movie about one of the most egregious journalistic errors/frameups/hitpieces ever run—which had as its aim the defeat of a president running for re-election—on the memoir of one of its self-serving perpetrators. And let’s call it “Truth.” Why not? After all, the vast majority of the young people we can reach with this revisionist “history” were kids in 2004, when it occurred. They will think that our history is the reality, our truth will become their truth. We will certainly reach far more young people than the real story, the details of which have faded into distant memory for most people, and never were heard of by the generation coming of age.
It’s been done by Hollywood many times before, most notably by Oliver Stone.
More on “Truth”:
…[T]hough the documents themselves may be falsified, both Mapes and Rather view them as more a piece of corroborative evidence, and continue to believe in the general veracity of the story””which isn’t questioned. Nevertheless, CBS brass orders Rather to issue a public apology on-air for the story.
A CBS-appointed panel to review the 60 Minutes segment is depicted in the film as the final insult, a show trial of sorts co-led by Dick Thornburgh, who served as Attorney General under Bush Sr…
Mapes is seen as a victim in all this””both of Burkett’s ruse and of the CBS brass, who throw her directly under the bus. The film’s finest scene sees Blanchett deliver a blistering monologue to the Thornburgh review panel detailing how difficult it would be to and how much inside information would be required to falsify the Killian documents.
So difficult to do what was obviously done. So difficult to be skeptical and properly fact-check such a juicy, ripe, appealing story that verified your own pre-existing prejudices and political positions. And so difficult to let go of the “fake, but accurate” narrative that this movie appears to champion:
After the film’s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, Rather choked up discussing Truth in a post-screening Q&A. He called Vanderbilt’s film “very accurate,” and, when asked by an audience member if there’s anything in his career he would have done differently, he replied, “Journalism is not an exact science.”
Well, that’s for sure. Journalism is no more an exact science than are the movies. They have both effectively become organs of Orwell’s Minitrue.
[Hat tip: commenter “Ann”]
[NOTE: For those of you who would like to brush up on Rathergate, please see this for a rather (pun intended) brief look. There’s plenty more, both online and off.]
Ah, just like the Valerie Plame movie making sure the Left’s narrative became the reported history. “Truth” sounds awful.
There’s also an Anita Hill movie coming just to make sure younger generations understand just how awful Clarence Thomas is from the Left’s viewpoint.
The Left is very, very effective at rewriting history.
Of course, those few left-wing echo chamber dwellers who are willing to admit that the documents were false either argue that: 1) the facts underlying them are nonetheless true; or 2) that the fraud was actually perpetrated by Karl Rove – irresistible bait laid out in order to ensnare and embarrass Democrats and/or the Kerry-friendly media.
I’ve always suspected that the TANG forgery was perpetrated in order to dampen the impact of the Swift Boat Veterans, whose questioning of Kerry’s service record (and pathetic post-service behavior back home) was gaining traction. In that light I’m not so sure it was a total failure.
Humans are weak. With sufficient external force, pressure, and psychological control techniques, they can be broken and made into useful tools for just about anyone.
A person that obeys orders without question, may be your enemy because his boss is your enemy. Kill his boss and take over the command chain, and now suddenly you’re the boss and they will obey. Independent or ambitious vassals or serfs, though, those might be troublesome.
The Left is very, very effective at rewriting history.
Did you also know that the Demoncrats reconstructed history about the Civil War 1 and what came before/after it?
an example of such from the stars of such today:
a Russian-language blogger based in Tel Aviv who blogs at avva.livejournal.com, discovered just how unreliable social media can be for investigating such cases.
In late August 2014, he posted a picture of the logbooks from a Russian BMD-2 infantry fighting vehicle. The logbook included a listing for Leonid Kichatkin, age 30, a senior sergeant in the unit. Several days after Vorobey’s discovery, a notice boxed in red was posted to Kichatkin’s VKontakte page that read: “Dear Friends!!!!!!!!!! Lyona [Leonid] was killed funeral Monday at 10:00 wake in Vybuty. Who would like to bid farewell please come we will be glad to see you. If anything call [telephone number] Wife Oksana.”
Vorobey found earlier posts from Oksana on her own page, saying first that she was waiting desperately for news of Leonid, then that “life had stopped,” and finally that she expected her husband’s coffin “within five days.” All of this, plus the condolences of friends, appeared to be unmistakable proof that Kichatkin was among those killed at Lutugino.
By Sunday, August 24, however, Kichatkin’s page on VKontakte had been removed. At about the same time, Oksana (or perhaps someone else who had assumed control over her account) wrote: “My husband is alive and well and we are now marking the baptism of our daughter.”
“Cargo 200”
Ukraine forms ‘ministry of truth’ to regulate the media
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/19/-sp-ukraine-new-ministry-truth-undermines-battle-for-democracy
‘Ministry of Truth?’: Putin creates new Russian news agency led by firebrand broadcaster
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/9/ministry-truth-putin-creates-new-russian-news-agen/?page=all
remember that most of the dystopian novels and things of the past are actually about soviet russia… from orwell to ayn… the ideas they put forth were merely copies of what was actually happening in some form…
the above stuff (prior post) being a copy of the memory hole – and the links above about the ideas of a ministry of truth.. which the leftists in the US have created as well with their websites to check facts.
truth? what is truth?
truth is what the state says it is
if not
you wont be alive or successful enough for you to think untruth and have it matter…
its also why they are hastening the deaths and extermination of the dominant classes in the west with nationalizing (like hitler) various large entities of the society, pushing abortion in which blobs give up brains and parts that belong to no blob and feminism in which the core of society (womens births) is marginalized and so they are now below even the immigrants let in to keep the numbers on the charge looking ok and hide the problem, along with that will be the removal of the fertility of a county when women are drafted (all these items point to creating a failed state that even if it wakes up wont be able to rescue itself no matter how much it wants to), removal of ancilary businesses and expertise in manufacturing, pushing amoral behavior, and on and on.
ALL points progressive push things that make society ill and maladaptive towards its own survival in the face of other less manipulated states
think the US could ramp up manufavturing?
think the US could ramp up births?
thin that we have enough bodies to oppose larger populations that are not third world and who are getting plenty of life fire training?
the list goes on in a huge way and i have tried and tried to have it discussed as one item not many items disjointed from each other..
you look at pieces on a chess board that way and you will ALWAYS lose the game…
I wouldn’t believe Oliver Stone, if he said he saw the Sun come up in the East. The man is a habitual liar.
Ymarsakar at 11:45 am:
“Civil War 1”.
I presume that that’s not a typo? You DO have a way with words…
Anyone who is familiar with the way the National Guard and the Reserves operated during Vietnam, as I am, would know that what W did (Attending monthly drills in a new location by doing only administrative duties/no flying.) in the last months of his Guard service was nothing unusual.
Under the premises of Rather and Mapes, many, many Reservists/National Guardsmen would have been derelict in their duties. I won’t go into detail, but I had a period of Reserve service where I was unable to get to an NAS, and fulfilled my drill requirements by doing administrative duties at a Naval Reserve Center and completing correspondence courses. Bush was near the end of his commitment and performed his final months in much the same way. Nothing unusual about it.
It is character assassination, one of the progs preferred weapons against Republicans. It will soon come into play against the GOP candidates, especially the leaders, Trump and Carson.
“rather (pun intended)”
The road to smell is paved with pun intentions.
Rathergate was a watershed moment for me. Up until then, I only had a vague sense of MSM bias. It was here, where so-called journalists inserted themselves into a presidential election, in a clear attempt to determine the outcome, that my eyes were truly opened to, what I believe is still the greatest threat to our Republic – a corrupt press.
I vividly recall watching online, in real time, as citizen bloggers proved the documents fraudulent and the story a lie. There have been too few reasons for optimism in the last dozen years, but that was one of them. I’ll never forget it.
Whenever someone has to announce that what they are saying is the TRUTH, you can be pretty sure it isn’t. Joseph Wilson’s book was The Politics of Truth, for example. Sort of like Honest John’s Used Cars.
Something similar happens with Congress and legislation. If something is called the Peace and Justice Act of 2016, you can be pretty sure it will lead to more war and be essentially unjust.
Remember the UVA rape story in Rolling Stone? When it began to unravel a female reporter on the UVA campus paper said we shouldn’t let the facts interfere with a good narrative. She obviously went to the Dan Rather school of journalism.
I was the administrative officer in a Naval Reserve unit and scheduling physicals was routine administrative procedure. Orders were not written for physicals and believing that orders were written for physicals is just ignorant.
There was a maddening movie about a dedicated journalist modeled on the Valerie Plame story called “Nothing But The Truth.” The entire movie is spent building up this reporter so dedicated to the truth that she’s willing to go to jail to protect her story. It is everything I would imagine “Truth” sees itself to be – the brave journalist fighting shady government actors to make sure the people know what’s really going on! Except in the final minute there is a reveal that shows you just how honorable the report is (not).
I think I’d rather rewatch that than “Truth.”
vanderleun:
Some smells are very fragrant, to those with a nose for them.
vanderleun very punny, very punny… the smell is rather PUNgent
No typo, there’s a one because there’s also a two (now or upcoming).
Might as well get them clear right now.
We also have this to look forward to, just in time for the 2016 election: Susan Sarandon on Her New TV Series Satirizing George W. Bush:
I’m like Highlander – I was vaguely aware of an establishment press bias, but the TANG story just broke it all open for me. The provenance of the documents was so shaky, the documents themselves so … well, really, I know how USAF file documents were annotated (in pencil, upper right corner with date, initials of admin filing it and the file folder number it belonged in) and presumed that Reserve documents from the period before my time of active duty would be annotated in the same way.
The more that I thought about how a hit piece had been generated for broadcast the week before Election Day, and how a major news network had deliberately tried to throw the election, the madder I got.
On how many other occasions were bogus and partisan stories put out by 60 Minutes, without anyone getting a good careful look at the documents?
Wonderful piece, Neo. Rather and Mapes as unjustified victims is a nauseating ‘Hoot!! The type set—FOCUS, Danny & Mary—on the document “proving” Mr.Bush’s behavior at the time(70’s)were PROVED to be modern computer type and therefore NONSENSE.
Continual shame on the Grafter Rather and the Lib-Lefty pinhead, Bobby Redford.
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“[T]hough the documents themselves may be falsified, both Mapes and Rather view them as more a piece of corroborative evidence”
If the manufactured documents were just a “piece” and “corroborative,” then why have we never been given the main body of “evidence?”
I don’t think that word means what they think it means.
“Some smells are very fragrant, to those with a nose for them.”
Agreed. The nose knows.
I thought that Charles Johnson of LittleGreenFootballs claimed to be the first// practically the first to discover the fraud.
For type and typesetting, fonts and all the rest were his bailiwick.
He’s gone on to zig zag all over the opinion space, last I looked he was aping Stalin: thought crime — splittist — deviant — crimes against the narrative…
Oh my !
blert:
Yes, it was Charles Johnson. I remember it well.
neo…
IIRC His discovery caused his blog to explode with ‘hits.’
He was linked to from all over, Instapundit… et. al.
What would kick Dan Rather is that ideologically Charles Johnson is very much a son of the Democrat party — and not really a super fan boy of George W. Bush.
It’s just that the phony document was too much for Charles to endure.
CJ’s biggest concern is that Muslim culture and atrocities not destroy Western liberalism.
He found his way back to the Democrat reservation — as a fresh visit to LGF would attest.
I’d type cast CJ as ESFJ.
http://www.16personalities.com/esfj-personality
He means well, but tends to be a tad strident.
blert:
Charles Johnson was a Democrat or libertarian (and I’m not sure which, actually) who was energized by 9/11 and the War on Terror to fight against Islamic terrorism. He also was a computer guy who happened to immediately see the possible problem with Rather’s Killian memos, and hit on a very graphic way to show the problem. It made him famous, and his traffic skyrocketed.
Later, as you say, he found his way back to the liberal reservation, where he has remained.
The original catch was by a chap named “Buckhead”, at Free Republic. He checked out the docs as published by CBS online, immediately after the program finished, (c.10pm EDT). Most people picked up the discussion the next morning, which is when Charles at LGF decided to try retyping one memo using MS Word and its defaults.
A summery here: http://www.replicatedtypo.com/koalas-use-a-novel-vocal-organ-to-produce-unusually-low-pitched-mating-calls/6856.html
Cheers
Later, as you say, he found his way back to the liberal reservation, where he has remained.
Most of the fields a computer guy works at in the US is surrounded by Democrats. It’s not like he “found himself back in the fold” so much as he was already surrounded by the fold and took the path of least resistance, for his job career.
If I recall correctly, one of his posts said he did take a new job and the timeline was consistent with his ideological “change”. It wasn’t really a change though, more like weaklings obeying the hierarchy.
Hard to tell after so many years and Google not having enough spybots to check it on. http://www.redstate.com/diary/barrypopik/2009/12/01/goodbye-little-green-footballs/
Essentially Johnson is a true believer of the Left’s homo and thought police mini cultures. Which has expanded over the years to envelope much of the real estate of America. Well, power wise at least. His resistance to Islam was purportedly about fighting lies and totalitarian beliefs… but it is difficult for him to keep that front up when his own Leftist colleagues are miniature storm troopers and fascist totalitarians.
You know how it is.