Will the Times and the WaPo return their Pulitzers for Russiagate?
That’s the question Roger L. Simon asks here.
The question is rhetorical, of course. They should, but they won’t.
There’s the old “fools vs. knaves” question, too:
[T]o what degree [did] these people knew they were lying at the time? Were they merely victims of extreme Trump Derangement Syndrome? Did they believe the ends, in this instance, justify the means?
They allowed themselves to be conduits for lies. Did they ask serious questions? “Informants, almost always anonymous,” were telling them things. (Collecting those anonymous informants has been the stock and trade of establishment journalists since Watergate.)
The most obvious conclusion is they wanted to believe the lies they were hearing, so they did not question them. To be blunt, they were lousy reporters and remain so because. most of them, all to my knowledge on the linked [Pulitzer] list, have not publicly acknowledged their faults.
I believe most knew and didn’t care, because the particular facts don’t matter in the service of a Higher Truth. Plus, I doubt they ever thought they’d be found out, because once the MSM unites on a false story, it can be difficult for the rest of us to discover and prove the truth. They never expected Hillary Clinton to lose in the first place, and the Russiagate story was initially concocted to hurt Trump in the 2016 election, and so they never expected (I believe) to have to continue it for all those years of the Trump administration, because they didn’t think there would be a Trump administration.
But they rose (sank) to the occasion after his election, didn’t they? Give them points for dogged persistence.
Will the Times and the WaPo return their Pulitzers for Russiagate?
Wrong question. Should the Pulitzer committee take back the prize? Another rhetorical question. Left-wingers create or seize control of award organizations so that they can give awards to other left-wingers.
Purlitzer should demand them back.
Will the Times and the WaPo return their Pulitzers for Russiagate?
The NYT didn’t return the Pulitzer Walter Duranty won for fake news on the Stalin-induced famine in Ukraine. Malcom Muggeridge and Eugne Lyons were journalists in the Soviet Union in the 1930s who knew Duranty was lying. Eugene Lyons’s books The Red Decade and Assignment in Utopia (published in 1930s) are available at Web Archive, as is Malcolm Muggeridge’s multi-volume memoir, Chronicles of a Wasted Time.
Beatrice and Sidney Webb wrote several editions of Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation (with or without the “?”) , which informed readers of the great accomplishments going on there. Beatrice Webb was Malcom Muggeridge’s aunt. That is, Muggeridge wasn’t a conservative before going to the Soviet Union- his father was a Labour MP.
Eugene Lyons went to the Soviet Union as a confirmed Red, and like Malcolm Muggeridge, became greatly disillusioned about the Soviet “Paradise.” In The Red Decade, he had a trenchant reply to those of denounce “red-baiting.” Lyons points out that no one had any objection to “brown-baiting,” to pointing out the misdeeds of Hitler. So why object to doing the same to the Reds? It was interesting to find out that the term “red-baiting” was being used in the 1930s, a decade before Richard Nixon made his mark with Alger Hiss.
https://www.historyonthenet.com/walter-duranty-new-york-times
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_Webb
@ Robert Shotzberger My sentiments exactly, and the fact that they are not demanding this is a good indication of Captured Institution syndrome.
At least some of the reporters acted as knowing conduits for the lies. I’m thinking particularly of David Ignatius who has knowingly reported falsehoods for years. He’s been caught over and over yet still is given a forum in primarily left-wing publications.
Well, the NYT did not demand that the Pulitzer Prize be revoked for the USSR loving Walter Duranty’s work with the Times. Heck, in 2003, the Pulitzer Prize Board refused to revoke the prize citing the works submitted for foreign journalism, which reading just the headlines of the articles makes the justification suspect, putting it mildly.
https://www.pulitzer.org/news/statement-walter-duranty
Speaking of Roger L. Simon, he long ago left PJ Media for Epoch Times, so you might want to correct your blogroll.
“I believe most knew and didn’t care”
Yes. Since they show the same behavior for every issue. And it’s consistent over many years.
Those who award the Pulitzer Prize are at least as corrupt as the NYT and WaPo.
Duranty tried to soften Communism and the Soviet Union. Communism was developed and written in London. No surprise that an Englishman was one of it’s propagandists.
It’s Wokeism before being woke was a thing. In reality, along with being woke, it’s about power and control over all of society by the same folks who tell you they are doing things for your own good, all they while they are making themselves rich and privileged. Sadly, that’s an aged old play that the aristocracy of England have used, along with the rest of the world.
The US of A is unique in this regard in that it posits that freedom is inherent and only protected by the government. We now know without a doubt that many in our federal government reject that supposition. That, sadly, was also predicted by our Founders.
We also know that many in our states and local governments reject this.
}}}The most obvious conclusion is they wanted to believe the lies they were hearing, so they did not question them
i.e., they’ve been Ratherized
}}} Left-wingers create or seize control of award organizations so that they can give awards to other left-wingers
That’s certainly what they’ve done with the Hugos and the Oscars.
}}} Pulitzer Prize
Everyone keeps misspelling this. I’m pretty sure it’s long since been the Pullizerleg Prize…
“Pullizerleg Prize”…
LOL
Satire and contemptuous ridicule is the appropriate response to all of the left’s awards.
Do we need a separate posting to address the Nobel Peace* prize, or can that ridicule continue here, too?
*aka Nobel Peach prize for those with arthritic fingers.
@ Geoffrey > “Satire and contemptuous ridicule is the appropriate response to all of the left’s awards.”
I was going to post another article* from the Grassroots Leadership Academy series on Alinski’s Rules for Radicals (#5) but the link to that one is dead now. (as are all of #1-7; #8-13 are okay for now).
So I’ll link this article instead.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/08/alinsky-rules-applied.php
I think the Powerline crew deserves to receive some credible clone of the Pulitzer award, for Rathergate alone, but also for all their other high-level investigative journalism among the humorous posts.
And Steven should get an award for This Week In Pictures, while we’re at it.
*That was on the Rittenhouse thread, down at the end of a rather long comment. (Quelle surprise!**)
https://gla.americansforprosperityfoundation.org/adapting-alinskys-rules-for-radicals-hold-them-accountable/
**
https://sayingimages.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/surprised-face-trump-meme.jpg
I’ll just drop this here —
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/11/the_second_annual_hoax_of_the_year_award_goes_to.html
To be a lie, and a liar, the person must:
1. Communicate with the intention to deceive,
2. Know that what they are saying is false at the time.
My opinion, they are knaves and liars.
As for their lack of journalistic curiosity, I chalk that up to an attempt to maintain plausible deniability.
We all intuitively know that that the Pulitzer Organization won’t rescind the prizes. But I don’t think we understand explicitly why that is.
Consider two subsets of people…
(I am generalizing, but in a specific way)
The first subset makes their living (or even their fortunes) by producing goods and services. They exchange value for value in honest and mutually beneficial exchanges. These are the doers and makers of the world.
The second subset acquires their living by placing themselves close to existing wealth and power. They don’t create wealth themselves. They attach themselves to existing wealth and they leach off off it. They are parasites.
What sort of men and women become members of the Pulitzer Committee that selects the recipients? The makers and doers of the world? Of course not! They would find such a job… distasteful. No, those jobs go to the parasites; the people who trade favors instead of value.
So, will those people admit they were wrong? Of course not! They were complicit in conning the public. The parasites all protect each other, not because they like and admire each other, but because they are protecting their own illusion that they are not parasites.
Never underestimate the ability of intelligent people to convince themselves of fantastic things to avoid accepting inconvenient truths.
I recall bantering with a very intelligent friend from school a few years back who had concocted what was basically a magic bullet theory to avoid accepting that the Ferguson shooting was justified. Not even the laws of physics could dissuade him.
I think you see the same thing with Russiagate. For many it’s not lying so much as a psychological block. As long as even the tiniest shred of the initial story has yet to be debunked, the whole thing could still be true.
I think they all got the message–at all levels of their “news” organizations–that if you didn’t play along your career would be over.
“[T]o what degree [did] these people knew they were lying at the time?”
Most of them won’t even acknowledge that they were wrong at the time. A much softer ask.
Additionally, If they acknowledge the lying or being wrong today, they will soon revert to the original narrative
“…knaves and liars….”
Steve, you’re right of course.
But what if the MORAL IMPERATIVE was to GET TRUMP? (Which it most certainly was—and in fact still is.)
That would supplant point #1 (so that there would be three points instead of two).
It would also mean that they are “angels and liars”.
And yet, since they are angels—i.e., they are on the side of “good”—that means, automatically, that they are on the side of “truth”…which means that they can’t possibly be liars (or if liars, then it was something that was absolutely necessary–IOW a HIGHER truth—for the benefit of humankind).
Which means “angels AND truth-tellers”….
(And so, no, they most certainly will NOT have to give up their precious—or might that be “dross”?—Pulitzers. Of course not.)
And so the Pulitzer is increasingly cheapened, if not as much as the Nobel Prize for Peace…but cheapened nonetheless…
(On the other hand, this is how the Pulitzer folks—we shall not call them “putzes”, no, that would never do—seem to want it…)
If in fact Pulitzers were earned—and well-earned at that—on the basis of the success of “getting Trump” then it looks like the NYT deserves another one:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/new-york-times-held-back-story-kenosha-riot-damage-until-after-2020-election
C’mon you Pulitzer putzes (oh well, I lied…sue me!), put up or shut up—and give the Grey Lady another one of your game-show prizes for…hey, let’s call it the November 2020 Project!
The folks that ARE the Pulitzer Prize , are like any other inbred, group think, pseudo-religious club or organization.
Some groups are far better at hiding their underlying motivations for any policies or decisions they make, and other groups revel in making it very well known what underlies their decisions, policies or actions.
Members of the KKK, CPUSA, ANTIFA, BLM, ISIS, Nazi Party, Workers Socialist Party, and the Pulitzer Prize committee etc., all share a common attribute, which is, do not bother joining us unless you think and believe like we expect of you.
In 1932, the NY Times “reporter,” Walter Duranty won the Pulitzer for his “reporting” of the events in Stalinist Russia.
Suffice it to say, pretty much all of his “reports” were bald faced lies; all written to cover up the millions of people starving to death, esp. in Ukraine. It was Joe Stalin’s policies – purposeful and intentional – that caused the deaths by starvation of millions.
Duranty ignored or otherwise minimized this horrible event; he was a hard core Stalinist and he lied to protect Stalin.
So, when did the Pulitzer Committee retract their award?
Oh, that’s right, NEVER; not even to this day.
Imagine if Duranty had been a reporter in Nazi Germany, knew of and saw Hitler’s concentration camps, and reported they were essentially the same as FDR’s WPA work camps, and then was rewarded a Pulitzer for his “reporting.”
How soon afterwards, when all became known, would the Pulitzer Committee retract its award??
Let me guess; faster then white on snow.
So why in one instance would they retract a Pulitzer, and in another instance not?
Because the Pulitzer is far more a political-ideological organization which seeks to promote its ideology, than to frankly assess the quality of newspaper reporting.
No different than if the KKK awarded every year, an honorary Grand Klaxon of the Year award or if the Nazi Party USA gave out an annual Adolph Hitler award.
Speaking of describing concentration camps (i.e. death camps) as being similar to a New Deal, FDR , WPA work camp, there was a gulag in Kolyma (way up in NE Siberia) in which about 2 million people died (about the same number as were exterminated at Aushwitz) ; they were either worked to death, starved to death , froze to death or just executed.
This camp was actually visited by the VP (during the admin. of FDR) of the USA, Henry Wallace and Owen Lattimore (a FDR diplomat).
Henry Wallace and Lattimore reported back to FDR that the Kolyma gulag was very similar to a WPA, New Deal work camp. No mention of the mass deaths .
Goes to show, that leftists are truly evil people and will go to any lengths whatsoever to promote their cause.
There is only one situation where I could envision the Pulitzer committee actually retracting it’s prize, and that would be if a “reporter” engaged in lies and deception to make it appear that a right wing dictator was a nice guy.
In this instance, the retraction of the prize would set the world’s record for being the fastest known a human activity moved faster than the speed of light.
We can’t believe any of what’s happening because we’re viewing it through the lens of normalcy. What’s happening in Washington is the political equivalent of a riot in which nobody is in charge and everyone just acts crazy having fun wrecking things.