When Lying Becomes Normal

CBS News Stand By Uncorroborated Blather

The Scriptures give us clear warnings about accepting reports or evidence, without corroboration.  When it comes to the question of justice, verification of testimony is both fundamental and critical.  It is "out of the mouth of two or three witnesses" that every fact shall be confirmed. 

Here are some of the critical scriptural evidences:

Deuteronomy 19:15--a single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offence that he has committed, and . . .

Matthew 18:16--But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses."

So, when a morally bankrupt news organisation cuts, slices, and dices a "news report" it's truthfulness should be suspended until another (independent) witness can corroborate the account. 

The following interchange between the US Attorney General and a CBS reporter illustrates the matter perfectly.

Sensationalism and Misinformation

BBC and Attenborough Accused of Fake News 

Misinformation on ‘Climate Change: The Facts’


James Delingpole
Breitbart News


The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has made a formal complaint to the BBC about the series of gross inaccuracies in its recent documentary Climate Change: The Facts.  As wags have quipped, the programme presented by Sir David Attenborough was so riddled with errors it really should have been called Climate: Change The Facts.

Now the GWPF has written to the BBC Complaints department listing just a few of them. The letter can be read here.

According to the GPWF, the programme “went far beyond its remit to present the facts about climate change, instead broadcasting a highly politicised manifesto in favour of renewable energy and unjustified alarm.”

The GWPF says:

The programme highlighted suggestions that storms, floods, heatwaves and sea level rise are all rapidly getting worse as a result of climate change.  However, the best available data, published in the last few years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and NASA, contradicts the BBC’s alarmist exaggeration of empirical evidence.

In its 5th Assessment Report (2013), the IPCC concluded:  “Current datasets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century … No robust trends in annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes counts have been identified over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin.”

In its more recent Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C, published in 2018, these findings were reconfirmed. It stated that  “Numerous studies towards and beyond AR5 have reported a decreasing trend in the global number of tropical cyclones and/or the globally accumulated cyclonic energy… There is consequently low confidence in the larger number of studies reporting increasing trends in the global number of very intense cyclones.”

Regarding floods, the IPCC’s Special Report concluded:  “There is low confidence due to limited evidence, however, that anthropogenic climate change has affected the frequency and the magnitude of floods. “

There is also no observational evidence that the rate of sea level rise is getting worse. NASA satellite data shows that since 1993, there has been an annual mean sea level rise of 3.3mm, with no significant level of acceleration in the last three decades.

Suggestions by David Attenborough and Michael Mann that climate change is causing increases in wildfires in the US and globally are also misleading and not supported by any empirical evidence.  According to a survey published by the Royal Society the global area burned has actually declined over past decades, and there is increasing evidence to suggest that there is less fire in the global landscape today than centuries ago. These are vitally important facts that should have been mentioned if an accurate description of the impact of climate change on wildfires was to be maintained.

This is the second #fakenews scandal to embroil Sir David Attenborough in the space of a fortnight. Earlier this month, another Attenborough documentary — Our Planet on Netflix — was accused of misrepresenting footage of walruses tumbling to their deaths over a cliff. Attenborough claimed on the voiceover that this had been caused by “climate change” and the melting of the sea ice on which the walruses hunted for food. But evidence has since emerged that it wasn’t climate change which killed the walruses but rather a combination of marauding polar bears and the Netflix film crew whose activities may have scared the tusked, bewhiskered creatures to their doom.

Breitbart London@BreitbartLondon

Delingpole: Walrusgate – Attenborough Exposed in #FakeNews Netflix Eco Documentary Scandal https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/04/17/walrusgate-the-netflix-attenborough-scandal-gets-worse/ …

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8:00 AM - Apr 18, 2019

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Delingpole: the Netflix/Attenborough #Walrusgate Scandal Gets Worse

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Fake News Is a Real Phenomenon

Four Massive Media Hoaxes in First Three Weeks of 2019

John Nolte

Breitbart News

26,202

YouTube, Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images, Breitbart News Composite

22 Jan 20193,551

5:03

We are only three weeks into 2019, a mere 22 days, and already the establishment media have hit us with four massive hoaxes, four flaming piles of fake news.

Led primarily by CNN, the Washington Post, BuzzFeed, NBC News, and the New York Times — the same media that have spent two years crybabying about being labeled fake news — have already run these cons on the American people with a full week still left in the first month of this new year.

Worst still, the media continue to stand by these debunked hoaxes, including one that resulted in death threats against children.

Does anyone still want to argue fake news is not the enemy of the people?

After this trip down memory lane, I doubt it:

Global Mischief

Truth The First Casualty

Last week we were observing a court case, sitting in the public galleries.  During one of the lengthy breaks, we had the opportunity to speak with one of the reporters covering the trial.  He was a pleasant, earnest sort of chap.  We conversed on a number of topics related to the media.

Towards the end of the conversation he informed me, sotto voce,  that he and his colleagues had been made privy to a Big Scandal.  Apparently, the buzz was that some intrepid reporter in the United States had got a hold of President Trump's tax returns, and the big reveal was about to hit the airwaves.  It was expected to be devastating to Trump.  Indeed, my informant gleefully chuckled, apparently so devastating that it would likely end his presidency.

Upon parting we found ourselves picturing a huge buzzing hive where by some mysterious process information was instantaneously communicated to "those in the know", aka the media, right around the world.  The inside goss, as it were, transmitted secretly and globally with the speed of light.

Driving home from the court that night we were foolish enough to be listening to one of the local radio stations.  The host and his guest were giggling with malicious laughter.

Truth Telling

Who Can You Trust on the Persecuted Church?

The Barnabas Fund

Suddenly the world has woken up to the fact that not everything out there on the internet is true. The latest buzz word is “fake news”. Yet the sad truth is that even in the Christian world we frequently see news reports about persecuted Christians that either refer to events long ago as if they have just happened, or are greatly exaggerated, or in some cases simply untrue. There are still urgent prayer request emails circulating about the imminent capture of the Christian town of Qaraqosh in Syria by Islamic State (IS). In fact, Qaraqosh fell to IS in August 2014.  

There are also stories which appear deliberately designed to deceive Christians, such as an email prayer request currently circulating which claims that 20 churches have just been burnt down by Buddhist extremists in the Indian province of Olisabang – there is no such place – and that the extremists intend in the next 24 hours to destroy another 200 churches and to kill 200 missionaries. This story first surfaced early in 2010 and reappeared again (sometimes with a denial) in May 2012, April 2015, and April 2016.  

The impact of these stories reflects the new ability of millions of people to publish their own stories and comments on internet blogs. As a result, anything circulates, from a mischievous “joke” to subtle disinformation planted with the intention of deceiving millions and perhaps affecting national and international actions at the highest level. The impact is also due to a significant change in how Western society views “truth”. Until recently the strong influence of Judaeo-Christian values meant that telling the truth was just that – telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Now, in a post-modern world, truth has changed.

The Jehu Chronicles

Flake News

Douglas Wilson
Blog&Mablog

INTRODUCTION

So let us talk for a moment about the term “fake news.” Why are we talking about this all of a sudden? Why is this a thing now?

During the campaign there were various stories that circulated on the Internet, made up of whole cloth, some of which were not flattering to Hillary. In the aftermath of the election, when her people were flailing around in search of someone or something to blame besides Her Majesty, one of the things they tried out was the idea that it was “fake news” that had hurt her in the final days of the election. Let’s run that one up the flag pole to see if anyone salutes.

Not only did no one salute, but something else entirely happened.

QUALIFICATIONS

But before proceeding further, let me acknowledge fully and sincerely that there were stories out there about Hillary that, when it came to the falsitudinous quotient, ranked pretty high. I also acknowledge that Nigerian princes who are stranded in Manila with a suitcase full of gold bullion are also not, shall we say, legit. Do not send them your bank account number. And further, I cheerfully note that purveyors of clickbait techniques love to tell us that what Ted Cruz said next went BOOM, and that Kellyanne Conway DESTROYED Anderson Cooper, and that when you see what Bo Derek looks like now it will BLOW YOUR MIND. So Hillary had to deal with that foolishness, as well all the rest of us. Welcome to earth, kid.

And here is another qualification. Donald Trump is a wrecking ball. It is possible to applaud the fact of some of the wreckage without applauding, um, the entire project.