Unfreedom of the Press by Mark Levin – Book Notes & Commentary
The following are my notes on this book. These notes are my own perception of what was taught and do not present all ideas of the text, but rather a few ideas I thought of particular importance which I here express in my own way. Please read the book for a complete and accurate understanding of Levin’s intended message. These notes are for educational purposes and are not to be used for profit.
Ch. 1 News As Political And Ideological Activism
Ch. 2 The Early Patriot Press
Ch. 3 The Modern Democratic Party Press
Ch. 4 The Real Threat To Press Freedom
Ch. 5 News Propaganda And Pseudo Events
Ch. 6 The New York Times Betrays Millions
Ch. 7 The Truth About Collusion, Abusive Power, And Character
Epilogue: A Standardless Profession
Journalists today are not patriotic, they are selfish in promoting their narrative and they shut down those who do not agree with the narrative.
Ch. 1 News As Political And Ideological Activism
Republicans trust the media the least out of all major political groups. 54% of Democrats see the media favorably, while 68% of Republicans see it unfavorably.
65% of Republicans say there’s a lot of bias in the news, while only 24% of Democrats say that.
Democrats and Republicans are further apart than ever before.
Reporting on Trump was not good journalism, it was not going off of non-primary sources, it was just ‘he said she said’ and it was all negative; it became very political and even propaganda.
Journalism is supposed to be an independent monitor of power devoted to the truth and committed to the citizens.
For the first time in history news is produced mostly by companies outside of journalism. We have independent news posing as (unbiased) news, and it will lead to loss of freedom of the press. Facts told plainly reveal the truth naturally. An objective scientific journalist works to give an unbiased report of what’s taking place.
(Note – It is like science in that we want our science to be pure raw facts, not theories built upon theories.)
Media bias gives us a different worldview, the view that the liberals want us to see, and it has a real impact on our thinking, turning us into liberals. We are less and less able to detect the bias and to see the conservative reality. Slowly the extreme ideas become mainstream.
(Note – this is called Hegelian Dialect, moving the center further and further away from the original true center by one extreme claim and compromise after another.)
Group think today is known as “the master narrative,” it involves talking about things that fit the master narrative and not talking about things that don’t.
65% of journalists reported being liberal, only 5% reported being conservative.
Many journalists get hired into Democratic political offices. Many specific examples are given in the text.
Mainstream media outlets had a ridiculously negative rate of reporting on President Trump, like 90% negative. Fox News showed way more positive news about Trump being about 48% positive, and analysis showed that Fox was being more fair and truthful than the negative outlets.
A leader of journalists told people to not treat Trump like a normal candidate. They called for uniting against him, “calling him out,” not applying the normal rules (of unbiased reporting) to him.
Journalists now want to be activists, community organizers, they’re no longer interested in being detached objective fact finders (yet they continue to claim to be objective).
Progressives are fundamentally elitist, claiming that the common person cannot understand or deal with today’s issues.
Note – we do have a representative Republican government for a reason since we don’t have time to deal with every last thing, but this is something different, the progressives are saying we can’t have any say. They are pushing toward communism and unrepresentative government.
John Dewey was against reporting without social context; in other words he didn’t want unbiased reporting.
By the ’60s and ’70s journalists weren’t just reporting, they were mixing in social agendas, promoting progressive policies and agendas. Now there’s a near Monopoly of news reporting toward the left. Old time reporters had to stick to ” who what where when and how.” It was only certain column writers etc. who would analyze what happened, but now we’ve lost the objective reporting and all we have is analysis.
The “why” was supposed to be left to others but now it is mixed in.
Journalist today are nonpartisan but they won’t admit it, so they won’t be able to be objective (lack of confession is the worst kind of blindness). They should report facts and let the readers decide.
Early American printing included religious debate.
The early press supposed the American revolution and was patriotic.
Society is always good, but government is a necessary evil. We furnish the means by which we suffer.
Note – it seems there are different types of governments for different kingdoms, but all kingdoms have some kind of government. Of course, a holy people wouldn’t need much governing. They would voluntarily follow a strict code of conduct. There would be law, but no need for police to enforce the law, as the conscience does all the enforcing. See Peter Kreeft’s Culture War book for more on this.
The simpler something is the less likely it is to dysregulate it and the easier it is to repair.
Today we have lifetime appointed judges who micromanage society with regulations and rules not voted on by the people, nor are they voted upon by the representatives of the people.
This creates organizations which are unelected, undemocratic, unrepublican, and unconstitutional.
Liberals like President Wilson reject much of the founding history of America and claim that the declaration of Independence is only a theoretical document, applying only to the past. He said we need to assess anew which principles we want every 4th of July.
Note – Progressives reject eternal principles and make it up as they go, doing whatever they feel like they want to at that time in placing their wishes, their current whims, as the highest good. Progressives also deny the eternal principles taught in the founding documents and trivialize them to being supposedly random people’s ideas which supposedly no longer apply.
Ch. 3 The Modern Democratic Party Press
There was a time in America’s history where newspapers gave political views of certain parties, but they were known to be such, having the name of that party in their title, like “The Washington Democrat” etc.
Obama claimed 36 times that we could keep our doctor and health plan, but it was not so. He repeatedly said Al-Qaeda was on the run, that Russia was no longer a strategic competitor, that his administration experienced no scandal, etc.
Apparently they didn’t have time to fact check Obama the way that they had time to fact check Trump.
Anyone who had anything bad to say about Trump was considered to be a truthful source of excellent news, and was given lots of screen time. They continually talk about Trump’s ‘eminent’ demise. They aired stories which were of an unknown source and only made a little mention of how they weren’t sure about the story, but went on promoting it anyway, knowing it would have the intended consequence of being believed by the hearers.
In 18 hours on CNN and MSNBC they use the word impeachment 222 times. From the beginning people were constantly talking about Trump getting impeached. Everyone called Trump racist Mussolini Stalin Hitler etc. and when Trump spoke about media bias, they called him unamerican, etc.
Levin hilariously sites dozens of quotations about news anchors railing on Trump, having extreme fits and calling him names like Neo-Nazi, white supremacist, and anything else they could come up with.
Note – whenever you stand up for something that’s true and right which will actually fix the problem, people will hunt you.
A group of some 24 psychiatrists and psychologists who didn’t like Trump from the beginning got together and made a book about supposed claims against his mental health to try and get him out.
Conservatives are considered political outsiders. Just like how they attacked Trump with claims of mental instability, they also did the same thing to Barry Goldwater.
Psychiatrists and psychologists across the Nation were asked if they thought Goldwater was mentally fit to be president, and about 2,000 responded: 500 said we don’t have enough information, 500 said he is fit, and 1,000 said he is not fit.
Ch. 4 The Real Threat to Press Freedom
Trump has never endorsed state-run media, he is just responding to the relentless attacks on him by the media. He is attacking the ideological one-sided reporting.
There was press suppression in the Civil War against people who were on the side of the south. Lots on that in the text.
President Wilson did lots to suppress the press and free speech. He shut down and imprisoned people who spoke against the war. Lots on that in the text.
President Roosevelt made agencies not cover anything against what the government administration policies were.
Roosevelt was a huge fan of George Creole, who was Wilson’s propaganda agent.
Obama subpoenaed and took the phone and email records of a Fox news reporter.
The Obama administration surveillance was more than any past president.
The Obama administration denied requests of information which should have been available based on the “Freedom of Information Act” and they did this more frequently than anyone.
Obama gave a speech to journalists about how to do journalism, it was very hypocritical based on what he was doing. But all of the press reporters at the event applauded him because they were on board with his politics.
The press is not endangered by Trump, he doesn’t imprison reporters etc. He doesn’t take actions against broadcast stations for airing propaganda. Yet all of this was done excessively by past presidents, and the press is hunting Trump and claiming he’s doing the things that he isn’t doing which others have done.
Ch. 5 News Propaganda and Pseudo Events
Now that journalism is so ideological and driven by activists which align with the political left we don’t even know if we’re getting real news anymore, the truth is hidden.
Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.
Levin explains the propaganda of the Obama Iran deal.
There’s no scientific proof that humans have caused the climate to get warmer. Models suggesting human involvement were exaggerated.
Scientists are more biased than most people in favor of popular theories.
Journalists have decided to stop covering climate deniers even though many renowned scientists deny human involvement in climate change and deny the impact human activities will have on natural disasters. The journalists simply decided to take a side.
The Trump administration issued a climate warning on greenhouse gas emissions but all the numbers used in the report were made by the Obama administration.
Urbanization causes local temperature increase but not global temperature increase, and this is not taken into account in climate change models.
It used to be understood that if there was no news worth reporting that no news would be reported; but today when there’s nothing to report they go make something up and report about it. With round the clock news we went from news reporting to news making.
Journalists are trying to hide their sources while claiming to be giving hard facts.
Hillary blamed Trump of colluding with Russia and a special counsel was made about it despite there not being any criminal record to justify it. This turned into the biggest pseudo-event of modern times. It raged on for 2 and 1/2 years. For 791 days there was an average of 3 minutes every night on this. And 92% of news on Trump was negative.
The Democratic press goes from one fake event to another; first they said there’s no way Trump is going to win the election, then they said Trump used Russia to win election, then they said there was obstruction of justice, and it goes on and on one fake event after another. They never learned their lesson.
The media and inundate the public with stories based on whims, speculation, and from unknown sources. To save themselves they make a little mention of how they don’t know if the story is true, then they go on and talk about it as though it were true, and give it tons of air time, etc.
By journalists own admission, today informing the people means competition in a market place of pseudo-events where they make their own questions, contrive their own answers, and make up facts for their stories. They live in a world of non-reality. We are now haunted more by illusions than by reality.
Ch. 6 The New York Times Betrays Millions
Today’s stories are pre-contrived and facts are used in a way that supports that story. It’s supposed to be the other way: that a series of facts tell their own story.
People didn’t get more involved against Hitler earlier on because the media was covering it up.
President Roosevelt and other antisemites downplayed the news of millions of Jews being killed.
American newspapers and radio essentially ignored the Holocaust.
See book “Buried by The Times”
One of the nation’s most important newspapers (The New York Times) discounted the most important story of the century.
Reporting of Jews being killed occurred in the middle of the paper on a late inside page, whereas killing of other ethnicities was front page News.
Even today the NYT is against Israel.
Stalin starving millions was also ignored by the NYT.
American NYT journalist Durante worked for the communists and had many favors from them and was an adulterer; he lied about bad conditions in Ukraine to Americans. They never revoked his Pulitzer prize.
Ch. 7 The Truth About Collusion, Abusive Power, & Character
Collusion:
Virtually every news agency is guilty for pushing the Trump Russia collusion and related false news.
The Hamilton musical is a progressive twist on Hamilton’s life
The Chinese helped get Bill Clinton reelected.
Several other accounts of Democrats colluding with foreign powers are given in the text which the media didn’t give it any coverage. Compare that to how they dealt with Trump.
Abusive power:
Robert Mueller’s investigation showed there was no criminal behavior of trump. But they didn’t give up after that announcement.
Trump left a lucrative business to run for president and he donated his entire presidential salary.
Trump is not one of these ideologues who wants to radically transform America from what it is.
Trump’s policies have been mainstream right and sometimes center left.
When Trump fired James Comey the media said it was obstruction of justice and criminal. Many Democrats know that Comey is corrupt and are on record denouncing Comey. The way the FBI handled the investigation of the Hillary emails was wrong. Comey himself admitted it was perfectly within the president’s power to fire him.
Overview of various surveillance done by various presidents is given in detail in the text.
Lots of surveillance on Martin Luther King Jr.
Character:
JFK had sleezy affairs. Lindon Johnson was a philanderer. These were hid from the public. They hide this stuff for those who aligned with the politics they wanted.
They couldn’t hide Bill Clinton’s affair, but lots of what Clinton did is widely unknown, rape etc.
Cavanagh had lots of sexual scandals.
Levin Unfreedom Of The Press – Epilogue: A Standardless Profession
Today news claims to be objective, but uses an analytical style of the left. Methods now are political and ideological.
Some basic rules for good reporting:
-Never add anything that was not there.
-Never deceive the audience.
-Be as transparent as possible about your methods and motives.
-Rely on your own original reporting.
-Be humble.
Thomas Jefferson said “The only security of all is in a free press.”
Ronald Reagan spoke of a free independent press being essential.
The NYT has been predictably and militantly hostile to Trump. They blame others for people’s distrust in them, but they themselves have sown the reasons for that distrust.
The NYT is about news with activism. It mixes the news and opinion columns.
Journalists decided Trump is dangerous, and they went out to prove that, abandoning objective truth. It’s not the first time the Times has betrayed the truth.
Trump has taken no steps to silence the press, but it is a fact that Adams Lincoln FDR Wilson Obama and other presidents did use the power of the federal government against news outlets and reporters with whom they disagreed.
Solsberger is dishonest about his journalists and about Trump.
The current practitioners of what used to be journalism, they are the real threat to freedom of the press.
