MM#128--The Gray Lady Winked

Welcome to the theory to action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time to help you take action immediately, and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now, here's your host, David Kaiser.

Hello, I'm David and welcome back to another Mojo minute. This week is a special week here at the Mojo Academy. This is Liberty week. And so we're gonna continue on with our special series of mojo minutes, where we are focusing on those things that help us to live a flourishing life and our nation, and ultimately, what to avoid, and living that flourishing life. So for the past 120 years, the New York Times newspaper has been the paper of record the paper of so called Truth. And most people are familiar with its history. And it's deceiving, and it's complete distortion of many major events in history. And this era, when everything was considered fake news, let us take a stroll down memory lane and observe the corruption and the deceit of America's paper of record. To help us pull the layers of this onion of lies is a fantastic book I just finished reading by Ashley Rendsburg titled The great lady winked, how the New York Times misreporting, distortions and fabrications radically alter history. Again, it's by Ashley Rendsburg. And let's go to the book for an opening quote. 

On August 31 1939, Hitler put into action one of the most flagrant scams in the history of the modern world. In order to give Germany a reason and a right to begin it's war of European conquest II, and a number of Gestapo propagandists and henchmen including Heinrich Mueller, who may be who would be made head of the Gestapo a month later concocted a scheme to make it seem as if neighbouring Poland had attacked Germany. With a bit of crude but bold propaganda the Second World War began. The New York Times bought the Nazi dupe without flinching underneath its famous banner, quote, all the news that's fit to print, the paper reported that according to quote, Chancellor, Hitler, Germany had attacked had been attacked. Already. In the second paragraph of the Times front page article, the reporter Otto delicious went on to reprint verbatim Hitler's infamous for speech to the Reichstag, which the fury used to justify to the world as much as to the German people is invasion of Poland. Between the pages the times went into detail reporting that Polish attacks have been carried out against Germany, at a German radio station climates and other points along the border. The report was written in the Times, characteristically deliberating, deliberating and objective Tome and presented the facts as of the events that will lead to humanity's most horrifying war at 8pm. According to the semi official news agency, the times or report stated, a group of Polish uns insurrectionists forced an entrance into the Gly what's radio station in Germany, overpowering the watchmen and beating and generally mistaken handling the attendance? The guy with station was replaying a Breslau stations program, or I'm sorry, the GLI what station was relaying a Breslau stations program, which was broken off by the poles, unquote. The problem however, the book goes on, was that the times, places names and events themselves as they were reported, by the times, were all Nazi fabrications. With the publication of Nazi propaganda on the pages of the most trusted newspaper of the world's greatest democracy, the poor and his top propagandist got more than they could have ever hoped for from operation, Himmler, unquote. 

Unbelievable. But it goes on. Wait until you read, read this last paragraph. Quote the Hitler proclamation in its reprint in the time to represent the next impossibly most damning stage of operation Himmler. Since the very first words of Hitler's Hitler's widely public public speech were coldly designed to deceive as much of Europe and America as possible. quote to the defense forces, the Polish nation has refused my efforts for a peaceful regulation of neighborly relations, and stead it has appealed to weapons, Hitler said to Schluss
printed the entirety of the proclamation in his front page article, and then went on to report that German military restrictions and warnings. And he had never once mentioned the possibility that the Nazis so well versed in propaganda and so ready to use that weapon, as they had proven so many times by 1939 Might just be lying. For his air written propaganda friendly reporting, to Lucius was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1940, for his dispatches from Berlin, unquote. 

The dude won a Pulitzer Prize in 1940, for this lie. And the author of this book actually wins. Berg does some amazing research. And it's well worth reading. If you get a chance. You will never look at the New York Times the same way again. Now, you might be saying, Oh, David, it's the fog of war. And many things get distorted when trying to report especially at the outbreak of a war. And yes, it can absolutely correct, especially with the facts very hard to nail down. But keep in mind the Pulitzer was presented a full year later after this reporting. It wasn't like it was the next week or two months later, there was plenty of time to do some fact checking. Here's just some other facts around this propaganda that can diminish the claim. Editors, especially the New York Times editors in other parts of the times surely knew that by 1939, there was no zero, quote, semi official news agency, unquote, which was cited as the main article source. And German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels had been working in this suppose it agency since 1933. So you know that they were just pumping out propaganda left and right. So that should have been a red flag Additionally, in the New York Times had been reporting on Hitler for over 15 years, going back to the early 1920s, when they had made a bold but awful prediction.

 Listen to this prediction, saying on December 21 1924, we're going back to the book here. On December 21 1924, The New York Times arguably made the worst prediction in the history of modern journalism, quote, his behavior during imprisonment convinced authorities that he was no longer to be feared the report said, quote, it is believed he worked retired a private light, private life and returned to Austria the country of his birth. The he of the article was Adolf Hitler. And needless to say, he didn't return to private life or for any real amount of time to Austria, the man that the Times article reported as being both quote sadder, and quote, wiser than when he was first in prison and went on to construct one of humanity's darkest regimes igniting a war that killed 10s of millions of people and engineered the worst engineer the world's first program of mechanic ized genocide making him the last person a reader of the times should think was quote, no longer to be feared unquote. Unbelievable. Yeah, way to go New York Times completely wrong prediction. Like it mentioned, Hitler would set would go on to set ablaze and anti semitic fever across all of Europe. A quarter of North Africa in would see hatred of Jews. That's still evident today in the Middle East. Not to mention those 10s of millions that were killed on his behalf, and the worst World War the world had ever seen. Rendsburg ends this section in the of the book with this paragraph quote, for nearly 10 years, the New York Times reported many of the stories by simply reprinting Nazi claims, particularly when it came to hid Hitler's peaceful intentions. There was very little journalistic counterbalance in the Times reporting on Germany, and even less editorial outrage when it came to the Nazi, the Nazis, regimes early crimes. But a closer look at the Times coverage of Germany during the Nazi era, especially when compared to the accurate and incisive reporting of other American papers raises more questions than it does answers.

And folks, this is just one small sample the book details many, many more distortions, falsehoods and just outright complete lies with no corrections offered. They never offered a correction whatsoever. This chapter in Germany continues on so be sure to check out the book. And the closing of the book Rendsburg sums up in detail sums up this book in detail. Here we go back to the book. Wow, Guido and Daris and Otto delicious were reporting favorably on Germany on the eve of the Second World War almost trumpeting events that constituted great Nazi accomplishments. And this is important to William Shire was decrying those same events. While Walter Duranty was carrying water for the Soviet regime and bowing for the standing ovation, he received for his efforts, Gareth Jones was doggedly reporting the truth, and was later murdered likely by the Soviet secret police on account of it. William Lawrence worked hand in hand with the War Department to spin a tale about the benign effects of the atomic bomb on the human body. While reporters George Weller and Wilford Burchett reporting from Jim, Japan in the aftermath of the bomb described a quote atomic plague. Unquote. Other delicious Walter Duranty and William Lawrence receive Pulitzers for their reporting. The other reporters, those who reported with accuracy, honesty and courage did not, quote so terrible. 

But thank you, Mr. Ginsburg, for your great book. This book is well researched, it contains many facts that offers tons of clarity to many murky but important events in our nation's history. Book is, is quite comprehensive. It's a thorough discovery of the truth, which was quite eye opening when I read it. And I applaud the author even to have the courage to write the book these days, because that's even more rare. So thank you for that, too. So in today's Mojo minute, perhaps we can look more critically at our legacy news media. And perhaps we can look more critically at all media. They all have their own agendas. As the this book clearly points out and demonstrates chapter after chapter. Often these places get facts wrong, and they get them completely wrong. They don't want to answer questions. They don't want to be held accountable. They don't want to defend, defend or even own their own actions. And they completely alter shape and radically distort American public opinion. And actually, we saw this on full display for the last three years, all the way through COVID. And this is not keeping with living a flourishing life questions and answers must be sought. And most, especially with our leaders who don't want to answer any questions, especially the tough questions, especially with these COVID lock downs, and the origins in the nature of the Wuhan virus, and with corrupted government schools, not teaching anything remotely close to the truth, which we'll touch on on our next Mojo minute. 

But this is not good. It's irresponsible. And it's extremely harmful to a self governing society. It leads to lack of trust in the media and ultimately, in some of our important leaders, and how they're covered. It doesn't lead to virtuous living, when you're constantly lying to people leads to lack of honesty and government. They know they have a propaganda outlet so they feed them falsehoods, because they know they're going to print them. This is all extremely harmful and most regrettable. And the very end. If you had a dear friend that kept lying to you on some of the most important topics and issues in your life. Eventually I would think most of you would simply distance yourself from that friend and then out of a world of charity, you would tell them frankly and directly to Stop lying to you and to others, we should do the same with these media institutions, especially the New York Times that has been lying to America in the world. For a long, long time. The truth is out there, we just have to discover it in the New York Times is increasingly a stumbling block to that discovery. I just got one more quote, from the very end of the book that I want to share.

As critical theory, this is a reference to the New York Times, unbelievable 1619 project, which is his latest set of propaganda, which is covered in the last chapter of the book. As critical theory would hold, it is incumbent on us to understand how interest and power affect the flow of information. But very much unlike critical theory, we have to search for a more objectively true account. Right on right on exactly. hit the nail on the head, amen. Back to the book, we cannot assert in place of a flawed history in even more flawed one that happens to advance our interest. Our history is shared and our humanity is shared with it. To believe the truth is mine is to believe it does not exist. But it does. And this is where each of us bears responsibility that grows more important every day. Just as we have a responsibility to safeguard our environment, our neighborhoods and our communities. We have a responsibility to safeguard truth and history. So they will be shared resources for generations to come and not the purview of a small subset of special interest. Looking to make far too much of the present, unquote. Well said Mr. Ginsburg, well said Indeed. So again, today's Mojo minute, let us seek and look elsewhere for the truth. Because in doing so we will surely find the truth. And the truth helps all of us to live a better flourishing life and a better life of virtue. Let's get after.

Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this theory to action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at T Mojo academy.com where we have everything we discussed in this podcast as well as other great resources. Until next time, keep getting your mojo on