News is not strict truth

Whenever you see an "expert" opinion, understand what they're really doing: guessing, regardless of what they know or don't.

Caught on hidden camera: CNN technical director Charles Chester, explaining how CNN set out to tip the scales in the 2020 presidential election. In a race of two grumpy old men, they portrayed one as spry and vital, and the other as a mad man.

Joe Biden, the Democrat, was pictured in aviator glasses and portrayed as a “young geriatric,” Chester said. Ol’ Joe apparently believed his own news clips. In March, he took a Boy George-like tumble while climbing the steps of the Air Force One.

Donald Trump, the president and the Republican, was portrayed as not-quite-right mentally. Neurological problems? Unfit to lead? CNN’s homegrown Potato Head even tried to shame other news stations for not speculating about Trump’s mental state.

“We were creating a story there that we didn’t know anything about,” Chester said. “I think that’s propaganda.”

CNN trotted out expert after expert to attest to the theory. Whatever these people were “expert” in, it wasn’t in the medical condition of the human they were openly speculating about. If they had those specifics, of course, it wouldn’t be speculation. It would be news.

None had direct, specific knowledge of what they spoke, but the news business has never required that of “experts.” Only a credential of some sort and a willingness to offer good quote, regardless of what they know or don’t.

The public, by and large, can’t tell between the two. They figure the newsfolk know what they’re doing, and chose those experts for a reason. Which is true. That reason: the aforementioned willingness to give good quote.

News is a business. Don’t ever forget that. Being portrayed as an expert is good for business for the expert, while having experts on dial is good for the reporter.

“We got Trump out,” Chester said. “I am 100% going to say it. If it wasn’t for CNN, I don’t know that Trump would have gotten voted out.”

Up next on CNN’s Manufactured Consent tour: climate change, Chester said.

Or is it the “climate crisis” this week? Expect “experts,” expect town halls, expect to see ice melt and hear polar bears cry.

“Fear sells,” Chester said. “No one ever says those things out loud.”

No, they just brag about it over beers, to someone wearing a hidden camera.

You know how the sausage is made. If you’re still eating it, that’s on you.