What Propaganda Looks Like

Here’s a roundup of the top headlines on some news sites this morning, from the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, CBS, BBC, and Wall Street Journal:

Reuters and the AP are leading with international news this morning. As you can see in these screenshots, most of the major news organizations are treating Ambassador Taylor’s testimony as an important news event. Most of the front pages briefly describe Taylor’s central claim and offer an easily accessible link to his testimony if readers want to see it for themselves.

A reader at these sites could click through these articles and quickly understand that a longtime civil servant claims the Trump administration tried to leverage foreign policy for political gain, and that his testimony corroborates other evidence that has come to light, such as the whistle-blower’s report and the phone call readout.

And now here’s the Fox News home page as of 7am:

It’s an alternative universe. The headline is an inscrutable mashup about the Trump Administration’s possible vendetta against John Brennan. A reader might scroll down and see the little link at the bottom describing what Taylor said, but that is beneath the much more prominent “TESTIMONY ‘DESTROYED'” headline. That headline, in turn, is merely a quote from Kevin McCarthy, a congressman with a history of false statements.

The visitor to Fox News would have a much harder time figuring out what actually happened yesterday, what Taylor said, and what context is relevant for understanding his claims. Instead of seeing the latest news, the visitor to Fox News has been given the party line. That, my friends, is what propaganda looks like.