My time in network news showed me the chasm between the public perception and reality of some TV news figures. No matter what they’re like behind the scenes, the handful of overpaid hosts with multi-million-dollar contracts often become symbols in people’s minds, associated with positive ideas and feelings.

That’s as clear as ever this week, as people rush to weigh in on CBS’ ousting of 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley. Just about any company would fire an employee who lashed into a new boss before the boss even had a chance to get to work, which is what Pelley did.

But the media has built a victim narrative around CBS, casting its new leaders as Trumpist villains, and the “old guard” as the heroes. Facts are ignored — like David Ellison, the man in charge of CBS, being a big donor to Biden’s re-election campaign. Listen to Episode 90 for details:

People who scream the sky is falling at CBS keep being proven wrong.

Sharyn Alfonsi, another recently-ousted 60 Minutes correspondent, publicly accused CBS’ Editor in Chief Bari Weiss of spiking a story. But the story was not spiked. It aired, with a significant correction included.

In an ideal world, Pelley’s firing would barely garner public attention. The news industry should be about truths that matter, not the people hired to deliver them.

Ironically, there is a piece of potential news in all this. But big media have missed it. In a statement, Pelley claimed:

“New management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them.”

If this is true, it’s big. We need details. But no one seems to be asking for them. The disastrous New York Times spoke with him, and there’s no sign they even requested details or proof.

There’s no clear way to contact Scott. (He spoke with the Times, a site he could be sure would support and never challenge him.) So I’m posting questions here:

What falsehoods were you told to include? What bias were you told to inject? Who instructed you to do these things? Please share specifics and evidence.

CBS insiders leak their complaints to avowedly left-wing media constantly. Why have we not heard about these instances?

Under previous management, CBS had a long string of fiascoes. Have you ever spoken out about these? If not, why not? Here are just four examples:

1. CBS punished a morning news host (Tony Dokoupil) for daring to challenge an antisemitic writer (Ta-Nehisi Coates), politely.

2. Face the Nation took guidance from the Russian government in interviewing a Russian official.

3. 60 Minutes went beyond even Hamas’ inflated claims about Gaza.

4. 60 Minutes failed to fact check a lying, pro-terror activist who invented a backstory.

Scott, where were you when all this and more happened? What were you doing?

You claim to stand for “fairness” and against “political bias.” If this is true, let’s discuss for They Stand Corrected.

JL

P.S. Supporters: Share your questions, feedback, links you want fact checked, and more via comments or messaging here.

On Monday, Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered an address vowing action. “Canada’s civic compact is failing Jewish Canadians,” he said. But he failed to even mention AZHM, the Anti-Zionist Hate Movement.

What’s behind Canada’s downfall? Everyone who cares about democracy, freedom, and rule of law should learn from this. Jesse Brown, editor and publisher of Canadaland, joined me in the latest episode to explain the driving forces:

“If you’ve got people on the street who are openly advocating for political violence, it’s going to catch up with you. It already has. We’ve had shots fired at the American embassy. The same exact type of violence has now come at the ‘Free Iran’ community here, the anti-regime community. There was gunfire at some of their spaces, and a guy ran a car into protesters.”

In this interview:

• How Canada’s media ecosystem is even more dangerous than America’s

• Why the media hides basic details, including names of perpetrators — and conspiracy theories fill the vacuum

• The dominant news agency getting massive government support despite a shrinking audience

• Why there is ‘no resistance’

and much more.

Supporters get edited, hyperlinked, annotated transcripts like this. Italicized sections are my summaries and notes.

I asked Jesse about whether the media has been overtaken by the same propaganda mentality as our media here.

Jesse: The short answer is

Read more

Today in New York City, tens of thousands are expected to participate in what should be a beautiful, joyous celebration of democracy and freedom: the annual Israel Day Parade.

Unlike the imaginary global ogre portrayed by the media, the actual dot of democracy and modernity in MENA, delivering innumerable advancements that benefit the world, should be celebrated.

Just as people from other countries celebrate their connections to those lands, at times accompanied by visitors from those countries, members of Am Yisrael (“Jews”) who know the facts have thousands of years’ worth of reasons to participate.

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch is serving as honorary grand marshal. Wearing a Jewish star necklace, she said how proud she is to participate, and described the extensive security measures in place.

Unprecedented security is, of course, necessary, as hate crimes against Jews in New York City have been skyrocketing.

The city’s anti-Israel Democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who expressed love for convicted funders of Islamist terrorism, will be the first NYC mayor not to attend. Perhaps he’ll spend the time with his wife, who celebrated the October 7 massacres.

In the more than 2 1/2 years since the massacres orchestrated by Iran, there have been many gatherings of people who recognize the importance of Israel’s fight for survival. And they’ve been peaceful. No one’s been burning American flags, toppling public property, or defacing buildings, either. Meanwhile, for anti-Israel hordes, violence and destruction are standard M.O. And they openly celebrate terrorists.

But in news coverage, the media gives people the exact opposite impression. It mischaracterizes violent protesters as “anti-war.” They don’t oppose war — only Israel and, often, the United States. As I discussed in Episode 95, calling these protesters “anti-war” is like calling the January 6th insurrectionists “anti- all elections that ever happen anywhere.”

The media also mischaracterizes Israel’s proud supporters as “pro-war,” even though they want nothing more than for the terrorist groups to stop so peaceful coexistence is possible.

In my latest episode, Jesse Brown, editor and publisher of Canadaland, discusses what happened when Canadian media did this. Listen now:

“The anchor of the CTV National News, the most popular television news broadcast in Canada, is Omar Sachedina. In the early days after October 7th, the first major rally of Jews in Canada, after months of antisemitic violence, on the nightly news broadcast, that rally was described as a ‘pro-war rally,’” Jesse explains.

“So if people were wondering who could possibly support this terrible, ‘genocidal’ war, here they are. Lo and behold, two teenagers were arrested. They were in possession of explosives, and were going to murder as many Jews as they could.”

When the media uses this kind of language — and condones those who use it — it fuels terrorism.

Imagine having an opportunity to cover the hell of little girls being sold into sex slavery, and turning it into a story pitying the men doing so.

That’s what the BBC did in its latest fiasco. I explain in the new episode. (It’s Episode 110, which also focuses on Canada’s descent — hence the episode title.)

British columnist Sonia Sodha is among those calling it out. “Why doesn’t this BBC story examine why there’s a market for fathers selling their young daughters to other men in the first place? What a strange omission -- it’s like the reality that these girls are being sold as child brides to be raped by adult men is invisible or something.”

She’s right. So are others who noted that the tradition of selling girls to be raped has existed in Afghanistan, and elsewhere, for centuries. So while the Taliban can be blamed for current horrors, this reality precedes them.

Even many Islamist governments that claim to ban child marriage allow it in practice. In Gaza, for example, marrying off a girl under age 15 is considered a misdemeanor unless a “medical” certificate is presented, saying it would not be detrimental to her health. And Hamas runs the “health ministry.”

Girls are also captured and traded internationally.

The BBC isn’t alone in its backwards framing. Other news agencies have done the same thing. Why does this happen? The answer is simple: victim narratives. In this episode, I explain what’s going on and how it affects news coverage from all over the world.

In every society, always, people only have as much freedom as they demand from their own government. People should rise up and demand that this practice be stopped.

It doesn’t occur to Big Media that these are adult human beings with the agency to take action. Yes, that would probably mean facing a brutal crackdown. But that’s what you risk — even your life — if it means getting your daughters out of sex slavery.

I did an episode recently on the at least 50 million people in modern slavery. When you combine the figures for sex trafficking and forced marriage, more than half of the total can be considered sex slavery.

An estimated 640 million women and girls alive today were married off as children. So were 115 million boys and men. The nations with the highest rates include Niger, Central African Republic, Chad, Mali, South Sudan and Bangladesh.

It’s a horrific practice. It’s up to people in all these societies to make it stop.

But in the minds of people who control big media, people who live in non-democratic countries — especially Islamist ones — must always be portrayed as victims.

The media infantilizes them, absolving them of any responsibility for their actions and the actions of their governments. It’s a form of dehumanization, and a failure to provide news consumers the truth.

You wouldn’t know this from big mainstream media, but Canada is quickly turning into a living nightmare for a tiny minority.

How did this happen? In the new episode, I’m joined by a man who sought out the answer: Jesse Brown, editor and publisher of Canadaland.

Following the October 7, 2023, massacres by Gazan terrorists in Israel, antisemitic incidents around the world skyrocketed. Canada saw a big spike, according to B’nai Brith Canada, the leading group tracking the statistics. Montreal’s explosion of open hatred led to it being called the “antisemitism capital of North America.” In Ottawa, jihadists “protested” outside a Jewish community center, nursery, and long-term care facility for seniors, the National Post reported. Among their deep thoughts was this rant in Arabic: “We want bullets and missiles and go back to Europe.”

Police-reported hate crimes with clear motivations — always a sliver of total incidents — showed Canada’s tiny Jewish population faced incomparable levels of attacks.

In 2025, incidents spiked further. B’nai Brith Canada declared it a “national crisis” and a level “unlike anything we’ve ever seen.” Already, 2026 is even worse, the “most violent year in recent memory” for Canada’s Jews. Canadian intelligence warned that there is a “realistic possibility” of a “violent extremist attack” by September.

So it’s no shock that new, vile images surfaced this week from Montreal’s so-called “pro-Palestinian protesters,” the media’s whitewashing euphemism for supporters of Islamist terrorism. At least in this case, instead of shooting, firebombing, or attempting to kidnap people, they hanged U.S. and Israeli leaders in effigy, tying nooses around their necks. (One whose face could not be seen, only his kippah, was apparently meant to represent Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.)

In our conversation, Jesse and I discuss uniquely Canadian elements that have allowed this hatred free rein. We also dig into the ways Canada’s experience should serve as a wake-up call to the world. Jesse explains:

“What Americans can see in Canada is: This is what happens when nobody is pushing back against this anti-Zionist thing. It gets bolder, it gets infused into organizations, it becomes a witch hunt against everyday people.”

Hear how:

• Canadian media hides reality, even refusing to name perpetrators.

• Ideology “becomes bureaucratized and trickles down in a country where it was embraced by the prime minister.”

• The worse the media perform, the more government support they get.

• Mass immigration without assimilation or national identity spells danger.

And lots more. Jesse’s series “What is Happening Here” digs into the many forces at play north of the U.S. border.

Have you seen or experienced things like this wherever you live? Share in comments or messages:

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Each year on Memorial Day, news giants claim to venerate those who died while serving in the U.S. armed forces — protecting our democracy. They use the word “heroes” over and over. That’s good.

But the same news agencies look at certain people today doing the same things, and call them the worst names possible.

In the latest episode, I dig into this mind-boggling level of hypocrisy. Join me in genuinely honoring the fallen. (This episode also addresses the importance of discovery in lawsuits over defamation and libel. Hence the title.)

Hear from:

• FDR (President Franklin Delano Roosevelt), delivering an ominous warning about democracy before the attack on Pearl Harbor

  

• Authors David Dalin and Edwin Black, laying out unknown, essential history

• Master Sgt. Jason Covey, playing Taps at Culpeper National Cemetery in Virginia

  

This section is an updated, condensed version of my previous Memorial Day episode. Read and learn more in this post:

To all who lost their lives while fighting for our democracy, thank you. You are remembered and honored.

JL

Find it on any app

I’ve written many times about the widespread rape of women and girls by Palestinian terrorists. And I recently discussed how a U.S.-based Arabic-language news agency managed to interview children in Gaza. They explained that Hamas rapes and blackmails them, and threatens their families.

Islamist terrorists rape adult men as well. The Daily Mail interviewed a man who was among those assaulted at Israel’s Nova Music Festival.

“I am their Jewish doll,” he says. “That is what I am supposed to do: let them do whatever they want to me.” There was no fighting back. At the music festival that day, the terrorists massacred nearly 400 people. (Israel’s figures are based on publicly available documentation with names and identities of those killed.)

You probably did not hear about these latest reports in big mainstream media.

On the eve of a landmark report from The Civil Commission, packed with evidence about widespread sexual violence carried out by Gazans, The New York Times tried to distract the world. Treating Hamas fans’ claims as trustworthy, it published a propaganda piece from Nicholas Kristof — whose run for governor of Oregon blew up over his false assertions.

The dominant storyline about this part of the world in recent days should have been on the nearly 300-page study. But it conflicts with some of the media’s favorite people, like Bernie Sanders’ former press secretary Briahna Joy Gray, who deny this sexual violence ever happened.

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Standing for democracy requires standing against all threats to it from both the right and the left.

JL

A few years ago, the country learned something important about Fox News.

While its hosts were pushing election fraud lies, they knew better. They knew that Trump’s claims about the 2020 election being “stolen” made no sense. That knowledge went all the way to the top.

We could have guessed this, but having proof was different. It created a permanent record. We didn’t learn this from whistleblowers; we learned it from legal action. When Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox for amplifying conspiracy theories about its machines, the discovery process brought internal messages into the light. Fox settled before trial, for $787.5 million.

Legal action is the best tool available for exposing corruption, lies, and internal disasters at agencies that claim to be giving us the news. That’s a crucial lesson right now. I know from experience, and explain in the new episode.

Israeli leaders are floating the possibility of a lawsuit against The New York Times over Nicholas Kristof’s disastrous propaganda column. Much of the reporting about this centers on the idea that a lawsuit is unlikely to succeed, since the laws heavily favor news agencies. Those reports miss the point. The prospect of losing is not the thing that worries news agencies the most. It’s discovery.

Americans are better off knowing the truth about what goes on inside massively powerful news giants. There’s a profound hypocrisy at the heart of their operations: They work to expose internal machinations in other powerful organizations, but do all they can to hide their own.

I’m in a very unusual position to address this because I took legal action against my employer when I was at CNN. I understood how desperately these agencies want to keep their dirty laundry hidden.

I rarely share information attributed to anonymous sources because anonymity is overused and misused. But people inside the Times have told me they hope that a lawsuit — whether this one or another — will lead to discovery. They want the public to know that the Times regularly breaks its own alleged rules and sets aside basic journalistic standards in order to push its agenda. (In this episode, I explain why reports assessing legal merits of any effort are premature, since there’s nothing to assess yet.)

Also in the new episode (note: some of this is difficult to hear, but important):

• Kids in Gaza describe sexual abuse by Hamas

• An Israeli man raped by Gazan terrorists at Nova describes the experience: “I am their Jewish doll.”

• How left-wing media is heaping false praise onto Mamdani

• Why Memorial Day is the most hypocritical date on the media’s calendar

and more.

JL

Picture this: A hospital near you refuses to treat many of its patients. Nevertheless, it’s gifted more than $100 million by two very wealthy people — and immediately asks you to donate money. Would you?

That’s the situation NPR is in now. While refusing to provide facts and context on basic stories, it has received a massive cash infusion and wants your money. I explain in this episode:

I used to raise money for public radio. Twice a year at pledge drive, I came up with ways to keep the process fun and upbeat, and was joined by (my then fellow) NPR personalities like Nina Totenberg and the late Susan Stamberg and Cokie Roberts.

Now, I tell people it’s time to stop giving money to NPR until the network shapes up its act. For longtime fans of public radio, the reality can be tough to process. As expert Leslie Zane explained in an episode of They Stand Corrected, a brand becomes established in our subconscious minds. Some people still associate NPR with what it once was.

But that NPR is gone. Like so many other major “mainstream” media, it was overtaken by far-left activists who hide basics, report lies as truth, and radicalize people to support Islamist terrorists. I’ve reported on how NPR:

• whitewashes Qatari propaganda

• infantilizes Gazans

• misuses terms like “occupation” and “international law”

• didn’t even think of interviewing anyone at a synagogue that was attacked:

In this episode, I also take you through how NPR recently tried to erase Iran’s history of antisemitism, pretending vicious pogroms never existed.

I’m not alone in speaking out. Hear my conversation with fellow former NPR guy Mike Pesca here. And my former colleague Uri Berliner wrote this column for The Free Press.

Cutbacks following a 9-figure cash infusion

This week, NPR announced it’s cutting some reporting and editing jobs. In the era of headlines-as-news, the network is giving people the impression that these cuts stem from losing federal funding. In reality, they come immediately after the network received a massive $113 million from just two extremely wealthy people.

Per NPR’s story:

“President and CEO Katherine Maher says the network has to fill a gap of $8 million in its $300-million annual budget because of the elimination of federal subsidies for its member stations, which pay NPR to air programs… She said the network expects to earn $15 million less in station fees this year and is anticipating a drop in corporate sponsorship revenue.”

What about that whopping $113 million? Most of it is “dedicated to technological innovation.”

NPR is not hurting for money. It is, however, hurting for listeners. Its broadcast audience has been dropping substantially for years, and podcasts are not making up for the loss.

Make NPR earn your support by ending its supreme failure. Refuse to contribute, and tell the network why. Here’s how.

JL

P.S. On Instagram? Let’s meet up there.

Listeners and readers have asked me about reports suggesting New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani may have “balanced” the city’s budget. Those reports are wrong. What Mamdani got is a bailout from state taxpayers.

Instead of telling you that in headlines, which far more people see than articles, much of the Big Media has used its top real estate to just get the words “balanced budget” and “Mamdani” near each other. That helps boost his image while obscuring the truth.

Time, a left-leaning outlet I’ve corrected (and where I was once a columnist) used its headline to just ask the question. Non-mainstream outlets you may not be familiar with, like Vital City and Reason, provided answers in theirs. So did the New York Post.

In its article, Time did explain that Mamdani’s plan “relies heavily on state aid and delayed pension payments, raising questions about whether the city has solved its fiscal problems or merely postponed them.” The first half of that sentence is accurate; the rest is not. A state bailout is definitively not a solution to any city’s fiscal problems. It’s a temporary patch, paid for by people across the state, including my hometown of Albany.

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Even NYC’s Comptroller Mark Levine noted that this is no solution. The budget “relies on $2.8 billion in one-time measures and $2.3 billion in short-term pension savings, without solving for the fact that City government continues to spend more than we take in,” he said.

Why did New York Gov. Kathy Hochul gift NYC billions of dollars? Without being inside her office or mind, I can say this much: The political calculations are obvious. She and Mamdani are both Democrats. Get a “D” mayor associated with the words “balanced budget,” and you improve the party’s image — particularly helpful in an election year.

Given how many Republicans have gotten away with calling themselves "fiscally conservative” when they obviously aren’t, it may seem just like tit-for-tat. As I’ve explained, GOP presidents have racked up more debt than Democrats on average.

But just as I’ve called on the media to stop the “hawks” nonsense on the right, it should make clear what happened here. If a taxpayer bailout counts as a “balanced budget,” then every industry that has ever accepted a bailout can pat itself on the back just as the mayor and his team are doing now.

Mamdani is a Democratic Socialist in affiliation, but an anti-democratic leader. He has announced that he would violate the Constitution to carry out an extrajudicial arrest. He’s applauded by far-left activists and many people who just don’t know better. Why don’t they know better? The media.

JL

P.S. In case you missed it…

This week, a new bill of global importance became a law. Passed by one U.S. state, it sets a template for the entire country to protect schools from a little-known threat: foreign governments, including Qatar, infiltrating public schools.

In the new episode, I’m joined by Esther Panitch, a Georgia state representative who helped spearhead the Foreign Funding Transparency and Accountability Act. She explains “horrifying” experiences, and details how the Qatari ambassador and his deputy went after her.

Listen now:

Find it on Any App

This “landmark transparency law” is needed urgently. Qatar, a nation founded in 1971, isn’t satisfied with just brainwashing people through its propaganda giant Al Jazeera. It’s also spending billions of dollars — incomparably more than any other nation — to warp minds at U.S. universities. And now:

“There are multiple ways that anti-Jewish and anti-American ideology is becoming institutionalized in K-12 education, including teacher training programs, foreign-funded materials, radical union members, and curriculum development organizations,” Brandy Shufutinsky of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) told a Congressional committee.

“FDD has found foreign funding going directly to developing curriculum and K-12 teacher salaries in multiple states. Multiple public school districts received funds from Qatari Foundation International, an instrument of the Qatari royal family.”

Some of the materials present “a complete revision of history,” demonizing Israel, she testified. Director of FDD’s Program on Education and National Security, Shufutinsky has spoken out about lies being taught at all levels:

The new law addresses a gaping hole.

“Currently, federal law requires that universities report foreign gifts more than $250,000, but there is no such requirement for K-12 schools,” the FDD says. The bipartisan law sets a reporting threshold of just $10,000, and includes K-12.

It was designed carefully to cover Qatar, which simultaneously pretends to be a quasi-U.S. ally and funds the terror group Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya, known by the acronym “Hamas.”

The law includes nations listed by the federal government as adversaries, “countries of particular concern,” or “special watch list countries.” It also includes any country run by a “monarchy, which has a sovereign wealth fund with a board of directors that includes the monarch or a member of his or her family, and which shares a border” with a country in one of the previous categories.

As in most states, Georgia’s governor does not need to sign a bill for it to become a law; the governor can just choose not to veto. A signature is a sign of support. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp chose to sign this.

In addition to his long record of being wrong, which I discussed yesterday, his own political ambitions laid bare his disregard for the truth. In the new episode, I dig into Kristof’s run for governor of Oregon, which fell apart in spectacular fashion. His effort to deny reality became a national joke.

Also in this episode: A new law will expose how Qatar and other nations are infiltrating schools to brainwash kids in a U.S. state.

When ‘journalists’ are blinded by ego

A few years ago, Kristof decided that developing name recognition for writing in the New York Times somehow prepared him to serve as governor of Oregon. It’s exactly the kind of thing that happens when people get blinded by a sense of “fame.”

He wrote about travails in the state where he grew up, and began attempting to present himself as a resident of Yamhill, Oregon who knows his fellow “residents” oh so well. But it didn’t occur to him to learn basics about the city.

When Mayor Yvette Potter mentioned she never met him and no one ever talked about him, Politico asked him for a response. Kristof “said he didn’t recognize Potter’s name or even know that she was mayor.” So he was happy to use the city’s name for his political goals, but didn’t bother to learn the mayor’s name.

That was nothing compared to what followed. He claimed, including in sworn legal documents, that he met the requirement of living in Oregon for at least three years leading up to the election. But in that same timeframe, he voted in New York and attested in sworn documents that that was his residence.

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It was a simple, obvious blockade to candidacy. But Kristof was totally unprepared for anyone to even look at the facts. He hired an expensive group of lawyers to argue that he could get away with this. They put together a 15-page letter that became a joke.

On local news station KGW, reporter Dan Haggerty said the letter started okay, noting that Kristof owned a home in Oregon and, through his family, had an agricultural business. Then came this (italics are from the document; the rest are Haggerty’s responses):

“‘He has hiked the entire length of Oregon along the Pacific Crest Trail.’ That just kind of sounds like a flex, but okay. He ‘sent his children to OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) camps.’ I really feel like we’re losing relevance here to being governor.

He ‘backpacked around Mount Hood’ — and now we’re just saying stuff that people do when they come here. ‘He’s eaten at Moe’s in Lincoln City.’ What are we talking about? I feel like… they’re listing random things.”

In an interview with the station, Kristof somehow managed to make things even worse. “I think that, you know what’s more important than checking the boxes here and there is that my soul is here. Um, my bones are here,” he said. Well, if your soul and bones are there, who cares what the law says?

When journalists tried to get documents and proof, he ran the other way. The Oregon Capital Chronicle found itself defending its effort to pursue facts. Ultimately, the Supreme Court of Oregon ruled against Kristof, of course, noting his voting record, driver’s license and more.

A guy with this track record — who doesn’t look for facts and then tries hard to deny them — this is who the Times entrusts to run with the most incendiary allegations you can make against Israel, at a time when Jews everywhere are under attack by people radicalized with vitriolic hatred of the tiny Jewish state.

Then again, it’s not surprising from the Times, which has run op-eds directly from Hamas and many, many people who echo the Islamist terrorist group’s lies.

Supporters: To share thoughts, questions, and links you want fact checked, use the links below.

Leave a comment

JL

P.S. On Instagram? Join me.

The most remarkable thing about New York Times opinion writer Nicholas Kristof is probably his extreme cluelessness. It’s the reason he gets so many big stories wildly wrong, and tries to blame “sources.” It’s also why his short-lived run for governor collapsed (that’s in my next episode, out tomorrow). Anyone with the most basic interest in facts would have avoided his disasters.

“We journalists often rely to a considerable extent on people to tell the truth,” he once wrote, which is the exact opposite of the job of journalism. We should never rely on that. The job is to check claims and clarify people’s records of accuracy when passing along their assertions, not to assume they’re true.

So it’s not shocking that Kristof wrote a nonsensical, easily debunked attack piece against Israel this week. Fortunately, this is a case in which other people rushed to expose its insanity.

But there are key points about journalism here that you should know. First, the Times ran these horrific allegations in an opinion piece. If there were evidence, a legitimate news outlet would put it through rigorous editorial fact checking and run it as a news story.

Meanwhile, the Times runs Hamas claims as news all the time. And even the Times didn’t do so with this, which includes claims about dogs. Why run the allegations this way? Because it helps give the paper a shield against accountability. The Times can try to claim that this is just someone’s opinion.

Getting ahead of a landmark new study

Next, the timing speaks volumes. Today, a group called the Civil Commission is out with an extensive report detailing Hamas’ October 7 sexual violence.

The Times knew this was coming, but was not interested. Even CNN took a break from parroting Hamas lies to report on the gravity of these findings.

The Times also recently ignored findings by brave investigators in Gaza who dare to stand against Hamas. They found that the Islamist terror group routinely rapes Palestinians, including children.

Children in Gaza are being raped and then blackmailed into joining Hamas or having their sexual abuse made public, investigators in the enclave say. The Daily Mail has obtained filmed testimony from Jusoor News in Gaza showing the children’s disturbing allegations.

The Times also won’t tell its audience that when Hamas demanded its prisoners be released in exchange for hostages, it picked people like this:

And the Times doesn’t tell you that Iran, Hamas’ backer, routinely rapes girls and women before executing them because of a twisted belief that doing so will prevent them from going to heaven.

A global scourge

Unlike the Times, I recently reported on the 50 million people in modern slavery, many of them part of sex trafficking.

Anywhere there’s a power imbalance, there are some people who abuse it. Everywhere in the world, some prisoners are mistreated, including sexually. It’s horrific. Anyone who engages in it should be stopped and punished.

As I reported in Episode 44, the occupation of Germany by Allied Forces after World War II was essential for denazification. And there were soldiers who took advantage of it to rape women. A nightmare.

In democracies, those behaviors are illegal and there are mechanisms to demand that people be held accountable. In anti-democratic places like Gaza and Iran, people in power act with impunity from the government. It’s up to the people in those places to reject their anti-democratic leadership and demand a better government.

Try telling that to the Times.

JL

P.S. In case you missed it:

The world’s largest news broadcaster actively shielding far-left politicians from criticism may be the ultimate sign of the media’s downfall. That’s why two BBC segments should be heard back-to-back.

In the latest episode, I share these with you and explain the context. Listen here:

Find it on any app

This story begins in London.

First, yet another psychopath attacked British Jews. This incident, a stabbing, took place in the Golders Green neighborhood.

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“This fellow came towards me, running towards me, and he just stabbed me in my chest,” said Shlomie Rand, 34. Moshe Shine, 76, was also stabbed. As of latest reports, both are in stable condition.

Essa Suleiman, a Somali-born British national, has been charged. He had been referred to the UK’s counter-terrorism program in 2020, but the case was shelved. Suleiman is also charged with stabbing his “friend” earlier the same day. The “friend” is Muslim, but there’s no suggestion that’s relevant. Authorities say Suleiman sought out visibly Jewish men in Golders Green, which was an act of terrorism.

Following the Golders Green stabbings, the government and media, of course, performed empathy while fueling the hatred that drives this scourge. The UK paper Jewish News called this out.

The disastrous BBC brought on journalist , who fights antisemitism in the UK. He managed to call out the BBC itself.

Terrorists must be stopped “by effectively imposing the full force of the law on them; by policing properly; by stopping the ideological root causes of the hatred against Jewish people; by standing up against our national broadcaster, the BBC, when it constantly slurs Israel with calumnies about the Jewish state; by stopping universities from pushing this ridiculous, rabid anti-Jewish inversion of the news from the Middle East,” he said.

But as soon as he started to call out far-left politicians, including members of the Green Party, the network cut off his mic.

For context, the Green Party is an organized embodiment of Islamo-leftism. Its leaders and candidates defend Islamist terrorism and push insane antisemitic conspiracy theories. Two candidates were even arrested for their vile actions — in a country that lets virtually all antisemitism face zero consequences.

The party’s leader, Zack Polanski, lied while attacking police for how they arrested the Golders Green terrorist, then tried to undo the damage. He’s also facing accusations of lying about his own history with the Red Cross. (He uses his personal As-A-Jew background to try to paper over the party’s obvious antisemitism.)

Fortunately, Sacerdoti recorded the interview himself. So you can hear what BBC listeners did not.

The BBC’s excuse was that the politicians weren’t there to respond. But what happens when they are there? The BBC does everything it can to help them avoid discussing the topic. That brings us to clip number two, which Sky News Australia captured brilliantly.

In a town hall-type event ostensibly about racial hatred and antisemitism, no one brought up the biggest cause of antisemitism: Islamism. Then, one man in the audience dared to ask the Green Party leader where the antisemitism is coming from. What followed was a historic study in tragicomic obfuscation.

She and the host both pretended not to understand. The host then went after the audience member, asking what he was “getting at.” As Sky News Australia’s James Macpherson explained, the hope was that the audience member could be written off as racist.

Finally, the Green Party figure insisted that antisemitism is coming from… the economy. Listen or watch:

🤦

Just like the attack in Golders Green, the media’s behavior is anything but shocking.

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He’s an actual military expert whom the media should be listening to. But most news giants don’t want to hear from him because he refuses to recite their biased talking points.

On this week’s episode, Andrew Fox is back to explain what’s really going on with talks between the United States and Iran. Tehran wants a deal to “swallow for two years,” in hopes that a Democrat will win in 2028, he says. “There’s a very strong chance that the next Democrat president will be explicitly anti-Israel.”

Our conversation shows why it’s time to get to know the term “autarky,” and how the Suez Canal fits in. All that plus: dramatic sound from the capture of a UK terrorist; the BBC’s tragicomic obfuscation; NPR’s $113 million silence; and lots more. Listen now:

Here’s part one:

Why Pakistan Jumped In

It’s extremely significant that Pakistan is attempting to broker a deal. Originally called the acronym Pakstan without the “i,” the country was carved out as yet another Muslim nationalist state in 1947 — the same time period as India, Israel, and all the Arab Muslim states surrounding Israel.

In every case, a new nation-state was born, mostly along lines of what we in the West refer to as “religion” and “ethnicity.” News from Pakistan is an opportunity for the media to educate the crazed hordes who somehow believe only Israel was established at that time. So of course the media is not taking the opportunity.

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Why is Pakistan trying to serve as an interlocutor? From this episode:

Andrew: They saw what Qatar have done over Gaza, where they’ve positioned themselves really strongly. Qatar have gone from backwater middle-ranking player in the Middle East to regional dominant power because of how they’ve positioned themselves as “peacemakers” in Gaza. Never mind the fact that they drove the war in Gaza,

Josh: Yeah, Qatar is all about supporting Hamas. The Hamas leaders live as billionaires there.

Andrew: Yeah, exactly. But strategically, they’ve played it so cleverly. I think Pakistan saw the opportunity like, “We can do the same, but with Iran.”

Josh (speaking to listeners): Andrew says that, while we don’t know what the talks will lead to, in the long term watch out.

Andrew: As with all Trump ceasefire deals — like the one in Gaza is a great example, — there is a ticking clock. And that ticking clock is the next presidential election, because the next president is not going to operate in the same way Donald Trump does. He is a unique historical aberration, and people will just think that they can wait out Trump and then reengage afterwards, particularly if it’s a Democrat.

I think there’s a very strong chance that the next Democrat president will be explicitly anti-Israel. If you look at views on Israel amongst the Democratic voter base it’s single-figure digits support Israel. (Note: Maybe not quite that low, but the figures are abysmal.)

If I’m in Tehran, I sign something that I can swallow for two years. And then everything changes because Trump’s gone. So that’s the long game. If you look at the reduction in demands on both sides, they might come away with some kind of a deal, but the Iranians will break it the minute Trump’s out of office.

Josh: And that political reality has to be weighing in on Israeli thinking too, about doing what they can to limit the terrorist networks surrounding them now while they have U.S. support.

Andrew: I know it is for an absolute fact. I’ve spoken to people who’ve told me as much, who are in positions of authority in Israel. That’s one of the reasons why Bibi (Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister) is playing so nice with Trump. He knows he can’t afford to upset Trump at this point because this is his window to get stuff done before America not only turns against Israel, but also potentially even reins Israel in.

That’s why Bibi was giving speeches — probably about a year ago now — talking about the need for autarky in Israel, i.e., being strategically self-sufficient, making their own weapons, making their own military equipment. Because that relationship with America won’t last forever.

And I think it behooves us to look at history. America has put arms embargoes on Israel in the past. In 1967 they embargoed Israel. If we think about Suez (in 1956), that was Israel going in with France and the UK into Egypt, and the Americans kiboshed that.

Israel hasn’t always been best friends with America. And I think we’re entering an era now where Israel is going to have to move on due to the sentiments of the American electorate who’ve been so swayed by the endless propaganda coming out of Gaza for the last two and a half years. And I think the Israelis are absolutely aware of this.

Josh (speaking to listeners): There are Israelis who say it’s time to end the myth that Israel is dependent on the United States for survival.

But the people calling for an end to US military assistance to Israel don’t care that the U.S. gives military assistance to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and other nations. They claim to want to save money and use it here at home, but many of the same people want us to send more money to Ukraine.

They also fail to grasp the concept of being the arsenal of democracy, as I discussed in a previous episode. FDR explained that the threats of Nazism were going to come to the United States if we didn’t help Europe fight the Nazis. And then those dangers did hit us, through the Nazis’ alliance with Japan and the attack at Pearl Harbor.

The same thing is happening with Iran-backed Islamist terrorism. Now it’s growing right here in the United States. Israel does, by far, the most to stave that off.

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Today, just a quick note to let you know I have a new column published at The Times of Israel. It looks at a giant story the media won’t tell: how two of the most hateful movements on Earth have worked together to bring humanity to this moment.

(Learn more from CAMERA, here.)

My column calls on future generations to recognize the reality and learn from it. It also cites the role of a tiny but loud group of traitors who have become spokespeople for a murderous antisemitic movement.

Every community has turncoats taken in by propaganda. But due to the failed media, they have the most powerful mechanisms to spread lies worldwide.

The truth matters, always.

JL

Coffee☕

P.S. Supporters: Share questions, thoughts and links you want fact checked in comments or by messaging me here on Substack.

That’s in the latest episode, along with:

• The largest ever chasm between the media and reality

• NPR and the AP break their own alleged rules

• A father who threatened to kill his son for being gay

• A hopeful development in global politics

and more.

Anonymity is everywhere

In 2007, the White House released a transcript of a conversation with reporters that took place on Cheney’s plane. In the transcript, the unnamed “official” offered up these quotes:

“I’ve seen some press reporting says, ‘Cheney went in to beat up on them, threaten them.’ That’s not the way I work. I don’t know who writes that, or maybe somebody gets it from some source who doesn’t know what I’m doing, or isn’t involved in it. But the idea that I’d go in and threaten someone is an invalid misreading of the way I do business.”

When the George W. Bush White House was asked about this, it insisted it was keeping those quotes as being from a “senior administration official.” The transcript is still available online.

If only things had gotten better since then. Instead, the media has become more of an open mic night, even for anonymous people to make all kinds of claims. It’s rarely clear who the person is, so no one can be held responsible if those claims turn out to be lies.

Take the hit pieces on Sen. John Fetterman, for example, filled with anonymous claims about his mental health. (Episode 57.)

‘Rules’ that aren’t

The Associated Press, probably the most impactful U.S. news agency, claims its
”bar against anonymous comment is set high.” It also says its reports must “provide as specific as possible a description of the source” and, “when relevant, describe the source’s motive for disclosing the information.”

A simple look at AP stories shows that’s not the case. They’re filled with “officials” who could be in just about any part of the massive federal workforce. And motives are tough to find. Sometimes the AP says the person is speaking “on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.” Which regulations justify anonymity? Here’s an article saying someone spoke “on condition of anonymity to discuss the information.” That’s not a motivation; it’s just what the person is doing.

NPR, meanwhile, published a piece last year making this promise: “One thing that our readers and listeners won’t find in an NPR story is pseudonyms, because those are made up and we want to report only facts.” The same promise is in the network’s “Ethics Handbook.”

But NPR does use pseudonyms. Why do news agencies lie about their own activities? There are times when it’s OK to use these. Here’s a recent NPR interview in which the speaker, an alleged spy-turned-author, was identified only by a pseudonym. And here’s a previous example:

“Liam’s not his real name. We’re using it because his sexuality could put his family in danger. Azerbaijan, where he grew up, is a predominantly Muslim country that used to be a part of the Soviet Union. It’s a conservative, authoritarian state. Even though homosexuality was legalized a couple decades ago, honor killings still happen there. And a few years ago, the Azerbaijani police carried out a series of raids against LGBTQ plus people.”

The report says gay people get turned in by people whom they thought were friends, and this man’s own father threatened to kill him.

News agencies’ “rules” aren’t rules. They’re claims that the bosses hope no one will fact-check.

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Anonymous sourcing should be very rare in the news. It isn’t. In a previous episode, I told you about a study from the Washington Institute that found the media was letting people in Gaza say anything they wanted anonymously.

All this helps explain something I wrote about for The Contrarian: why the anonymous warnings about FBI Director Kash Patel’s fitness may fall on deaf ears.

The media needs to do the hard work of earning people’s trust. Handing out anonymity like candy on Halloween only helps to shred any remaining vestiges of that faith.

It’s a story involving media lies, anti-terrorism efforts, sexual violence against hostages, my northeastern hometown, and the “underwear bomber.” In the latest episode, I explain.

SOP vs. ‘war crime’ claims

Podcast host and former guest pointed this out in my Substack feed:

“Oh look they took off his clothes. Standard operating procedure for someone who might be a terrorist, or… war crime? Interesting to see how many of the hundreds of journalists in the room alleged ‘war crime’ in this case, when it is their safety that is being protected.”

Of course, no journalists seem to have called this a war crime. But when Israel captures potential terrorists — fighting-age males in areas that civilians were told to evacuate — Israel has stripped down the men to underwear to check for weapons. And the media rushed to platform “war crime” claims — the same media that generally refuses to mention the sexual violence that prisoners from Israel suffered for months on end in Gaza’s tunnels. These are war crimes.

The same media also ignores Hamas stripping and slaughtering Gazans.

But the images of Israeli forces became literally the biggest story on Earth, a massive scandal. I pulled up one particularly telling example, from December 2023 on CNN. First, the network warned viewers that the images were “disturbing” and may be “upsetting.” Then, they showed men in Gaza, outside near their point of capture, in underwear.

Let’s take a moment to note how the media never says it may be “disturbing” to watch images of Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank hand out candy and shoot fireworks to celebrate the slaughter of Jewish children.

Then CNN went to a reporter — someone who lies openly, and whom I’ve corrected. “While we don’t know whether some of these men may be Hamas fighters, we know that all of them are not,” said Jeremy Diamond. (That wasn’t what he meant.) “And that’s because some of these men have already been identified by their relatives, some of whom spoke with CNN. Among them includes at least one journalist, a correspondent for al-Araby al-Jadeed, who was identified by his employer. You can see these men in these images. They are blindfolded. They have been stripped down to their underwear.”

Nearly everything was wrong with that “report.” CNN did not “know” that some were not terrorists; it had claims from people calling themselves relatives.

And the Arabic network he mentioned is funded by a Qatari businessman with close ties to the Qatari government. It has faced accusations of “being a Muslim Brotherhood mouthpiece,” according to Honest Reporting. Days ago, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies reported that the network platforms pro-extremist, antisemitic material. Then again, so do big mainstream Western news outlets.)Many so-called “journalists” in Gaza are ultimately proven to be terrorists.

To CNN, claims from those sources count as fact, but nothing Israel says counts as fact. The suspected terrorists seen captured in the video were stripped to their underwear because they could easily have weapons in their pants.

Meanwhile, Islamist terrorists have been known to plant bombs in their underwear. In 2012, “underwear bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was sentenced to life in prison for the attempted bombing of a U.S. Christmas Day flight. (If you wish to see the world’s most disturbing and uncomfortable undergarment, here it is.)

Immediately before this segment, CNN aired a report from my hometown of Albany, New York, where a 28-year-old man fired shots at Temple Israel, the synagogue I attended growing up. Of course, he was yelling “Free Palestine.”

So CNN went straight from that to yet another report pushing the myth of a “big bad Israel.” And now, CNN and other agencies say nothing about Cole Tomas Allen being stripped to any extent because it’s their employees’ safety at risk.

The media refuses to recognize and own its hypocrisy.

Above: CCTV footage of the gunman entering the secure area at the White House Correspondents Association dinner

In most cases, the news should avoid giving much attention to individual attackers by name and sharing their so-called “manifestos.” This is especially true for school shootings and other mass shootings. Hear the father of a victim make this case in Episode 72.

But there are important lessons to learn about how people become so violent and dangerous. That’s the case with the gunman from the White House Correspondents Association dinner.

So in the new episode, I tell you about the parts of his writing that we all need to know about. His message shows the psychology of left-wing radicalization. Listen now:

In the note to his family, apparently sent just before the attack, Cole Tomas Allen presents himself in moral terms. He says he’s going after Trump officials aside from FBI Director Kash Patel (it’s unclear why).

He’ll only shoot at Secret Service officers “if necessary,” and other security officers if they shoot at him. Other people there, he writes, are not targets. But, “I would still go through most everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necessary,” he says, adding that “most people chose” to attend.

Crucially, Allen claims to be acting on behalf of “oppressed” people. As CBS put it, “He then went on to list several anonymous hypothetical victims who have experienced hardship.”

Victim narratives are a centerpiece of radicalization — and the media keeps overwhelming people with them. On the far right, anything is allowed if you are a victim — even an insurrection. On the far left, anything is allowed on behalf of victims.

The most dangerous of all involves infantilization — portraying certain people as helpless infants whose “oppressors” must be killed.

That’s what the line “any means necessary” refers to at left-wing protests. In this mindset, Islamist terrorists are eternal victims, rather than genocidal jihadists backed by the actually oppressive Iranian state.

When asked, these protesters never mean the word “necessary.” They mean literally anything is okay, even praiseworthy. That’s why people celebrated the October 7th massacres. It’s why so many young people love Luigi Mangione, the man who killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

All these folks believe in killing people while claiming righteousness.

Allen is 31 years old. He’s part of a generation that has been radicalized by memetic warfare since they were kids. Their minds have been shaped by it.

His actions aren’t shocking. They’re predictable. The same goes for the latest attack on Jewish people in the UK.

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See CNN’s December article, “JD Vance tries to have it both ways on Nick Fuentes and antisemitism.” It included a discussion of Fuentes, a far-right antisemitic streamer (whom I’ve reported on), making bigoted remarks about Vance’s wife Usha being of Indian descent.

Yet days ago, a California lawmaker called out far-left, pro-violence, pro-terror, antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker for a demented tirade against a Vietnamese refugee. Try to find any mention of that in big mainstream media.

In the latest episode, I share a message from California Assemblyman Tri Ta responding to Piker. Listen now:

Piker’s remarks, apparently “resurfaced” from several years ago, are the exact kind of thing the media would usually seize on. In fact, news agencies regularly excavate people’s social media history to discover such things themselves. But Big Media have been working to sanitize his reputation, and the last thing they want is for their dwindling audiences to know this stuff.

Given what Piker said, it’s tricky to even share his remarks with you in writing. The only big site I’ve found that’s willing to discuss them is Fox. Here’s how they wrote out some of these words:

"F--- you, dude," Piker said. "I mean, seriously. F--- you old lady. Shut the f--- up you stupid f------ idiotic old lady… Who has f---ed you harder, America or f------ Ho Chi Minh? Suck my d--- old lady. Goddamn dude. F--- this refugee. F--- this South Vietnamese motherf------, whatever."

All righty then.

Ta, who is Vietnamese American himself, posted a Facebook video in which he shared a clip from the X account of right-wing influencer Andy Ngo. Ta explained that many politicians who have campaigned with Piker “are still silent. His comments are deeply offensive to people who fled communism and risked everything for freedom.”

Piker is an openly anti-American, pro-Communist hate monger who spouts all the talking points of far-left hate movements and creates new ones all the time. He has said America deserved 9/11, Russia should have won the Cold War, and far too many other bonkers things to list here. He’s now pro-stealing.

He’s fine with the rapes of October 7, and loves Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, all openly genocidal Islamist terrorist organizations. In a post-empire world of nation states, virtually all of which were built around common ethnic identities, he has come to believe the insane lie that the tiny Jewish one is the only one, and therefore must be eradicated, while simultaneously describing himself as totally totally not antisemitic — with the media’s help.

Listen to my episode about him here:

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While New York Times propagandist Ezra Klein has been working to whitewash Piker, people outside of left-wing echo chambers are still capable of recognizing reality. To its credit, the Washington Post ran an op-ed from a Democrat arguing against normalizing this hatred.