Finally, it happened. Like "tag, you're it," I got zapped. Some prankster out there sent me a personal and insulting message under the name of a well-known network anchorman, and I fell for the trap. I responded in heat, thinking it was legit. Well, it wasn't. Let that be a lesson, first of all to me, to be more careful.
I should have seen this coming. I'd been warned that some people were out to get me for my journalism that confronts media bias, and even more so for the novel that I've got running as a serial on Amazon.com - The Bathsheba Deadline. This novel is about many things, but it is especially about media manipulation and how certain members of the press distort the truth. Watch out, I was told, you are stepping on big toes.
So, I'd been braced for an attack, and it came, but not from a real journalist; from a trickster. I got duped.
Small comfort, but everybody's been getting duped. Oprah got duped, and so did Reuters and the New York Times and the New Republic and all the rest. How can we tell fact from fake? We can't. The best bet is to assume that everything is fabrication and deception until proven absolutely otherwise - and even then, who knows? This may well go down as the age of deception. (Islam is a religion of peace, Al Franken is a national political figure and Paris Hilton is a national cultural figure who once got higher TV ratings than a State of the Union address by President George W. Bush.)
We have always been victims of media manipulation, but only today is it so obvious. Reuters was caught in the act of doctoring those photos from Lebanon, all in an effort to damage Israel, just as Abu Ghraib was used by the left-tilting news media to damage the United States and to paint our entire military with the same brush. Never mind that 99.9 percent of American soldiers and Marines, as well as Israeli soldiers, are heroic and honorable.
Media manipulation does not begin and end with Reuters. Media watchdog Honest Reporting learned that the BBC's Fayad Abu Shamala energized a Hamas rally by declaring that "journalists and media organizations are waging this campaign shoulder to shoulder together with the Palestinian people."
Well isn't that special. Anyway, we always knew this - that the BBC and others sponsor Islamic terror against Israel, but dress it up as news. Over at TV's Comedy Central, Jon Stewart proudly announces that his coverage of America and the world is clearly "fake news," meant for laughter. NPR, the BBC and all the rest may want to consider this disclosure for themselves.
Over here in the USA we can afford to laugh (once in a while) at all the fake news that passes for genuine coverage. In Israel, it's life or death by the hour, so it's quite amazing how easily those Israelis were duped into relinquishing Gaza. All those reporters and commentators deserve thanks for that folly. They're the ones who, like Frankenstein, invented and molded Ariel Sharon. They created him, babied him, burped him, into their own (radical Left) image.
Today, it's Ehud Olmert and his confederacy of dunces, but Olmert is a tough sell for members of the press here and in Israel. He wasn't elected and it should be remembered that soon after he took office, he said that he was tired of fighting and tired of winning. So, congratulations, he lost! (That certainly is the perception, if not the reality.)
In this campaign against Hizbullah, Olmert kvetched and diddled like Woody Allen, but in Judea and Samaria, against 70,000 peaceful Jewish Israelis, he intends to stand tall and do John Wayne. Here, he intends to go ahead with another iron first against rabbis and yeshiva students.
Israel's far-left Haaretz newspaper ran a piece by Ari Shavit that scolded Olmert for his teetering leadership and insisted that Olmert must go. Some of us have noticed how peaceniks grow downright bullish and militaristic the nearer those bombs fall to their businesses and homes.
So, when even the Left has had enough of getting bamboozled, maybe there is hope for all of us. What's my excuse for getting duped by a fake e-mail? Listen, I am not perfect. I am a man of faith, a trusting person. I even expect the Philadelphia Phillies to line up for this year's World Series.
Go here to get the latest installment of The Bathsheba Deadline - Jack Engelhard's latest novel and Amazon.com's first serialized novel. Haven't started reading it yet? Click the link and scroll down - all previous installments are there and ready to be downloaded.
I should have seen this coming. I'd been warned that some people were out to get me for my journalism that confronts media bias, and even more so for the novel that I've got running as a serial on Amazon.com - The Bathsheba Deadline. This novel is about many things, but it is especially about media manipulation and how certain members of the press distort the truth. Watch out, I was told, you are stepping on big toes.
So, I'd been braced for an attack, and it came, but not from a real journalist; from a trickster. I got duped.
Small comfort, but everybody's been getting duped. Oprah got duped, and so did Reuters and the New York Times and the New Republic and all the rest. How can we tell fact from fake? We can't. The best bet is to assume that everything is fabrication and deception until proven absolutely otherwise - and even then, who knows? This may well go down as the age of deception. (Islam is a religion of peace, Al Franken is a national political figure and Paris Hilton is a national cultural figure who once got higher TV ratings than a State of the Union address by President George W. Bush.)
We have always been victims of media manipulation, but only today is it so obvious. Reuters was caught in the act of doctoring those photos from Lebanon, all in an effort to damage Israel, just as Abu Ghraib was used by the left-tilting news media to damage the United States and to paint our entire military with the same brush. Never mind that 99.9 percent of American soldiers and Marines, as well as Israeli soldiers, are heroic and honorable.
Media manipulation does not begin and end with Reuters. Media watchdog Honest Reporting learned that the BBC's Fayad Abu Shamala energized a Hamas rally by declaring that "journalists and media organizations are waging this campaign shoulder to shoulder together with the Palestinian people."
Well isn't that special. Anyway, we always knew this - that the BBC and others sponsor Islamic terror against Israel, but dress it up as news. Over at TV's Comedy Central, Jon Stewart proudly announces that his coverage of America and the world is clearly "fake news," meant for laughter. NPR, the BBC and all the rest may want to consider this disclosure for themselves.
Over here in the USA we can afford to laugh (once in a while) at all the fake news that passes for genuine coverage. In Israel, it's life or death by the hour, so it's quite amazing how easily those Israelis were duped into relinquishing Gaza. All those reporters and commentators deserve thanks for that folly. They're the ones who, like Frankenstein, invented and molded Ariel Sharon. They created him, babied him, burped him, into their own (radical Left) image.
Today, it's Ehud Olmert and his confederacy of dunces, but Olmert is a tough sell for members of the press here and in Israel. He wasn't elected and it should be remembered that soon after he took office, he said that he was tired of fighting and tired of winning. So, congratulations, he lost! (That certainly is the perception, if not the reality.)
In this campaign against Hizbullah, Olmert kvetched and diddled like Woody Allen, but in Judea and Samaria, against 70,000 peaceful Jewish Israelis, he intends to stand tall and do John Wayne. Here, he intends to go ahead with another iron first against rabbis and yeshiva students.
Israel's far-left Haaretz newspaper ran a piece by Ari Shavit that scolded Olmert for his teetering leadership and insisted that Olmert must go. Some of us have noticed how peaceniks grow downright bullish and militaristic the nearer those bombs fall to their businesses and homes.
So, when even the Left has had enough of getting bamboozled, maybe there is hope for all of us. What's my excuse for getting duped by a fake e-mail? Listen, I am not perfect. I am a man of faith, a trusting person. I even expect the Philadelphia Phillies to line up for this year's World Series.
Go here to get the latest installment of The Bathsheba Deadline - Jack Engelhard's latest novel and Amazon.com's first serialized novel. Haven't started reading it yet? Click the link and scroll down - all previous installments are there and ready to be downloaded.