By Chuck Warren
In May 2000, 18-year-old Britney Spears released her sophomore album "Oops!... I Did It Again."
Like Ms. Spears' title song, national media outlets keep having an "Oops!... I Did It Again" moment with their bias and selective editing.
We have a recent example that not many will pick up on, but it once again demonstrates the selective editing and narrative by once venerable American news sources. Today's example comes from Time magazine.
In 1999, Time launched its highly publicized annual event, the Time 100. This is supposed to feature the "world's most influential people." That statement alone can be debated because it is chock-full of artists, nonprofits, and actors who are not truly influential. That being said, it is like airplane reading or waiting room time killers - a sort of upscale "People" magazine edition.
Each luminary chosen as part of the 100 has a brief write-up by a colleague, partner, admirer, etc. The write-ups are generally good and sometimes give wonderful nuggets on the person. They are generally positive and glowing about the person selected. It would be weird if they were not, correct?
That is why the write-up on Elon Musk stood out. I actually handwrote on my flight home from Atlanta on top of the Elon Musk blurb, "WTH?"
The author wrote about his "boundless imagination and relentless drive that has landed rockets on platforms in the ocean, pioneered the electric-vehicle revolution, and changed how we think about energy in many forms."
So far, so good. Then the journalist (of course, they couldn't pick a friend or work colleague to write it) adds this sarcastic aside: "Cool, right? Not so much these days."
Then she goes on to call him the "world's richest online troll" who, under his "erratic rule, Twitter has become a non-stop grievance tantrum we must all endure, and he wastes far too much of his time fiddling his toxic violin while it burns."
The American corporate, mainstream media has it out for Musk. He does not play by their cocktail party rules. They attack him in various ways, and the "Time 100" edition decided to do it by having a podcaster/journalist focus on things she doesn't like instead of the visionary ways he has changed the world for the better. Do you think there would be an electric vehicle revolution and growth without Tesla? Starlink satellites to help those in rural areas and Ukraine access the internet? The list of his visions goes on, but what we get is snark from a journalist who Elon is not on speaking terms with and whom Elon called an "A&^%Hole."
Do you think they would have done this to Bill Gates? George Soros? Bob Iger?
Actually, for Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, his blurb was written by Mary Barra, who is on the Disney board of directors. Would that have been hard to do for Elon?
Folks, make sure Time magazine does not assign someone to write your birthday tribute or obituary if your ideology differs from their editors. As for our corporate media, they must smile every time they hear the song "Oops!... I Did It Again," knowing that they follow their playbook relentlessly and with a smirk. They are hellbent on beating down anyone who disagrees with their vision of the world.
You do not have to be an Elon Musk fanboy or homer to realize this is bogus treatment.
Note: the opinions expressed herein are those of Chuck Warren only and not his co-host Sam Stone or Breaking Battlegrounds’ staff.
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