Facebook, Foundations Start 'News Integrity Initiative'...with Hillary-Adoring Prof Jeff Jarvis

April 3rd, 2017 11:06 PM

The liberal media keeps organizing with liberal foundations to try and shore up greater “trust in journalism” by going to liberal journalism schools and liberal journalism professors. Does anyone hear the echoes inside a liberal bubble?

On Monday, Facebook and several foundations announced the creation of a $14 million global consortium called the “News Integrity Initiative” at the City University of New York’s graduate school of journalism under professor (and left-wing Trump-hater) Jeff Jarvis. Like many lefties, he tweeted that Trump's election meant journalism failed -- that is, the purpose of journalism was to elect Democrats. “I fear that journalism is irredeemably broken, a failure. My profession failed to inform the public about the fascist they are electing.”

If your objective is to restore trust in journalism and the "integrity" of the news -- at least among the half the country that didn't like Hillary Clinton -- you probably don't hire Jeff Jarvis, presently seen wearing a "#Resist" hat on his Twitter page.

Back on August 30, 2016, Professor Jarvis wrote a passionate argument for Medium that for journalism to "inform," liberals had to win. (He illustrated that with a selfie wearing a Hillary campaign hat. )

If journalism as a whole had done its job informing the electorate in the U.K., I believe there would not have been Brexit. If journalism had informed and educated the American electorate, I am confident there would have been no room for Trump to spread his virus of ignorance, lies, and bigotry. It is patently clear that journalism is doing a terrible job informing the public. Judge the results.

Jarvis scowled at any attempt at balance: "The hunt for balance is especially cynical this year, as any attempt to give balanced coverage to an unbalanced candidate can only mislead." He eagerly echoed James Carville:

I know I’ll get scorned for this, but I say Clinton’s email scandal isn’t a scandal. It was a mistake. Yes, I believe that she never knowingly sent classified information. Of course, she didn’t. In any case, where her email sat is less important than every issue facing the American electorate.

I’ll get trolled for this, too, but the Clinton Foundation story isn’t a scandal either. The Foundation does good work, and as James Carville says, someone will be going to hell for cutting off that good work.

The professor even made the "fake news" claim that Hillary supporters like him were a "silent majority," neglected in the media coverage:

I don’t see myself in any of the coverage of the campaign. All I ever hear from media is that nobody likes or trusts the one candidate who has an 89 percent chance of winning the presidency. In media, I never hear from voters like me who are enthusiastic supporters. I never see reporters wading among eager backers at Clinton rallies to ask them how much they like her and why. I don’t even hear her surrogates (what a ridiculous beltway/TV invention that is, by the way) asked about their support of Clinton, only their defense of her.​

Jarvis claims to be a "bridge builder" -- at least between liberal-leaning Internet concerns. “I fancy myself a bridge builder between publishers and platforms like Facebook and Google, it’s very important that we work together. We can’t continue to be at war with each other,” he said.

Foundation funders include some typical suspects: the Ford Foundation, the Knight Foundation, and the Craig Newmark Philanthropic Fund, which claims to be an ardent fighter of "fake news." But what they're really fighting is the conservative media...on behalf of the same old Clinton-excusing, Democrat-diehard liberal media.