It's hard to give a precise estimate of how much of the propaganda being pushed on us is outright hoaxes, such as the "Bait Boy" story, and how much is pushing stories that are shaped by omitting relevant facts, creating an impression utterly at odds with reality.
I'd say it is about 25-75, meaning 25% hoaxes and 75% lies by omission.
By the latter, I am referring to the vast number of horror stories of ICE or the Border Patrol arresting American citizens, harassing "journalists," assaulting people, or detaining innocent "fathers" or model citizens who turn out to be gang members. Take a video clip out of context, hide the identity and crimes of the arrestee, and claim that "protesters" are peaceful when they are actually assaulting officers.
You know the drill. The media did both with Renee Good, first by claiming that she was just a model citizen dropping off her kid at the day care (Somali?), and when it came out that she was impeding law enforcement officers and rammed into an agent, claiming that she had done nothing wrong.
It was a two-fer. Both a hoax and after the hoax couldn't be maintained, a "missing context" piece of propaganda.
Liz Collin provides another great example of "missing context" in Pravda—the case of a drug smuggler who brought in 50 pounds of Meth.
Our County Attorney and much of the legal establishment are outraged that ICE detained this man in the Hennepin County Government Center, because it is a sanctuary for illegal alien meth smugglers whose only crime is trying to kill Minnesota drug addicts. Perhaps he is a father, or is just doing this to give a better life to his 8 kids from different moms, or votes Democrat. Who knows?
The media dutifully reported the outrage, of course.
Let’s take a look at how Minnesota media is reporting today’s arrest of a man facing first-degree drug charges for possessing over 50 pounds of meth— https://t.co/Tc25vS5PF6 pic.twitter.com/xSfNVw0hO3
— Liz Collin (@lizcollin) February 11, 2026
But what it did not report is the fact that this guy is a dangerous scumbag. Just as an MS-13 gang member becomes an instant hero and "Maryland father" just because he is an illegal alien, rapists, pedophiles, and other scumbags are redefined into model citizens whom Trump is treating badly.
UPDATE: The man who was arrested by ICE in these videos is facing first-degree drug charges for possessing over 50 pounds of meth https://t.co/jazlVXBMvr pic.twitter.com/NicTOjdY3g
— Anthony Gockowski (@AntGockowski) February 10, 2026
It's all about The Narrative™, and the particular issue the media is gaslighting on is just a detail. Their goal is define reality, rather than report it.
How can anybody defend this? If you spent the last week complaining about the firings of the Washington Post, and don't say a word about how fucking insane journalists have become when it comes to this stuff, then you are as pathetic as the worst Trump defender. https://t.co/xFcSKU9q0H
— Everybody is Insane (@colorblindk1d) February 11, 2026
Beege wrote about the hideous shooting in Canada, and what was most striking to me about the coverage was how carefully Pravda tried to hide the fact that the shooter was yet another crazy transgender person.
Journalism is meant to clarify reality, not reshape it. The deceased suspect in one of Canada’s worst mass shootings is 18-year-old Jesse Strang, a biological male who ID's as transgender. Yet all legacy press describes the killer as “female.”
— Gerald Posner (@geraldposner) February 11, 2026
Facts should come before ideology pic.twitter.com/mxp6bs5lSn
There are things you shouldn't get to know because you might not come to the appropriate conclusions, so the media tells you a carefully crafted version that you are meant to believe.
More and more, people DON'T believe, though, although for many that leaves them in a sort of limbo.
% of Americans who have a great deal of confidence in journalists to act in the best interests of the public
— John Gramlich (@johngramlich) February 11, 2026
All US adults: 6%
Republicans: 2%
Democrats: 9%https://t.co/uCvBNxKmtR pic.twitter.com/MrGYEwMYwT
The declining credibility of the media with ordinary people is, for the most part, a very good thing. Not because losing faith in what ought to be a vital institution for a democratic society is a good thing, but because having faith in lying liars who lie for a living is damaging as hell. In a sane world, we would have a better media. Lacking that, it's better not to believe anything they say without checking it out.
We are forced to be our own journalists, and most of us don't have the time or resources to do it.
It's easy to underestimate how powerful the media is, even with the healthy distrust Americans are developing. They still filter most of the facts we see on a day-to-day basis, thereby shaping our thinking unconsciously. Instead of believing the picture they present as a vivid photograph mirroring reality, we still get an impressionistic picture that influences how we see things.
There's no perfect solution to avoiding that. I recall, quite vividly, the coverage of the Covington Kids and the outrage that poured out even from people who should have known better. The images stuck in people's minds well after the original story was debunked. Lies become The Truth, even for many people who should know better.
The best we can do is search out context on stories that matter to us. That will leave a large fraction of reality fuzzy, because we can't investigate everything, and will itself create distortions, because Pravda, to this day, tends to control what stories "matter," but the best we can do is the best we can do.
