Just because Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes won’t lie to you and because they do good research and reporting, doesn’t mean they don’t shade and present and slant in clever and gentle ways. The effect is cumulative, but its unfair. Just a tiny example, when comparing two opposing spokesmen (assuming they are both equally articulate), let the guy you don’t agree with speak first, then let the guy on your side do his rebuttal.
The fair way to do it is to let both sides speak, independently of the other and not knowing what the other is going to say. Then let each rebut the original comments of his opponent. And flip a coin to see who goes first.

As I mentioned, FOX is wingnut propaganda, they are a disgrace. MSNBC is fair and truthful, but there’s no denying they have an agenda. CNN gives the fairest cable news, although I confess its not the one I most enjoy watching. PBS gives the best nightly news–by far. The BBC used to be good, but they seem to be avoiding conTROVersy lately, at least for the USA market. TV network news is worthless, not because they have a political agenda, they’re fair enough, but because their main purpose is to sell advertising, not inform the public. They’re not much better than local news. Mostly, they try to avoid offending anyone.

The best deep analysis news show is Frontline. Sometimes its scary just how good they are.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have been extensively trained in public relations and the biggest take-away from all that was that if you know the subject matter well you can easily take either side of the argument and argue it well, demolishing your opponent (unless his training and experience is equivalent to yours). You will note it doesn’t really matter which side you personally believe is “right”. Like lawyers, propagandists don’t think in terms of guilt or innocence, right or wrong, they are only concerned about professional ethics. And those are only the best ones. The majority only care about winning.

Getting back to your original question, I found the show “propagandistic” because it laid out the facts, the brief, exactly as if I would have laid it out if I were composing a detailed indictment of Donald Trump. Everything that did not support that narrative was either left out, or sandwiched between completely devastating counter arguments. They didn’t just give you the history, they arranged it so the conclusions were inevitable. I can tell you precisely the politics and the prejudices of the writers.

I need to think more about this. Rereading my answer to you I can see it is not totally satisfying, that I haven’t properly answered your question, but my gut instinct tells me I’m on the right track. And I’ve learned to trust my gut when it comes to politics.

Seems to me that concluding that the “series was devised deliberately to slander Donald Trump” because it presents and abundance of analogies with past dictators, is a bit like Trump complaining that the fact that all the news about him is unflattering is proof of bias against him.

Maybe the news about Trump is bad because Trump is bad; and maybe the documentary is presenting a truthful comparison between historical dictators and our orange wannabee?

A common sentiment throughout your posts on this thread is “I don’t like it when people fuck with my head like that”, which begs the question, what’s the difference between propaganda and persuasion? Judging by your years of arguing on the Zone, I don’t think you resent it when people try to persuade you, even when they’re wrong [;-)]. And here you’re actually saying that the documentary is telling the truth…but you resent their attempt to tell the truth persuasively?

I’m a bit confused. Maybe you’re just having an off day?

The latest show, on Mussolini, is much better, because it focuses directly on the dictator himself, it chronologically lists his history and analyzes his methods. The parallels with Trumpism are obvious, and the attempt to make them obvious seems to be muted. Still, they manage to come across perfectly, and I suspect a Trump supporter would instantly see that it was not very flattering to his man. Still, The Mussolini episode appears to be much more like scholarship than propaganda. Maybe its just that the writers are more subtle and better at it.

Political truth is subject to perspective, and interpretation. You don’t have to lie to push a point of view, you just have to slightly ignore, or slightly emphasize certain points. Outright lies may be spotted by a sophisticated audience. It also depends a lot in which order you recount certain events or facts. I was taught this as a propagandist for the nuclear power industry, and I can recognize it when others do it, or try to do it to me. “Never make stuff up, just make sure you tell OUR side of the story.”

I’ll give an example. Every politician or celebrity has many photographs of himself on file. When writing an article about him, you can select those photographs which communicate, by means of a facial expression or gesture, exactly what you want your reader to think is in his mind about that topic. Of course, we all know a still photograph means absolutely nothing, it may be selected from an event that had nothing to do with what you are writing about, or it may just be an accidental configuration of expression that was captured by the lens and reflects nothing of the man’s mental processes. But the reader is subconsciously influenced by the writer’s selection of that photo; is the man pouting, is he sneering, does his cheerful laugh come across as a hostile snarl? Yes, the face gives clues to the mental state beneath it, but we normally have access to a moving image in real time, not just a snapshot out of context.

Likewise, a skilled artist can draw, or paint, or sculpt a likeness of a face which is flattering or terrifying, without actually portraying an image that is demonstrably false or distorted. A picture is worth a thousand words, but it is easier to lie with pictures than with text.

I really think this series was devised deliberately to slander Donald Trump. The writers are deliberately selecting and emphasizing factors about these dictators designed to get the viewer to realize “Damn, that’s exactly what Trump is doing!” Factors which support this analysis are emphasized, those that contradict it are glossed over. None of these are actual lies or falsehoods, or a blunt accusation, but the emphasis and interpretation is there, or at least, it is to me. I don’t like it when people fuck with my head like that, even if I happen to agree with everything they say.

Mussolini, like Hitler, who studied his methods, despised Democracy and what he considered its weakness and indecisiveness. He inherited and mobilized a nation in economic and political turmoil by promising
order and strong leadership. He promised to dismantle the elites, restore the nation’s pride, revitalize the economy, and rebuild Italy as the world power it was under the Romans. His program was essentially the same as Hitler’s, except there was no element of racial, religious or ethnic bigotry as in Germany–at least, not at first. And like Hitler, Mussolini had fought bravely in the Great War. Come to think of it, Franco was a career military officer, Mao, Castro, Khadaffi, Stalin, Noriega, Kim Il Sung, Saddam Hussein and Idi Amin all had military or paramilitary experience. I guess it must be difficult to carry out a policy of violence if you’re a peaceful man.

I suppose that means that since Trump was a draft-dodger, he can’t possibly be a fascist.