Fact Check: Evaluating Claims on The New York Times and Media Coverage

Hello viewers. I'm currently working on a little art project here. It's a collage. I'm cutting photos out of the

newspaper and I'm going to put them all together on a collage in probably on like some kind of poster board. And

that's going to be the set for my uh main channels YouTube videos. I'm very excited about it. I think it'd be really

fun. And I'm about halfway through my first batch of photos from the last month or so. and I figured I'd bring you

guys along with me [music] uh as a little behind thescenes treat. I've never been a print media consumer

really. I just be on my damn phone. My family growing up didn't really. I mean, we probably got the newspaper. I think

we got the local paper, but I subscribed to the New York Times paper [music] edition about a month ago for a video

that I'm working on about the New York Times contribution to the political propaganda around uh Israel's genocide

in Gaza. It's one of [music] the biggest newspapers in the world. It's one of the highest trafficked uh sites in the world

and their coverage of that war has been nothing short of complicity in the genocide. However, when it comes to fun

photos, which I'll actually show you in a second, and basic news coverage or factual reporting of stuff that's not in

the international news, especially in the Middle East, it's all right. See, here we have a nice full scale color

photo of Bad Bunny from the Super Bowl doing his routine at the Super Bowl. Amazing. Part of the sort of philosophy

around getting this print news subscription is that I want to make my information diet more consistent and I

guess grounded. It's hard having like apps for different news outlets and just being like, "Yeah, I guess I could

figure out how to set all the notifications to be something that makes sense for what I'm doing." But there's a

certain routine to the paper showing up on the doorstep every morning that I really like. It's like um my brain's own

personal circadian rhythm where as opposed to getting up and just [music] being like let's see what's on Twitter

and let's see what's maybe on the news and let's like scroll through the screen that I'm already using a lot. It's like

I'll get up I got to walk to the door, open the door, check it stairs, somebody put it there. That's fun. That's like an

interesting thing that a guy or a girl actually just came and tossed it up. They don't make it to the doorstep often

cuz it's up the stairs but that's I I don't mind. I really don't mind. So, I feel like the routine is sort of getting

me in a rhythm of wanting to be informed about what's going on in the world, even if the international coverage from the

New York Times is complete dog [ __ ] After I'm done with this video though, I will probably be unsubscribing and maybe

still get the local paper. I'm not sure. But the other part of it is the actual physical holding of a paper. I think

that's kind of another another main thing where once you learn how to like fold it into the little squares and kind

of open it, make the noise, put the glasses over the thing, and maybe you have coffee earock is what we call it in

this household nearby and you have you have a sip and you just read some stuff or pretend to read it. I got reading

glasses as well, which is fun. That's kind of interesting. I don't know. There's something ritualistic about

that. It's nice. I I I do enjoy that in the mornings and reading the physical version of the printed words, you know,

it's tangible. It's something you can feel in your hands. You can [music] see the letters were printed on there by

some kind of press. I don't know what printing presses they use now. Like look at this. Isn't that a great photo from

the Olympics? It's like the long exposure kind of blurry shot. I don't really care that much about the Olympics

or ice skating. I've been watching a little bit of it here and there. I watched when that lady broke her knee.

That was sad. I think there's a photo of it right here. Figured her name. Got to reread the stories before I cut it. Keep

forgetting to do that. But I think I had the idea to do a collage when I [music] was looking at all YouTube. I was

watching some YouTube videos and thinking, damn, seems like these sets are kind of, you know, a little bit

repetitive. And my set, I would consider pretty much similar. There's really nothing going on in the background. It's

quite plain. [music] And I think the sheer amount of photos combined with their sort of cultural [music]

or, you know, worldly relevance could make for an interesting backdrop. So, we're going to do that. And that's what

we're doing. Originally the idea I had was to get a bunch of photos together that I liked that mean something to me

from various places. Historical photos, screenshots from documentaries, movies, things that like I'll be able to tell a

story about. And I still plan on doing that to some extent, but it's just expensive. It costs money to print. I've

had a printer for a while and I've been trying to print stuff in color and for whatever reason, even though I got new

ink, it just looks like [ __ ] It's very like too light and hard to sort of see. Oo, see there was something here. This

is Kevin Durant of basketball and I was gonna cut this photo out because I was like that's a cool photo and he's it's

red and there's not a lot of red ones, but um he was just recently outed as being a little bit of a freak. I think

he's been a freak for a while but um specifically a freak about something that I think is unfreakable, which is he

has some stake in a company. He made some weird comments about Israel and so did LeBron at the All-Star game. When

they asked him about Israel, I think he said, "I'd love to visit someday. I've heard nothing but good things.

>> Hopefully someday I can make it over there." Like I said, I've never been over there, but I've heard nothing but

great things. >> Which is a crazy thing. It's just a crazy thing to say cuz it's like, say

whatever you want about Israel. The one thing you can't say is that you've heard nothing but good things. That's like

impossible. The only way that could have happened is if you've just heard nothing. And so, I don't know. Will I

include these photos? Maybe. I like this one cuz it's red. I don't think they're an endorsement of the stuff that's

happening. There's some photos in here of like some ICE agents that I thought I was like, that's a really good photo. It

really captures how scary and freakish these guys are. Maybe I should put a little photo of me with a thumbs down

next to it and just me shaking my head just so people know that I'm I do not condone this naughty behavior. But I

think that in itself is a little story about the consistency of this like paper coming is like, oh, when I put this down

on February 11th, so about 10 days ago, I was like, that's cool. And now I'm like, hm, my perception of that person

and that thing has changed a little bit because of what's happened in the world. And isn't that interesting? So, one

thing about print media is that they they give you a lot of it. And I don't know how expensive it is for them to

make, but like this is just from the last month or so. This is the stuff that I have that I mean, I haven't used. And

this this is just the bare minimum. I've thrown out a lot of it. Ooh, the Seahawks won the Super Bowl. Very

excited about that. I was raised in in the Seattle, the greater Seattle area. We were there at the Golden Age or what

would have been the Golden Age had they ran the ball on the one yardd line with Marshon Lynch against the Patriots, but

we didn't and they intercepted and we lost, which I still have PTSD from. But new Golden Age now because they won and

they beat none other than the most racist team in the world, New England Patriots. Lately, I've just been feeling

like there's so much stuff to learn to figure out how you can help or how you can talk to people influence the

perceptions of the people around you. Learning this stuff takes time and you have to spend time doing it to learn is

one of the better motivating factors to getting off that damn phone. I love baby cat. She doesn't like to be picked up.

So, I'm going to hold her for just a second to show you that she's alive and well and she is having fun watching me

do the newspaper because it's noisy and she likes to chase the clippings and I make sure she doesn't eat them. The best

antidote to [music] doom scrolling that I have discovered so far is caring about something and thinking [music] it's

important and therefore whenever I'm doom scrolling I get pulled out of it when that thought arises that oh like

you're going to die. There's like a trillion things that you want to know about and you want to talk to people

about and you want to try and, you know, influence. And what this has translated to for me is reading more books. And

this book, I've had the PDF for this book for a long time. It's called Pity the Nation. It's about the civil war and

the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Look how little the text is. [music] So tiny, so intimidating, tiny, and so thick.

What is this damn 500? So almost 700 pages. And I'm reading this and it's so well written and it's so interesting and

it's so tragic and horrific but presented in a very digestible way. But now it's like that desire, that thirst

to learn is expanding outwards. And I've always felt like I had trouble retaining information. Oh, I just have a bad

memory. So it's hard for me to read full books and actually take in and remember uh everything that happens, at least in

a more broad way. If you're consuming a lot of information about the same topic or similar topics that are connected in

some [music] way, then those connections are going to crop up when you're reading about something you've read about from a

different perspective or a different incident in the same, you know, war or whatever. Hey, you no touching the

couch. You're going to ruin it. That thing was $20. The last thing I want to say on the topic of the newspaper is one

of the biggest things it's helped me understand uh and experience is the way that we are being propagandized in some

very sinister ways. And so every day I go through the paper and I see, oh, this is interesting story. Ooh, this is a

nice facts to know. But then I turn to the section where they talk about Israel and Palestine and I say, "Oh my god, I

think I'm going to explode." Every day I say that. I have the stack of stories. One sec, let me grab it. So this is just

from the last couple weeks. So every day I go through and I read the story and I highlight and I underline and I point

out and make little notes about where they're building a false perception about what's happening where they use

language that misconstration or they omit information in places that they really need to include it in order

to give the full picture. So I go through and I highlight all the places where they're doing some [ __ ] and I

say, "Huh, if this is what the average consumer of the news is getting, the person who gets New York Times, if this

is what they are being presented, then it's no wonder that a lot of people are just totally okay with or ambivalent

towards one of the worst moral atrocities of our time, probably the worst in my lifetime, is that according

to this paper, it's just a really messed up war, man. It's messed up. People are are getting hurt in this war. We don't

know how. It's a lifeline after two years of war. War. Hm. War. This is genocide denial. That's what that is.

Genocide denial. When you put that right there functionally citing the IDF cuz there's no independent organization or

human rights group or anyone that believes this what's happening is anything other than a genocide. But just

little stuff like that over and over. It makes me go a little insane. It makes meing really angry. But then it makes me

also try and like I guess show people, point it out and say, you know, I know most of the people that follow me are

probably aware of how this happens. But a lot of people aren't. And as long as this pattern will [music] continue where

they just essentially lie. They don't spread overt misinformation, although that is that has happened in select

cases. You know, it's just shaping your perception over a long period of time into justifying the unjustifiable.

Social media feeds tend to obscure a lot of these things because you're [music] getting sort of a, you know, catered

news feed to people that you follow whose work you like and you tend to agree with. And so you're not, you're

just not getting the full picture. That's another thing this has pushed me to do is to just kind of consult more

sources, sources that contradict [music] the interests or the politics of what I believe, not necessarily to challenge

[music] my preconceived notions. cuz it's very rare that I read something like this or from any of these like

conservative or pro-Israel outlets that makes me actually change my mind. But just to have a bigger picture of the

information war and [music] what is being used and weaponized against a population undergoing a holocaust, half

of whom are children in a concentration camp. This is how you get come to understand what goes on in people's

minds in order for them to be okay with something like that. So anyways, um let's briefly go over what we have. I'm

going to do give you a closeup like this like that mood documentary. We got the sea fox. We got the sea hawks. This is

in Pakistan I think. Can't remember. This is in Pakistan. The kyber province. Where's this? New York kind of meeting.

Meeting of the minds. Beautiful photos. Beautiful photos. Just all sorts of great stuff. There's that red photo I

was telling you about. Super red. There's that streaky one. Pretty cool. Um, I love this cuz sometimes they'll

just randomly print old ass film photos with that fuzzy chromatic film camera look, which I love. It's great. I forget

even who these guys are. I might need to cut one of these bad bunnies. And maybe I'll need to iron this cuz some of them

curl upwards. That's in Italy. That's Charlie XCX and someone taking her photo. [music] So nice of him. See Kawhi

Leonard. He's awesome. I hope nothing I hope he doesn't say anything weird. He only ever says funny stuff from what

I've seen. That's a local paper. Deep cut classic. Very nice. Sometimes I look at a photo and I say, "Wow, that's

pretty. That's really pretty. Who did that?" [music] Just some random person in my neighborhood. That's awesome.

That's a photo from Gaza during the ceasefire where Oh, look. You can see my hands. They're so inky. People that were

being held hostage by Israel were returned to their families. Very moving, very powerful, very tragic as there are

tens of thousands of people that have not had that experience yet. New York Times, that's another thing. They just

will do 30 stories a day about the Iranian protest crackdown and zero about ceasefire violations. This was from the

food section. I liked this. This is I think it's a newer photo, but it's very film films.

Cool. Jellyfish. Another photo of Kawaii. Also black and white. This is a soccer field that somehow maintained its

structure among the ruins of Gaza. I don't know if they rebuilt it or regrassed it or what, but that's some

cool thing. Here's some local kind of garden. That's something. All sorts of great stuff. Here's another one that

might be too big. It's cool though. And it's all color, which means it's expensive. [music] There's Rachel

Senate, the goat. Very talented, funny person. Paul Thomas Anderson. There was another guy in this and I cut it out. I

don't know if it works as well without full frame. But I didn't I didn't like that guy. I didn't like the way he

looked. He wasn't ugly or anything or like weird looking. He just looked out of place. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This

picture, this is from the obituary of Jesse Jackson [music] and it's a really striking photo. Wow, look at that

contrast. And it'll just look I think this will be great cuz it's also a piece of history that I put up on there and I

say that guy um passed away like a couple days ago and there he didn't pass away. He's alive. I maybe got to tone it

down on the sea seahawks Chinese New Year. Very nice. Another red one photo from This is another obituary. Sorry to

people who are dying and stuff, but [music] like sometimes they put really good photos in their obituaries and

that's and that's, you know, whatever. It's whatever. This one has text on it. So, I'm gonna have to figure out cuz I

love it and I love cats. You know, I'm a kitty guy. I love to go to the zoo, check out the cats. Oh, yeah. And

there's photo of Castro. Great photo. The New York Times, of course, was using this to say, "Look at him pointing like

Hitler. Look at him telling all these smiling old ladies uh to kill to kick out of the goolog or whatever." See, the

thing about jellyfish is sometimes you don't know which way is up. I'm pretty sure that's it, but cuts off at the

tentacles. So, the iconic jellyfish tentacles. That classic tentacle [music] look that we all know and love from a

jellyfish. Oh, I like that photo of this tennis player cuz of how it was printed. It was kind of printed [music] like a

little bit. It got doubled like a motion blur almost. Yeah, I think just mixing in the black and white photos with the

color photos in a sort of interesting way and the and the shapes [music] and stuff. So, anyways, that's what I have

so far. Tune in uh next time. As I'm watching this video back and editing, I'm realizing it might seem a little

contradictory. You know, I'm saying the New York Times is bad, but I'm subscribed to it. So, just to be clear,

do not subscribe to the New York Times. It's a very bad, very bad paper. The video I'm working on will hopefully

illustrate that in a little more depth. But the main thing I'm trying to say with these rambles is that uh print

media is pretty cool. The actual routine of getting a physical newspaper every morning I think is helpful and probably

a lot better than social media at least for your brain and for the things you're actually seeing on there unless you've

curated it really well or unless whenever you open Twitter you have the wherewithal to actually click over to

the following tab and not just the recommended for you page. So yeah, basically try it out. Subscribe to your

local newspaper. Support local journalism unless you live in New York, in which case support local journalism

that isn't the New York Times or honestly any of these large western media companies. They're all pretty bad.

But that's a topic for another day.