RUSH: Now, I’ve often said that one of the things the media does… Folks, this is crucial to understand. Attitudinal perception is a powerful thing. You’ve heard the phrase “perception is reality.” What does it mean? It means that you can turn a lie into the truth, and that’s the objective of the media every day. And one of the things… I want you to notice this, if you haven’t all ready. If you deign to watch the Drive-Bys… I don’t care. CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, or the New York Times. Any of the Drive-By Media outlets.
Whenever they are reporting on a scandal that is involving Republicans (it happened in the case of the Indiana religious freedom law), what they do is report the story with a high degree, profound level of outrage that they make to look like is not theirs. They have found this outrage among all of you. It’s that you are outraged, for example, over the Comey firing, that you are upset at all the chaos in the White House, that you want Trump gone, that you regret Trump being elected, that you regret voting for him.
The trick is as they report this stuff to make it look like they’re not manufacturing or reporting their own opinion, emotion, anger. No, no. They are presumptively and arrogantly seeking to make everybody watching think they’re just reporting what people all over the country think. And it isn’t the case. I’m holding here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers evidence of this. Facebook interactions. There’s a survey of research done of Facebook notes, trends, news lines, whatever. And the Comey firing has not gone viral.
To people on Facebook — which is a lot of people — the Comey firing is less important than seven other stories. There are seven other stories that are being circulated, re-whatever, retransmitted, talked about — seven stories much more important to Facebook users than the Comey firing. At the top of the list, the inauguration received much more attention and discussion on Facebook. The Republicans canceling Obamacare is number two on the list of stories that caused viral reaction on Facebook.
The Trump travel bans are number three. The Michael Flynn story, number four. The House passing their version of the repeal-Obamacare bill is number five. The Syria strike — when we bombed Syria — is the next item on this list of things that caused Facebook to explode. The Rachel Maddow lie about how she had all the details on Trump’s tax returns is next. Comey being fired… Let me give you the numbers that are associated with this. It’s based on 300-plus news organizations.
“SocialFlow evaluated the Facebook reach of articles on major flashpoints by more than 300 news organizations within a few days of the event …” 150,000 on the inauguration, 112,000 GOP cancels Obamacare, 108,000 for both the travel ban and the Flynn stories, 68,000 for the House version of Obamacare repeal, 57,000 for the Syria strike, 43,000 for the Rachel Maddow Trump tax story. Just 37,000 for Comey being fired. My point is, it isn’t the viral out there where the people who make the country work live.
The Comey-being-fired story has not captivated the American people. They are not sitting on the edges of their seats. They’re not tweeting, they’re not Facebooking, they’re not talking, they’re not outraged. They’re not doing anything to the level they were on many other issues. Square that with the fact that you can’t find any other news for the past three days than the Comey firing. That’s all you’re seeing in the Drive-By Media.
And yet? Ho-hum! “The Not-So-Viral Comey Firing.” It is a great example of the disproportion, the out-of-proportion reporting by the media. So in this — and many of you say, “Rush, that just can’t be. I would think the nation’s got to be so tired of hearing this they’re tired of it. It’s everywhere.” That’s the point, folks. The consumers of news are not making the story viral. They’re not talking about it with everybody. They’re not reacting anywhere near the level the media wants you to think they are, which is the point.
Do not forget: One of the objectives of coverage like this is to make you think that your neighbors and your town and the whole country think and feel the identical way the media is reporting this. And in many cases, it’s not the case whatsoever.