{"id":2406820,"date":"2025-02-26T08:06:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-26T13:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/how-to-make-yourself-invincible-to-media-info-ops\/"},"modified":"2025-02-26T08:13:30","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T13:13:30","slug":"how-to-make-yourself-invincible-to-media-info-ops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/how-to-make-yourself-invincible-to-media-info-ops\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Make Yourself Invincible To Media Info Ops"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fhow-to-make-yourself-invincible-to-media-info-ops%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2406820&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The article\u200b discusses concerns raised by media reports \u2063about the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/white-house-releases-list-of-president-trumps-accomplishments-and-it-is-historic\/\" title=\"White House Releases List of President ...\u2019s Accomplishments \u2013  And It Is Historic!\">national parks<\/a>&#8216; management, particularly focusing on recent\u200c personnel changes under the Trump management. Specifically, the piece highlights the firing of the only locksmith at Yosemite National Park, sparking fears that visitors could be trapped in restrooms without help. The author argues\u2062 that the \u2063national parks&#8217; workforce reduction\u201411 out of 1,151 employees\u2014is being exaggerated and questions the narrative surrounding it, suggesting that such a minor \u200bstaff cut shouldn&#8217;t lead\u2062 to panic.<\/p>\n<p>The article also critiques \u2064the legacy\u200d media&#8217;s tendency to \u2064promote alarmist narratives, framing it as part of a broader trend of facts \u2064operations \u2062aimed \u2064at discrediting certain political figures and\u2063 their policies. The author suggests that readers become\u200b more skeptical of media portrayals, encouraging them\u2064 to critically evaluate the motives behind news stories and the reliability of sources. through various examples, including commentary on the \u2064reporting of past political controversies, the article urges readers to \u200dbe vigilant\u200d against\u2063 misleading narratives propagated by\u200b the press, emphasizing the importance of checking\u200b facts and identifying biases to navigate an increasingly polarized information landscape.<\/p>\n<p>Elle Purnell, the author, serves \u200cas the elections editor at \u200cThe Federalist and \u2064calls for greater awareness\u200b among the public regarding media biases and agendas.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>If you read The Washington Post, you might have been concerned this week for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/climate-environment\/2025\/02\/19\/national-parks-firings-employees-chaos\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">plight<\/a> of the poor nature enthusiasts who are now at risk of locking themselves in the bathrooms at Yosemite National Park with no one to rescue them.<\/p>\n<p>The media&rsquo;s info op du jour is that the national parks are in disarray because President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE are terminating &ldquo;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/02\/18\/donald-trump-federal-purge-national-parks-00204670\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">potentially thousands<\/a>&rdquo; of America&rsquo;s beloved park rangers.<\/p>\n<figure><\/figure>\n<p>That sounds kind of bad, until you realize this is the kind of situation reporters are panicking over:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>At California&rsquo;s<strong>&nbsp;<\/strong>Yosemite National Park, the Trump administration fired the only locksmith on staff on Friday. He was the sole employee with the keys and the institutional knowledge needed to rescue visitors from locked restrooms.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>If only one of the more than 1,000 people who work at Yosemite has the &ldquo;institutional knowledge&rdquo; required to unlock a bathroom door, Trump should maybe consider firing more of them and replacing them with people who know how to make copies of a key. <\/p>\n<p>An upside-down American flag &mdash; which I was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/28\/us\/justice-alito-neighbors-stop-steal-flag.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reliably informed<\/a> was a symbol of Jan. 6 sympathies &mdash; hung from a cliff at Yosemite to bring &ldquo;attention to what&rsquo;s happening,&rdquo; according to one of the employees who hung it. What is happening, exactly? Including the locksmith, 11 of the 1,151 employees who work at Yosemite during the winter were let go, as Chris Bray <a href=\"https:\/\/chrisbray.substack.com\/p\/writhing-in-agony-and-despair-as\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">pointed out<\/a> in a Sunday Substack post. I&rsquo;m sorry for them, but a park losing 1 percent of its workforce isn&rsquo;t exactly the next Watergate.<\/p>\n<p>The national parks panic is one of several information operations the legacy press has <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2025\/01\/20\/heres-a-list-of-every-media-hoax-launched-during-trumps-second-term\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">launched<\/a> over the past month of Trump 2.0. Another one from this week is the idea that Republicans are returning home to &ldquo;a barrage of frustration and anger&rdquo; from constituents who are supposedly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/23\/us\/politics\/republicans-congress-town-halls-trump.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">very upset<\/a> about Trump&rsquo;s actions as president, a narrative which is easily contradicted by recent <a href=\"https:\/\/harvardharrispoll.com\/press-release-february-2025\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">polling<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to be able to spot the next info op, here&rsquo;s what you need to know.<\/p>\n<p>The most important thing to understand is not <em>how<\/em> the media deploy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/without-a-negotiated-settlement-history-shows-russia-ukraine-war-will-be-a-long-brutal-slog\/\" title=\"Without A Negotiated Settlement, History Shows Russia...Ukraine War Will Be A Long, Brutal Slog\">info ops<\/a> but simply <em>that<\/em> they do it. If you are aware that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/protesters-clash-with-cops-threaten-to-burn-dc-during-black-lives-matter-march\/\" title=\"Protesters Clash With Cops, Threaten To \u2018Burn\u2019 DC During \u2018Black Lives Matter\u2019 March\">legacy media outlets<\/a> are not impersonal transcription services but active partisans with their own motives and ends, you will be much better at seeing through their tactics.<\/p>\n<p>You are in an information war environment. Don&rsquo;t believe me? Think about the media&rsquo;s role in <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/russiagate\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Russiagate<\/a>. The <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2020\/04\/16\/media-coverage-of-kavanaugh-was-criminal-heres-how-they-can-fix-it-going-forward\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Kavanaugh rape hoax<\/a>. The <a href=\"https:\/\/chrisbray.substack.com\/p\/breaking-news-infantryman-drank-beer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">smears about Pete Hegseth<\/a>. They&rsquo;re the ones who told you that the <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/hunter-biden-laptop\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Hunter Biden laptop<\/a> was almost certainly Russian disinformation, that Trump called American soldiers <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/10\/24\/here-are-all-the-people-on-record-debunking-the-atlantics-latest-trump-hoax\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&ldquo;suckers&rdquo; and &ldquo;losers,&rdquo;<\/a> that Covid definitely <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heritage.org\/public-health\/commentary\/the-lie-the-century-the-origin-covid-19\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">didn&rsquo;t escape from a lab<\/a>, that Trump wanted to <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/11\/01\/corporate-medias-shameless-liz-cheney-hoax-is-what-real-disinformation-looks-like\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">execute Liz Cheney by firing squad<\/a>, and that J.D. Vance was <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/L0m3z\/status\/1878567441120272443\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">weird<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever you hear from corporate media, you should assume until proven otherwise that the opposite is probably true. This small act of caution will save you untold embarrassment, as you wisely do some vetting before joining in the latest panic.<\/p>\n<p>To do that vetting, it helps to study previous info ops that have been debunked and identify the red flags that gave away the game from the get-go. If you&rsquo;re unfamiliar with any of the info ops listed above, start there. The first thing you should do is note which reporters and pundits participated in some of the worst ones and never trust those people ever again.<\/p>\n<p>A great place to start is with the Russia collusion hoax, in which the media uncritically regurgitated sensational allegations that Trump was in cahoots with Russia in 2016, based on a dossier that was commissioned by the Hillary Clinton campaign and shopped to the FBI. <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2019\/03\/27\/61-hacks-peddled-russian-collusion-never-trusted\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Here<\/a> are just some of the people who participated in that lie:<\/p>\n<figure><\/figure>\n<p>If you noticed Natasha Bertrand on that list, you might also remember she was the one through whom 51 &ldquo;former intel officials&rdquo; <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/qHwZF\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">laundered<\/a> their statement denouncing the Hunter Biden laptop as likely Russian disinformation. We now know, according to one of its signers, that the letter was <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2023\/05\/09\/cia-solicited-signatures-for-hunter-biden-laptop-letter-congressional-testimony-shows\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">crafted<\/a> to help Joe Biden discredit reporting about the Biden family&rsquo;s overseas influence-peddling that was sourced to the laptop. <\/p>\n<p>Every time you read a news article, you should ask yourself: &ldquo;Why might the writer want me to believe this?&rdquo; When the legacy news media reached the sudden and unified conclusion that the Hunter Biden laptop was not worth paying attention to, on the eve of the 2020 presidential election, it was terribly convenient for their Democrat allies. <\/p>\n<p>Everyone has his own agenda, and when a story affirms a reporter&rsquo;s agenda, he will be more motivated to run with it. That&rsquo;s one of the reasons so many people fell for the Trump-Russia collusion lie &mdash; it soothed their preexisting feelings about Trump and the 2016 election.<\/p>\n<p>And don&rsquo;t just pay attention to a writer&rsquo;s motives; pay attention to his sources. The &ldquo;former intel officials&rdquo; who pimped out the <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\">laptop disinformation lie included deep staters<\/a> like Obama-era Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan. Both men have <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2019\/03\/06\/four-different-lies-james-clapper-told-about-lying-to-congress\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">lied<\/a> under oath about <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2020\/12\/06\/obama-cia-director-john-brennan-lies-again-about-no-spying-on-trumps-campaign\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">spying<\/a> on Americans and both used their positions in the intelligence world to <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2018\/04\/27\/house-intel-report-james-clapper-lied-dossier-leaks-cnn\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">help<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2023\/05\/16\/in-a-healthy-democracy-john-brennan-would-already-be-in-prison\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">spread<\/a> the Russia collusion hoax. Their signatures were a giant clue that the letter disparaging reporting about the Hunter Biden laptop was a partisan info op.<\/p>\n<p>On the subject of sources, another great indicator that should ping your info-op radar is when an explosive story exclusively cites anonymous sources, especially when those anonymous allegations are refuted by on-the-record rebuttals.<\/p>\n<p>That&rsquo;s exactly what happened when Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2024\/10\/trump-military-generals-hitler\/680327\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">published<\/a> a sensational, anonymously-sourced rumor in 2020 that Donald Trump had referred to soldiers interred at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery as &ldquo;suckers&rdquo; and &ldquo;losers.&rdquo; The media ran with the tale despite the fact that 25 people &mdash; 14 of whom were with the president in France &mdash;&nbsp;went on the record refuting it.<\/p>\n<p>One election cycle later, in October 2024, Goldberg tried the same tactic, <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/10\/24\/here-are-all-the-people-on-record-debunking-the-atlantics-latest-trump-hoax\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">accusing<\/a> Trump of speaking disrespectfully of murdered Army Specialist Vanessa Guill&eacute;n after meeting with her family and offering to help with funeral costs. Guill&eacute;n&rsquo;s sister, the family&rsquo;s attorney, Trump&rsquo;s chief of staff who was present for the conversation in question, and a handful of other parties all denied Goldberg&rsquo;s story.<\/p>\n<p>The ineffectiveness of last-minute lies about Trump during that election showed how much the media has been <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/11\/06\/2024s-biggest-loser-is-the-corporate-media-industrial-complex\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">weakened<\/a>. But until they are truly powerless, they will keep trying to claw back influence by deploying new narratives and supposed scandals.<\/p>\n<p>The thing about info ops, of course, is that they&rsquo;re only effective as long as people believe them. By understanding how their game works, you can make yourself invincible &mdash; and make the media that much weaker.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Elle Purnell is the elections editor at The Federalist. Her work has been featured by Fox Business, RealClearPolitics, the Tampa Bay Times, and the Independent Women&#8217;s Forum. She received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @_ellepurnell.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yosemite Park visitors may be trapped in bathrooms, claims media<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1353,"featured_media":2406821,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/bullhorns.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[51123,51122,4188,3646,11684],"class_list":["post-2406820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","tag-digital-literacy","tag-information-operations","tag-media","tag-security","tag-self-defense"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/bullhorns.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2406820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1353"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2406820"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2406820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2406824,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2406820\/revisions\/2406824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2406821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2406820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2406820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2406820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}