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Okay, I'll make you happy.
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There is no indication that the United States is making any plans to use nuclear weapons against Iran at this time.
- Thread starter DEFCON Warning System
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Blessing = consent
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- Nov 16, 2022
NuclearID, how exactly do you propose that the US government "puts the press in their place"? Through what mechanism do you want state control of media? I don't know how you step in with controls for sensationalism without appointing someone at the behest of the government to decide what the govt thinks is too sensationalist to run, basically the power to kill stories, while the govt can change or be compromised.
I am in agreement with the other users - the POTUS publicly stating a whole civilization will be ended/wiped out is inherently going to create speculation and panic and he knows what he's doing, this is much more problematic than the usual expected behavior of the US mainstream media where they talk about this speculation that people will be doing anyway and report on what was said. The press' job is not to construct a clean narrativization of events to keep people calm it's to report on them first, analyze them second, and opine on them third (that's why many readers are with X news sub over Y, they value what the people there have to say on an issue).
If anything media companies are already far too controlled through manipulation eg. Weiss at CBS.
I am in agreement with the other users - the POTUS publicly stating a whole civilization will be ended/wiped out is inherently going to create speculation and panic and he knows what he's doing, this is much more problematic than the usual expected behavior of the US mainstream media where they talk about this speculation that people will be doing anyway and report on what was said. The press' job is not to construct a clean narrativization of events to keep people calm it's to report on them first, analyze them second, and opine on them third (that's why many readers are with X news sub over Y, they value what the people there have to say on an issue).
If anything media companies are already far too controlled through manipulation eg. Weiss at CBS.
No, I am not advocating state control of the media, so let’s kill that strawman right now.
What I am talking about is media irresponsibility. There is a difference between reporting serious facts and dressing them up with sensationalism, speculation, and fear driven framing because panic drives clicks.
A lot of us end up dealing with the downstream effects of that privately. People come in scared out of their minds over narratives that were inflated far beyond the actual known facts, and then we have to waste time walking them back to reality. That handholding is constant, even if the public never sees it.
What makes it worse is that reality is often already grim enough without the extra theatrical nonsense. In many cases the truth is scarier than the clickbait, but at least the truth can be analyzed honestly. Sensationalized framing cannot. It distorts how people interpret risk, and then everyone has to clean up the mess afterward.
So when I say the press needs to be put in its place, I am not talking about censorship. I am talking about standards, restraint, and not treating every crisis like a chance to farm public hysteria for engagement.
I am not talking out of my ass here. I am talking from experience.
People take nuclear threat reporting far more seriously than many in the media seem to understand, and some of them do not handle fear rationally once panic gets injected into the information stream.
I have dealt with that privately. Other staff have dealt with it privately. @RiffRaff has said publicly and privately that people have even threatened to end their lives rather than face an imagined nuclear blast wave.So spare me the lecture about how this is just the press “doing its job.”
When outlets farm fear, speculation, and hysteria for clicks, they do not deal with the human consequences. We do. People like me and others at DWS get stuck cleaning up their mess, calming people down, and dragging them back toward reality after irresponsible coverage has already done its damage.
That is why I am angry. And yes, there needs to be accountability.
The facts are serious enough. Stop turning them into a carnival. MEDIA MUST BE HELD ACOUNTABLE. ENOUGH IS ENOGHN, LIFE IS ALREADY SCARY ENOUGH.
@DEFCON Warning System @RiffRaff @Irag8er @Torch @Sentry I am calling all staff out here. I am all for free press. I would not being doing what I do otherwise. However, this is a REAL issue. Every staff member needs to make a statement here about this.I am not talking out of my ass here. I am talking from experience.
People take nuclear threat reporting far more seriously than many in the media seem to understand, and some of them do not handle fear rationally once panic gets injected into the information stream.
So spare me the lecture about how this is just the press “doing its job.”
When outlets farm fear, speculation, and hysteria for clicks, they do not deal with the human consequences. We do. People like me and others at DWS get stuck cleaning up their mess, calming people down, and dragging them back toward reality after irresponsible coverage has already done its damage.
That is why I am angry. And yes, there needs to be accountability.
The facts are serious enough. Stop turning them into a carnival. MEDIA MUST BE HELD ACOUNTABLE. ENOUGH IS ENOGHN, LIFE IS ALREADY SCARY ENOUGH.
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It is not a strawman, you said they need to be put in their place, how does that occur? Who puts them in their place? What is their place?
If it was hyperbole on your part and you do not believe what you said that is fair, but this is different from me constructing a strawman.
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Sorry, but I completely disagree with your point on this subject:
When a president declares, "An entire civilization will die tonight," he says what he means, doesn't he?
Trump is president, not a clown in a play.
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The Islamic Regime in Iran has been at war with the US since 1979 when they kidnapped and held hostage our diplomats for.over a year. Since then,.via their proxy armies,.they've kidnapped and.murdered thousands of Americans -- both military and civilians. They've made no secret of their plans to get nuclear weapons, nor of their desire to annihilate us. Their sleeper cells in our country are an open secret. The majority of the boots on the ground in this conflict -- and the allied.casualties -- have been Israeli -- so, please explain in what way the US is fighting a war for Israel?
IMHO, anyone jumping straight to nukes here is out of their mind.
The United States has plenty of conventional weapons it has not used like fuel air bombs and plenty of targets it has not hit yet. I do not see how any reasonable person looks at the current situation and concludes nuclear use would somehow be the next step. That is not disciplined analysis. That is panic filling in the blanks.
A president making an extreme statement does not automatically mean the next move is nuclear employment. Those are two very different things. Rhetoric matters, yes. But rhetoric is not the same as actual force planning, targeting logic, or decision making thresholds.
And that is exactly where a lot of mainstream media coverage does damage. People hear the most dramatic line possible, then run with their imagination from there, often far past the reality on the ground. Then people like me, and DWS more broadly, are left cleaning up the mess for those who actually take this threat seriously and are trying to understand what is real versus what is emotional amplification.The facts are serious enough on their own. They do not need to be inflated into “nukes must be next” to hold attention. Even in this thread, the core point has been that there is no current indication of U.S. plans to use nuclear weapons against Iran, that there is no clear justification for doing so at this time, and that such a move would be globally destabilizing rather than strategically clean or simple....
How about report the facts and not sensationalize? Can we even agree on that? If not I suppose we have nothing left to say to each other BECASUE at the end of the day I have to convince people not to kill themselves or overreact because the media felt like putting BS clickbait fearmonger out there and they knew exactly what they were doing.
So again. Easy place to say that when people don't rely on you for factual reporting and a sense of reality and not vibes or feelings or fearmongering from the press for some quick clicks.
This is both a right and left problem regarding media and not signaling out either side here in that fact. It is a broad problem that involves both sides on a wide spectrum of issues beyond politics.I have had enough of the hysteria. So, I am checking out, Staff can do follow up posts to calm the irrational fears spurred by an irresponsible press.
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- Nov 16, 2022
That's all fair and dandy, it also completely doesn't address the comment you're replying to. I'm not sure how they're related. We can all agree they should report the facts and not sensationalize. But who would put them in their place and how, or is it not a strawman?
I think you're just writing out of pure emotion here and that isn't me trying to argue with the person but rather it doesn't seem like we are going to get anywhere productive here because instead of engaging with what's being said to you you're just looping about how important your reporting is and how irresponsible the media is. We get that, that's not the point, the media is irresponsible, but they "need to be put in their place" is the point of contention. If your reporting is as important as you say it is then you also have a responsibility to consider such rhetoric and its own consequences no?
You're tired of the hysteria but you're talking to someone calmly criticizing your choice of rhetoric with these long sometimes multi post rants pinging all staff on how important your point is etc..
Edit - I saw the original post that this thread is linked from and yeah jailing journalists for whatever SOMEONE decides is too sensationalist. Yet somehow this isn't advocating for the state to control media...
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- Mar 7, 2013
I think we should consider going to DEFCON 3 immediately AND disable the Defcon color style chooser. Trump isn't a typical American president so past conflicts may be insufficient reference points.
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There aren't enough hard signals to justify it IMO but from a personal perspective given the effect on supply chains it makes sense to prepare as though it is before it is and it's a lot harder to prepare.
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Goodness it's been a while.
Thought I'd pop in and say hello, curious to hear how you're all getting on.
I must say, the staff team's nose for trouble hasn't dulled. They're bang on the money with DEFCON 4, this Iran kerfuffle will most likely be resolved peacefully, or at least in a way that doesn't involve nukes. There is a tiny slither of a chance hence why you're at D4, but it's not likely enough to be DEFCON 3.
Nobody benefits from setting one off at the moment, Iran would be nuked to the stone age if they set one off in a van in Tel Aviv or DC. Trump would be booted out of office and probably sent to jail if he did, Putin's staying out of it militarily because he doesn't want to fight the US, and China is even more keen to stay out of it. Everyone just wants the strait reopened (except Russia).
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The media likes to blow things out of proportion because they are in this for views.
And then there is the agenda. The press doesn't like Trump, so they will do what they can to put a bad light on him. If Biden or Obama said the same thing, you'd see it reported differently.
Should Trump have said what he said? No. Will the Iranians see it as aggressive? Yes.
Does it mean the US intends to use nuclear weapons? No.
The press knows this, but fear sells, and fear of this president gets people to vote for the other guy, whom the press wants.
And then there is the agenda. The press doesn't like Trump, so they will do what they can to put a bad light on him. If Biden or Obama said the same thing, you'd see it reported differently.
Should Trump have said what he said? No. Will the Iranians see it as aggressive? Yes.
Does it mean the US intends to use nuclear weapons? No.
The press knows this, but fear sells, and fear of this president gets people to vote for the other guy, whom the press wants.
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Fixed that for you. The reality of those two weapons had little to do with ending the war.
Not for lack of trying. Macarthur wanted to use nuclear weapons on China during Korea. The US considered the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Vietnam twice, once in 1954 and again in 1969.
Exactly. We have more than enough conventional firepower to reduce Iran to rubble several times over. There is zero military necessity for the US to use nuclear weapons. However, considering Hiroshima and Nagasaki were sacrificed to pursue a political agenda against the Soviet Union, that's technically never stopped the US before.
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What we have here in 2026 is a global geopolitical/social situation we have never faced before. Four of the world's nuclear-armed nations have leaders with questionable mental stability and/or motives: North Korea, Russia, Israel, and the US. Pakistan's command and control over their nukes is questionable. France has stated they want to increase their nuclear arsenal. Germany and Saudi Arabia have both discussed the possibility of developing their own nuclear weapons. There is no doubt that Iran wants one, and multiple terrorist groups would just love to get their hands on one. The ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East both involve multiple opposing nuclear powers in one way or another.
It is not a matter of "if" nuclear weapons will be used in combat; it's a matter of "when" and "who first?" Keep in mind that would still be a true statement even if both wars ended tomorrow and the world returned to "normal." The odds of a nuclear weapon being used in combat are 100% across a long enough timeline. In other words, as long as they continue to exist, someone will eventually use one. Guaranteed.
We also have a global population that is overwhelmed with instant access to information, most of it conflicting. The only way to get anyone's attention is to pop out a terrifying headline that gets people to click on the link. The US media was held accountable at one point. The Fairness Doctrine forced news media to cover controversial topics with fair, balanced, and rational reporting. President Reagan got rid of it during his second term. This is why people like Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones were allowed to broadcast their bullshit with no repercussions. Reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, and a lot of this country's media problems would vanish overnight.
Finally, this organization would be derelict if we did not consider threats or references to use nuclear weapons from world leaders as possible at bare minimum, even if it's not a rational or credible threat. It's been thirty years since the last atmospheric nuclear test. The number of people who have actually witnessed firsthand the power of a nuclear detonation gets smaller every single day. That's another variable in the odds of combat use steadily going up.
I firmly believe I will see a nuclear weapon used in combat in my lifetime. Part of me is astonished it hasn't happened already, especially considering all of the "near miss" incidents we've had. I've just learned to accept it.
It is not a matter of "if" nuclear weapons will be used in combat; it's a matter of "when" and "who first?" Keep in mind that would still be a true statement even if both wars ended tomorrow and the world returned to "normal." The odds of a nuclear weapon being used in combat are 100% across a long enough timeline. In other words, as long as they continue to exist, someone will eventually use one. Guaranteed.
We also have a global population that is overwhelmed with instant access to information, most of it conflicting. The only way to get anyone's attention is to pop out a terrifying headline that gets people to click on the link. The US media was held accountable at one point. The Fairness Doctrine forced news media to cover controversial topics with fair, balanced, and rational reporting. President Reagan got rid of it during his second term. This is why people like Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones were allowed to broadcast their bullshit with no repercussions. Reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, and a lot of this country's media problems would vanish overnight.
Finally, this organization would be derelict if we did not consider threats or references to use nuclear weapons from world leaders as possible at bare minimum, even if it's not a rational or credible threat. It's been thirty years since the last atmospheric nuclear test. The number of people who have actually witnessed firsthand the power of a nuclear detonation gets smaller every single day. That's another variable in the odds of combat use steadily going up.
I firmly believe I will see a nuclear weapon used in combat in my lifetime. Part of me is astonished it hasn't happened already, especially considering all of the "near miss" incidents we've had. I've just learned to accept it.