patrick.net

Patrick says

How does anyone fall for such obvious gaslighting?

There are a lot of horribly stupid people out there.

https://notthebee.com/article/check-out-this-amazing-thread-highlighting-the-hypocrisy-of-the-media-covering-florida-lifting-mask-mandates-vs-all-the-blue-states-doing-it-now?source=patrick.net

An honest Canadian journalist gets fired for opposing the vaxx mandates.

https://notthebee.com/article/give-a-listen-to-this-canadian-radio-hosts-final-words-on-his-radio-show-which-he-had-to-part-ways-with-due-to-his-anti-mandate-stance?source=patrick.net

So it seems Vancouver's Z95.3 has parted ways with host Kid Carson, who, just a few months ago, got placed on the naughty list for coming out against vaccine passports on air.

He couldn't take it anymore, so on Wednesday morning he just started talking like a normal person, on air, on his way out the door.

Here is that beautiful piece of audio for ya:

https://hwfo.substack.com/p/i-offer-you-joe-rogans-head-on-a?source=patrick.net

I believe the Joe Rogan listeners would be okay with Joe Rogan’s cancellation if they had assurances that the alternatives were going to stop intentionally and willfully lying to them. To that end, I have crafted a set of terms that I think would be acceptable by both sides. Here are the terms.

Every journalist who said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction is cancelled.

Every journalist who claims there is a bivariate correlation between gun ownership rate and gun homicide rate is cancelled.

Every journalist who said the lab leak theory of Covid-19 origin was racist or conspiracy theory is cancelled.

Every journalist who calls a bi-yearly medical treatment with a 30% or less chance of preventing disease transmission “a vaccine” is cancelled.

Every journalist who said Russia meaningfully influenced the results of the 2016 US election is cancelled.

Every journalist who promulgated the “MAGA Hat Kids” story is cancelled.

Every journalist who refused to even be remotely skeptical about Epstein killing himself is cancelled.

Every journalist who’s ever published anything about IQ is cancelled.

Every journalist, corporate entity, or government entity who has ever said the phrase “HORSE DEWORMER” is cancelled.

Every journalist who has ever said the phrase “healthy at any size” is cancelled.

Every journalist who misrepresented known facts about Kyle Rittenhouse is cancelled.

Every journalist who called a year long protest which did approximately as much property damage as a Category 2 hurricane “mostly peaceful” is cancelled.

There are a tremendous number of other potential entries to this list, but this list is comprehensive enough that if we cancel all journalists who said any one of them, it’s very likely they’re also guilty of saying most of the rest, and probably guilty of promulgating any number of additional list entries so this list should suffice.

Take all these journalists and put all their heads on pikes, and I promise to deliver you Joe’s as a willful sacrifice.

"Nobody is certain?"

LOL WTF

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/big-tech-media-crack-pipe-biden-free-beacon/?source=patrick.net

Big Tech covers up Biden’s crack pipe giveaway
America’s information gatekeepers are the Democrats’ rapid-response unit

Remember this?

When will journalists apologize?

https://notthebee.com/article/watch-hillary-clinton-confronted-about-spying-on-donald-trump?source=patrick.net

Very weird to see a journalist with integrity these days.

https://t.me/greatreject/30666?source=patrick.net

Convoy organizers leave the room after a New York Times reporter asks a question.

This is the right way to deal with such a flagrantly biased fake-news organization like the NY Times.

https://nitter.net/johndefeo/status/1494000664078344206?source=patrick.net#m

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare many shortcomings and frailties in our society, but for me, none has been more damaging than the collapse of objective journalism.

I've worked in newsrooms for most of my career; I'd like to share how my experiences explain my view:

First, let me say that this thread is not an indictment of journalists, but rather an indictment of a system that produces bad journalism. The strange thing about systems is that they perpetuate and defend themselves, even when the participants of the system do not agree.

Yes, there are bad journalists. I should know: I was one of them. But, I had the benefit of good role models early in my career. I'll never forget the time I presented a single-source article to my editor. He said "What the fuck is this, an advertisement?"


Bringing me to:

Unreasonable Story Counts:

On average, the journalists that I've worked with had an expectation of producing 3-4 stories per day and one editor had 4-5 writers beneath.

This was a corporate demand, not an editorial one, and it does not allow time for top quality work.


Lack of Technical Editors:

Editors with a STEM background or a specific technical speciality are expensive and in short supply. I've seen a single technical story that required approximately one week of editing time. Many publications cannot afford this.


Words Edited, Numbers Not:

In the absence of a technical editor, many stories are edited for clarity, but not for data integrity. The results are most often seen when millions/billions/trillions are confused, or when bad metric conversions slip by.


Pageview Targets:

In addition to story counts (see #4 above), many journalists are encouraged (or directly incentivized) to reach pageview targets. Doing so has an impact on story selection (see #8 below).


Inefficacy of Straight News:

A story that is a plain statement of facts presented without sensationalism, will, on average, receive 400-1,200 visits. This is a guaranteed financial loss for an ad-supported news website.


Efficacy of Emotional Manipulation:

To increase readership of a straight news story, there are emotional triggers that can be leveraged. E.g. Headlines that include "Why You Should..." or "Why We Must..." Writers learn these tactics by exposure, or are taught directly.


Search Engine Optimization:

Many organizations rely on search engine traffic to sustain financial viability. I worked in this field for years and I believe that it is diametrically opposed to accountable journalism. Two major reasons listed below:


Confirmation Bias in Story Selection:

People who use search engines are, with their search data, broadcasting what they want to read. It is reverse broadcasting. News organizations get the message and prepare content with higher odds of success.


Rewrites for Marketability:

Reporters and editors are losing control of their own words, even within the body content of articles. Some of the articles that I wrote years ago have been edited to include marketing buzzwords and dubious links.


Make What We Sell:

A media sales team, left unchecked, will close almost any deal that will result in financial benefit for the sales team (not the news organization). As a result, journalists are forced to create content to fulfill questionable campaigns.


Bullying From Sales:

I once assigned a story that, unbeknownst to me, called into question the business model of an advertiser. The head of sales screamed at me in front of the entire newsroom. Luckily, my editor defended me. Not all do.


Bullying From External PR:

I once published the compensation packages of highly-paid CEOs. It was a matter of public record, yet a powerful PR executive (who represented one of those CEOs) demanded that the story be retracted and for me to be fired.


Bullying From Big Tech:

I've seen companies like Google threaten to remove major revenue sources from a news organization unless a particular story was unpublished. The reasons were often silly (like an elbow that looked like a breast), but the implications are sinister.


Bullying From Lawyers:

Some of the best journalism that I've seen firsthand was responded to with massive 8-figure lawsuits. Not every news organization has legal protections, insurance and a general counsel who stands behind good journalism.


Violent Threats:

In addition to lawsuits (see #17 above), some of the best journalism that I've seen firsthand was responded to with threats of death or rape. Credible or not, these threats are terrifying and they take an emotional toll.


Threat of Revoked Access:

Invitations to conferences and press briefings are in short supply. It can take years to earn an invite. On the other hand, a single critical story may result in revoked credentials and a complete blackballing of a journalist or publication.


Literal Lack of Boundaries:

Many newsrooms have open floor plans that can result in undue (and often, unintended, pressure).

E.g. A CEO leans on the desk of a 21-year old reporter and asks why hasn't __ been covered yet.

That story is often written, like it or not.


Removal of Comment Sections:

To mitigate threats and abuse (see #18 above), many websites have removed comment sections. There are unintended consequences. Almost every major error that I've corrected was first exposed to me in the comments on an article that I published.


Corrections Kill Momentum:

When a correction is added to the top of a story (even something as innocent as mis-spelling of a name), the velocity of pageviews and social sharing falls precipitously. I have measured this directly.


Corrections Are Embarrassing:

"Soft corrections" are a way to avoid retraction. I did it early in my career. E.g. I made a mistake in my bond math; a reader writes "This doesn't make sense unless it's a zero-coupon bond." Me: "Er, yeah, that's what I meant." I didn't.


Corrections Therefore Buried:

Should a reader be so lucky that a story is corrected, the new information is likely to be viewed 1-2% as often as the misinformation. (I have measure this directly). I.e. Bad info gets 50-100x the exposure that the good does.


Inability to Hire Talent:

I have twice tried to hire someone who was significantly more talented than I was. I had no problem with an employee earning more than me, but my company did. It makes no sense: Winning teams don't pay their coaches more than MVPs. Media does.


The "Shock Jock" Exception:

Top-notch reporters and data journalists struggle for competitive pay (see #25 above), but many newsrooms will offer big bucks to blowhard columnists. It may result in reporters taking harder (and less objective) stances.


Sensational Feedback Cycle:

Sensational stories often get sensational pageviews, which triggers more rewards from related content algorithms via companies like Outbrain and Taboola.

When sensationalism is rewarded, objectivity is punished.


Effects of Apathy:

This thread shows how journalists have suffered abuse by a thousand cuts. It's no surprise that cheap sourcing results in sensational stories that are too bountiful to correct:

johnwdefeo.com/articles/deep…

johnwdefeo.com/articles/seo-…

johnwdefeo.com/articles/goog…


The U.S. press has rushed, flubbed and left uncorrected many COVID-19 topics: Origin thesis, aerosols, masking, comorbidities, seasonality, natural immunity, With/From, scientific dissent, clinical trial parameters, censorship, bias risks, myocarditis, kid's mental health.


This thread is about reasons, not excuses.

Journalists have printed and amplified demonstrably false statements made by politicians and public officials. Yet, to my mind, it is journalists who have the best platform and incentive to set the record straight.

Patrick says

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare many shortcomings and frailties in our society, but for me, none has been more damaging than the collapse of objective journalism.

This is great.

Patrick says

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare many shortcomings and frailties in our society, but for me, none has been more damaging than the collapse of objective journalism.

No, objective journalism did not collapse with Covid, it is that the long on-going lack of objectivity was undeniably exposed.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10511877/NYT-editorial-board-backs-Freedom-Convoys-right-protest.html?source=patrick.net

Now NYT backs the truckers: Editorial Board says 'allowing nonviolent protest is important in a polarized society' and reminds Trudeau that he supported farmers blocking highways in India for a full year
New York Times editorial board supported the rights of the truckers to protest
Essay said protest snarling Ottawa 'ranks as a nuisance' in the broader scheme
Pointed out that Trudeau supported farmers blocking roads in India for a year
Meanwhile, Trudeau is reportedly preparing to invoke emergency powers

What, a glimmer of integrity from the NY Times? How long before Klaus Schwab has this squashed?

MSM have been displaying 'deception exhaustion' for a while. When you report on a shifting reality, you have an infinite palette. When you make shit up according to a programmed screed from calcified psychopaths, you have nothing to build on and eventually you start publishing absurdities contradicting absurdities designed to hold up previous absurdities. It's why we are in the bizarre attribution phase where they link junk fiction with other junk fiction.

https://tobyrogers.substack.com/p/thinking-points-february-20-2022?source=patrick.net

The CDC and mainstream media want you to know that only large Republican gatherings are superspreader events, large gatherings of Democrats could not possibly lead to virus transmission

The CDC and mainstream media continue to slide down the slippery slope toward declaring that Democrats are the master race and all Republicans are disease-carrying untermenschen. How else to explain the tortured logic whereby BLM protests and anime/furry conventions are declared not to be superspreader events but the motorcycle rally in Sturgis and Trump campaign rallies are deemed superspreader events?

‘Democrats good’:

CNN: Black Lives Matter protests have not led to a spike in coronavirus cases, research says
NY Times: A New York City anime convention was not a superspreader event, a C.D.C. study finds
‘Republican bad’:

Washington Post: Sturgis motorcycle rally linked to more than 100 coronavirus infections amid delta surge
CNBC: Trump campaign rallies led to more than 30,000 coronavirus cases, Stanford researchers say
If you click through and read any of these articles you’ll see that they are filled with preposterous junk science designed to fit a pre-determined conclusion.

Progressivism is now characterized by Bougie Supremacism that sorts people into a moral hierarchy based on their obedience to Pharma.

Patrick says

How does anyone fall for such obvious gaslighting?

It's quite simple:

"We have journalistic freedom - it isn't possible they could ALL be lying to me".

Well, we don't have journalistic freedom. That's just in the Constitution - but it's just a goddamned piece of paper.

People can't believe our "mainstream media" is ALL propaganda. ALL of it is. They can't accept that as being true, but it is.

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-neoliberal-war-on-dissent-in?source=patrick.net

When it comes to distant and adversarial countries, we are taught to recognize tyranny through the use of telltale tactics of repression. Dissent from orthodoxies is censored. Protests against the state are outlawed. Dissenters are harshly punished with no due process. Long prison terms are doled out for political transgressions rather than crimes of violence. Journalists are treated as criminals and spies. Opposition to the policies of political leaders are recast as crimes against the state.

When a government that is adverse to the West engages in such conduct, it is not just easy but obligatory to malign it as despotic. Thus can one find, on a virtually daily basis, articles in the Western press citing the government's use of those tactics in Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela and whatever other countries the West has an interest in disparaging (articles about identical tactics from regimes supported by the West — from Riyadh to Cairo — are much rarer). That the use of these repressive tactics render these countries and their populations subject to autocratic regimes is considered undebatable.

But when these weapons are wielded by Western governments, the precise opposite framework is imposed: describing them as despotic is no longer obligatory but virtually prohibited. That tyranny exists only in Western adversaries but never in the West itself is treated as a permanent axiom of international affairs, as if Western democracies are divinely shielded from the temptations of genuine repression. Indeed, to suggest that a Western democracy has descended to the same level of authoritarian repression as the West's official enemies is to assert a proposition deemed intrinsically absurd or even vaguely treasonous.

richwicks says

Well, we don't have journalistic freedom. That's just in the Constitution - but it's just a goddamned piece of paper.

Yes we do. And they're free to Propagandize, which is what they do.

Imagine if we had Equal Time laws for newscasts. That they had to devote 1/3rd of an opinion segment to the other side (not just uniparty members agreeing across the aisle, but actual people who disagreed with the opinions).

AmericanKulak says

Imagine if we had Equal Time laws for newscasts. That they had to devote 1/3rd of an opinion segment to the other side (not just uniparty members agreeing across the aisle, but actual people who disagreed with the opinions).

No I don't think this is a good idea actually. You just end up with a false dichotomy instead. To give "balance" the argument could be centered around WHY we should go to war with country X, and whether we should wouldn't even be considered for example. That's our two parties.

I've experienced direct censorship myself. Google cut off my account. THAT'S how they engage in censorship now, and you know why they are doing this?

It's because they are losing. Posts are deleted, they are shadowbanned, people and organizations are removed from search engines, propagandists like CNN, Fox, MSNBC etc are promoted as "most popular" on Youtube even though they aren't, people are unsubscribed without their knowledge and consent from news feeds, email doesn't show up because it's been blocked...

And they just get weaker and weaker and weaker. ALL they had to do, is not be such fucking pieces of shit. I don't care if somebody has a billion dollars, or really even care how they got it - that would be a pain in the ass to have, but even though they have enough money for anything they could possibly imagine, they have to fuck with everybody else. They need to start wars, they have to create culture wars, they have to control thinking, they have dumb down education, they have to promote propaganda - it's not that they HAVE to do this to retain their positions - but they do. They're just psychopathic assholes.

People aren't pissed off that they are rich and power, they're pissed off because they purposely fuck with everybody else and the more they fuck with people paradoxically, the weaker their position becomes. I mean, Bill Gates is trying to get everybody to get a worthless (at best) vaccine. There goes his reputation for running a charity and why is he doing this? He's just an asshole, that's why.

richwicks says

People aren't pissed off that they are rich and power, they're pissed off because they purposely fuck with everybody else and the more they fuck with people paradoxically, the weaker their position becomes. I mean, Bill Gates is trying to get everybody to get a worthless (at best) vaccine. There goes his reputation for running a charity and why is he doing this? He's just an asshole, that's why.

Dark Truth I've realized from the History of Byzantium, Russia, France, Venice, etc: Rich Fucks want their way in all things. Byzantium lasted so long because of the Emperors who put the rich in their place, esp. since they were often Magnates who knew how their own colleagues thought.

We need to get the rich to hate and fuck with each other, a balance of power, if you will.

https://tobyrogers.substack.com/p/thinking-points-02-22-2022?source=patrick.net

Parallel narrative structures

First principles: there is no such thing as an organic “news” story these days. If a story appears in the NY Times or in the mainstream media it’s because the story was packaged and placed there by a PR firm, organized campaign, or government body.

So it’s more than a little weird that the mainstream media is now focused on the major themes that we have raised — censorship, the disenfranchisement of huge sections of the population, the rise of fascism, and the possibility of civil war — but they live in this bizarro opposite world and so they project all of the things that they are doing onto us.

For example, take a look at this recent Op Ed in the NY Times

“You Just Can’t Tell the Truth About America”
I read that headline and thought — right on! Exactly! We just cannot tell the truth about how the pharmaceutical industry has taken over all aspects of government and the mainstream media!

Then I read the first paragraph and my cheers grew even louder:

There is a dangerous censoriousness pulsing through American society. In small towns and big cities alike, would-be commissars are fighting, in the name of a distinct minority of Americans, to stifle open discussion and impose their views on the community at large. Dissenters, when they speak out, are hounded, ostracized and sometimes even forced from their jobs.

And I’m thinking to myself FINALLY someone understands what we’re going through with all of the censorship of scientific information online by social media companies who are not-so-secretly working for the cartel.

Alas, as you probably already guessed, it was not to be. The article never mentions the vast Stasi network that has been set up by the Biden administration, a wide range of astroturf nonprofits, and corrupt academics to censor anyone who criticizes the cartel. The article never once mentions the fact that hundreds of thousands of conservatives are banned from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram because they dared question the cartel. Instead the Op Ed takes issue who parents who get too involved in school board debates over textbooks about history and sex.

The headline and the emotional valence of the article were our issue — too much censorship! — flipped around, targets changed, and directed back at us.

And it’s not just that article. It’s everywhere. Take this recent article by David Remnick in the New Yorker that got a lot of attention:

Is a Civil War Ahead?
A year after the attack on the Capitol, America is suspended between democracy and autocracy.

And I’m thinking, EXACTLY! — Vaccine Apartheid in places like NY, Chicago, Boston, and SF has polarized our country; it’s causing families to have to flee Pharma slavery in blue states and move to the freedom of red states; partition seems likely, civil war is a definite possibility; Florida would have already declared independence except for the the fact that Ron DeSantis has a great chance of being elected President in 2024...

Nope, that’s not what the article is about at all. It’s all about Donald Trump, the January 6 insurrection, and how Republicans are evil.

In addition there are now heaps of stories about Republican disenfranchisement of minority voters even as Democratic mayors spent the last year setting up Vaccine Jim Crow that denied the full rights of citizenship to upwards of 75% of young Black Americans.

And there are heaps of stories about the rise in authoritarianism and fascism on the right, even as Democrats were setting up Pharma fascism and purging the police, military, education, and medical professions of their political opponents.

In all of this, even though they are stealing our themes, not once do these mainstream writers ever acknowledge that there is an equal and opposite argument on the other side where people are just as upset, if not more, and usually for valid reasons.

And if we operate from the first principles mentioned at the top of this section (that all stories are scripted to serve a larger narrative purpose) then it seems that Pharma knows exactly the issues and concerns that we are raising and they have set up a parallel narrative structure in the attempt to cancel out our voices. It’s almost like a noise cancelling machine — they are putting out the equal and opposite sound wave in the attempt to silence our message. Wild.

When I was a kid, they took me to the NBC Building in NYC.

I was shocked to discover the "Washington" Desk was a few feet from the "Main News Center in NYC" desk on the set. Not in DC.

This was around 1990.

AmericanKulak says

I was shocked to discover the "Washington" Desk was a few feet from the "Main News Center in NYC" desk on the set. Not in DC.

LOL! Kind of like Biden's luxurious Ikea desk on his little set. Some rumors state that because White House and DC are largely empty, most command decisions and guv department decisions are coming from offices unknown in NYC, not DC.