patrick.net

... stories you will typically see covered by the media are ones touching on a controversial issue where it is unclear who is at fault. This is because those stories will have enough information available to make a strong case either side is right, and in turn, people on either side will only be able to see the points supporting their narrative.

Once that happens, it is guaranteed many people will be available on both sides to fervently attack the other “wrong” side, allowing the story to go viral and capture the attention of the nation. This model thus allows the media to avoid covering topics which threaten their sponsors (e.g., the dangers of the COVID-19 vaccines) and to retain a large audience (along with the advertising dollars that accompany it) despite the media not producing anything of value for the public (e.g., real investigative journalism that speaks truth to power or information that empowers the audience).

I believe this dynamic is extremely damaging to the country as it:

•Wedges people apart.
•Creates a great deal of stress anger and anxiety.
•Detracts people from doing meaningful work.
•Prevents up from coming together and finding reasonable solutions to the major problems we share as a nation.

Like a sullen teenager, the New York Times is not letting go of the “Hamas General Hospital” story. On Monday, following a week of blistering criticism, the chagrined Times was forced to retract their original fake news story blaming Israel for intentionally targeting a Palestinian hospital, in a humiliating, 300-word “Editor’s Note,” in which the paper grudgingly admitted it may have said certain things in the story that might have been slightly inaccurate — based on what other people told it! — but did not apologize.

The mistake wasn’t just another random blooper and the Times knew it. At least in part, the Times’ false article led to violent worldwide protests, significant property damage, many injuries, and a handful of deaths. Please don’t forget: for at least two years now the Times has been advocating for “misinformation spreaders” to be deplatformed or even jailed. Now the Times is the one spreading dangerous misinformation. So what standard should the Times now be held to? Should it be held to its own standard?

Earlier this month, Reuters published a massive media status report clocking in over 158 pages, titled Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2023. It’s a stinker.

Reuters is wringing its withered, bloodstained hands over the fact that traditional media — aka corporate media — is getting its butt kicked by random loudmouths on social media. In other words, the largest block of people would now rather get their news from Coffee & Covid than from The New York Times:




For some reason that Reuters thinks involves “misinformation,” global trust in trad-news media is low and still falling. In its conclusion, Reuters called for another bowl of buzzword salad: it said “urgent collective multi-stakeholder action is needed to rebuild trust in the media ecosystem, tackle disinformation and promote media information literacy.” ...

Anyway, there’s a lot more great stuff in the report, but I’m not suggesting you read it all. Here’s my bottom line: I predict trust in trad-media will continue falling. Why? Because nowhere in Reuters’ mega-report did it suggest TELLING THE TRUTH or FAIRLY PRESENTING BOTH SIDES.

It was even like those concepts were somehow impolite or offensive, like asking whether masks actually work back in 2021 or something. They just aren’t getting it.

Corporate media is evil. Look at how NBC framed this story, then let me tell you the details.

Here's what happened before I show you just how horrible corporate media is:
Dexter Wade was a 37-year-old man with children of his own, but separated from his ex and kids and living with his mother. He was a convicted criminal, with sentences for auto theft and armed robbery.
Shortly after 8 p.m. on March 5, 2023, he was high on PCP and meth and decided - for whatever reason - to walk across a highway. An off-duty officer hit him as he walked across the road. It was deemed an accident and the officer passed sobriety tests.
Wade had no ID on him, but police investigator LaGrand Elliott found a prescription and called the issuing pharmacy on March 8 to track down his identity. He then called the mother and left a voicemail for her after identifying her as Wade's next of kin.
The investigator passed the file to the Jackson Police Department on March 9 after fingerprints confirmed Wade's identity.
On March 14, the mother reported Wade missing. On March 15, the investigator followed up with Jackson PD. The investigator continued to follow up, but for some reason, Jackson PD didn't connect the dots. The Jackson PD missing persons investigator assigned to the case retired in August; two weeks later, the new investigator reported that Wade had been buried at the county's penal farm with other unclaimed bodies.
Those are the facts, as reported by NBC.
But NBC buries those details in thousands of words of text.

Instead, they framed it like this:

It wasn't until 172 excruciating days after his disappearance that Bettersten learned the truth: Dexter had been killed less than an hour after he'd left home, struck by a Jackson police car as he crossed a nearby interstate highway. Police had known Dexter's name, and hers, but failed to contact her, instead letting his body go unclaimed for months in the county morgue.

Readers primed to see police as hateful ✅

Growing up in Jackson, Dexter was a "sweet little boy," sharp with computers, a leader among classmates, a lover of nice clothes, a dreamer who hoped one day to run his own business refurbishing old cars.

That went awry in his teens, when he "got lost" under the influence of older men who stole cars and did drugs, Bettersten said.

Violent serial criminal framed as the victim. ✅

But prison had clearly damaged him. "You could look in his eyes and see he wasn't the same person," Thomas said. "I could tell he was struggling mentally."

American justice system framed as oppressive and racist. ✅

Dexter was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, Bettersten said. After starting medication, he decreased his illegal drug intake and stayed at home most of the day, cleaning and taking care of the yard. He liked to give homemade ice pops to kids on their street, handed food to people who didn't have homes and occasionally sold sodas and chips in the neighborhood. He rarely left the house for more than a day or two without calling, Bettersten said. He never showed signs of wanting to hurt himself.

Violent serial criminal portrayed as gentle giant. ✅

The decision to call the police was difficult for Bettersten. She did not trust them. In 2019, her 62-year-old brother died after a Jackson officer slammed him to the ground. The officer was convicted of manslaughter but is appealing.

Mother portrayed as victim of America's institutional racism. ✅

Then the pièce de résistance, what NBC was working up to this whole time:
"They had me looking for him all that time, and they knew who he was," Bettersten said.

She wondered if it had anything to do with her brother's death and her allegations against the police in that case. "Maybe it was a vendetta. Maybe they buried my son to get back at me," she said.

Idea that police are the bad guys cemented. ✅

This is why I hate the corporate media.

I decided to write a piece asking this question: Why isn’t “excess deaths” a major story?

It occurs to me that everyone reading my newsletter already knows the answer. Many, perhaps most, of the excess deaths could, in fact, be explained by the Covid vaccines.

As it turns out, some stories can’t become “stories” … because the story would debunk a crucially-important authorized narrative. Nobody (who matters) can mention that the giant V-word is the elephant in the room.

When Mark and I say that “excess deaths” isn’t a big story what we’re really saying is this subject isn’t a big story to any of the institutions or organizations that matter.

Excess deaths is actually a huge story in the alternative media and among hundreds of contrarian Substack authors, but (as we all should know by now) stories published in these places apparently don’t matter. ...

By now, it should be obvious the mainstream news organizations and “truth-seeking” public officials will never acknowledge the number of people dying in the world for the past two years is far greater than the number who were dying before Covid.

Or, if a few people do acknowledge this fact, it isn’t considered a big deal that should qualify as a major story.

‘Excess deaths’ was once THE story …

After all, “excess deaths” was THE story of the world in the last nine months of 2020.

As I pointed out in my recent essay, the only reason “Covid” became the story of our lifetimes is because this novel virus was allegedly killing vast numbers of people. If some new virus was infecting many people but wasn’t killing anyone, news of such an event might generate a few headlines for a week or so.

With Covid, multiple times every day the public saw “Covid” case counts, hospitalization counts and, most importantly, death counts. It was the deaths in excess of normal figures that explained all the panic and justified all the draconian lockdowns and then the necessity of everyone getting a new “vaccine.”

It was death, death, death. The message was, “everyone beware death; it’s out there” … and the mainstream press was definitely not ignoring it. Nor were any of our trusted rulers, who were going to save us all from death.

The vaccines arrived … and the deaths kept occurring

However, skip forward to the last two years and it’s undeniable that all these extra deaths didn’t disappear.

The first inconvenient fact was extra deaths spiked even more dramatically … in November and December 2020, the second year of the epidemic, when every possible mititation measure and mandate had been rolled out.

These deaths continued into 2021, which shouldn’t have happened because by mid to late 2021, 60 percent of the world had been vaccinated (and the most vulnerable were vaccinated first). If one remembers, the purpose of said vaccinations was to prevent deaths.

The public later learned that the real purpose of the vaccines wasn’t to prevent infections or virus spread (although 99 percent of the world thought this was the purpose of their shots). We now know that the real reason everyone had to get vaccinated was that these shots would prevent “severe cases” .. and the most severe case is one that leads to … death.

But - the scrolls on the bottom of the TV screen don’t lie - the deaths kept piling up.

Better treatment protocols didn’t reduce the deaths; the virus didn’t become less lethal with new mutations; the fact that millions of people with serious co-morbid health conditions (the most vulnerable or “at risk” population) had already died did not result in fewer future deaths.

Nor did huge numbers of people wearing masks; nor did lockdowns and non-stop testing or social distancing or cancelled events. The deaths just kept on coming.

And, in the winter of 2020-2021, all these deaths were still a huge story. A day didn’t go by where every news organization didn’t lead with Covid death stories and every politician and public health expert continued to devote 12 hours a day, telling everyone what they had to do to stop the dang deaths.

And then excess-death fatigue kicked in …

But, at some point, the world must have reached Covid death fatigue because excess deaths quit being “a story.”

Excess deaths clearly became our “New Normal.” Now everyone just accepts the extra deaths as part of our new world. A never-ending spike in excess deaths is such an old story it no longer qualifies as a story.

If excess deaths in 2021, 2022 and now 2023 was a huge story, The New York Times would be assigning reporters to investigate the reasons for this new normal and publishing their stories at the top of Page 1. Every mainstream news organization would be doing the same thing.

TV shows like “Sixty Minutes” would devote 60 minutes to just this topic.

Politicians would be holding high-level hearings trying to figure out why so many people who, in the past, weren’t dying, were now dying.

Speaking for myself, I haven’t seen these hearings or read any of these Page-1 stories.

This leads me to conclude that “excess deaths” were a story three years ago, but, for some reason, they are not a story today.

The fact “excess deaths” is clearly not a story (to the people and organizations that matter) would seem to confirm my maxim that all “truth-searching” organizations are captured.

One would think that, say, 10 percent of “news” organizations would include editors and journalists who thought that “tons of extra deaths” should be a story the truth-seeking press should investigate and report. But not even 1 percent of these news organizations have deemed continuing excess deaths as “news fit to print.”

So all the important news organizations are captured. They are also overflowing with hypocrites as, not that long ago, everyone agreed that excess deaths was the story of our times.

I’ll take a stab at a few reasons this isn’t a story …

Maybe the thinking in newsrooms is that, yes, we still have all these extra deaths - but this is explained by the fact we still have rampant Covid.

But the reporters can’t write this story without first admitting that the vaccines - which were invented to prevent deaths - clearly didn’t work.

Even if 70 percent of the population hadn’t gotten at least a few vaccines, the deaths should have gone down because, by now, just about everyone has had Covid.

So the vaccines don’t work and … natural immunity doesn’t work either. Covid was the first respiratory virus in history that kept killing for many years. Apparently, you can get six vaccines and have had four repeat cases and this virus is still going to keep killing people in huge numbers.

Another possibility honest reporters and officials might have to consider is that maybe many of these extra deaths (that keep showing up) weren’t all caused by Covid after all.

Maybe the continuing spikes in deaths were caused, in part, by suicides, increasing rates of alcohol and drug abuse, domestic and random violence, general stress, or people who stopped getting cancer screenings or quit taking their cholesterol or diabetes medicines.

However, if one endorses these explanations, one would have to admit that many of these “extra” deaths were indirectly caused by … the Covid protocols the press endorsed and our “public health” experts mandated.

They would be tacitly admitting that the virus mitigation measures actually ensured voluminous numbers of extra deaths that would occur short, medium and long-term in the future.

Also, these people would be tacitly admitting that no serious or intelligent “risk-benefit” calculation ever occurred.

Or, if such calculations were performed, it was decided that it was a good-trade off to lock down society. In other words, they signed off on these deaths … as necessary collateral damage.

What editors, journalists and public officials are really saying - via the subjects they choose to not highlight - is that these deaths aren’t that big a deal.

Maybe everyone doesn’t know these extra deaths are occurring?

It’s possible, I guess, that no journalist or no one at the CDC, WHO or NIH … or no prominent politician has even noticed the continued incidence of “extra deaths.”

But, alas, I find this hard to believe. Deaths are deaths. People notice them and actually record them. You can count them and compare the number that are occurring in a certain period of time to the numbers that occurred in previous periods of time.

So my conjecture is that the “public health” officials and the “watchdog press” have noticed these extra deaths. While they might have noticed they are occurring, they have simply chosen to ignore them.

Ignoring reality - “Don’t investigate that which you don’t want to confirm” - seems to work every time.

Even if something terrible might be happening, if the establishment press doesn’t report this, most people aren’t going to be that concerned.

Still - theoretically at least - any number of official agencies could “investigate” the possible reasons for these deaths.

Perhaps one “policy goal” would be that that these leaders would like to prevent many of these deaths so death numbers become similar to those of pre-2020.

Given that we live in a Nanny State (where preventing deaths and injuries is the main reason for government), it’s strange that this is clearly not a policy goal. The new thinking seems to be, “Hey, excess deaths now happen.”

One might also think that journalists would win prestigious prizes for producing a series of articles that helped save lives, but this hasn’t happened either.

And it’s no longer just those 80 and over largely dying …

Like Ed Dowd and many other “science deniers” have noted, the spike in excess deaths is now occurring among all age groups, including the young and middle-aged.

Back when “excess deaths” were okay to report, most of the people dying “from or with” Covid were very old. Now we have big increases in death rates among teenagers and people in their 40s, 50s and 60s. These deaths are occurring among people who probably had decades of life in front of them.

That is, if we now have many more examples of younger people dying, “excess deaths” might be an even bigger story. But this is not the case.

Enough is enough …

I’m going to quit pretending I don’t know the answer to simple questions. Millions of sane people know exactly why “excess deaths” cannot be a story.

If it was a story - and everyone acknowledged why these extra deaths continue to happen - millions of journalists, corporate leaders, politicians and public health officials wouldn’t be able to look at themselves in the mirror.

They would have to admit that they were complicit in causing the deaths of millions of people who probably would be alive today if they hadn’t spread so much incessant (and fatal or toxic) disinformation.

Nobody wants to admit they enthusiastically signed off on policies that, directly and indirectly, killed and harmed huge numbers of people.

These people are also selfish and want to keep their jobs, status and incomes. If they admitted they were wrong, they might lose their jobs.

If some of these people had a real conscience, they might have to be placed on suicide watch after confronting truths this stark and traumatic.

But they’ll never have to confront their own complicity if everyone (who matters) simply continues to ignore these deaths.

I’ll conclude with another tidbit for our Irony Category

What we have is millions of people who are protecting their own lives by ignoring all the evidence that the policies they enthusiastically pushed ended up contributing to or causing massive numbers of unnecessary deaths.

My readers can probably see why I’m certain that continuing spikes in “excess deaths” is NOT going to suddenly become a “story.”

Last week, Stanford University issued a campus-wide alert following the “potential hate crime” of a Syrian graduate student reportedly struck by a driver yelling “fuck you people.” The media was incensed. This week, the student-run Stanford Review contextualized the story with further background on the alleged victim, widely considered a “pathological liar” by classmates who know him personally — and say he has previously lied about building a Syrian refugee camp with bitcoin money, turning down a massive acquisition offer from Google for his startup, and having cancer (supposedly in order to get homework help).

Someone whacked him on the head with a megaphone.

So, it was obviously climate change and Wuhan Virus.

College professor Loay Alnaji is named as the pro-Palestinian 'who killed Jewish protestor Paul Kessler' when rival rallies clashed in Thousand Oaks, California
Computer science professor Loay Alnaji, 50, has been identified as the man who allegedly hit Paul Kessler with a megaphone knocking him to the ground
The incident occurred when pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian rallies clashed in Thousand Oaks, California, on Sunday afternoon
Kessler died in the hospital the following day from an injury sustained when his head hit the pavement

widely considered a “pathological liar” by classmates who know him personally — and say he has previously lied about building a Syrian refugee camp with bitcoin money, turning down a massive acquisition offer from Google for his startup, and having cancer (supposedly in order to get homework help).

Passengers aboard the Titanic accidentally drink a little too much water
Citizens of Pompeii experience sudden heat wave
Abraham Lincoln dies after hitting head on a bullet
Millions of Soviet Union residents receive free housing, work opportunities in Siberia
Roman leader killed after knife accident
Malaysian flight delayed indefinitely
Joan of Arc dies after rapid onset of heat exhaustion
Jeffrey Epstein kills himself

College professor Loay Alnaji is named as the pro-Palestinian 'who killed Jewish protestor Paul Kessler' when rival rallies clashed in Thousand Oaks, California
Computer science professor Loay Alnaji, 50, has been identified as the man who allegedly hit Paul Kessler with a megaphone knocking him to the ground

Who is Loay Alnaji?

Alnaji teaches computer science at Ventura Community College. Originally born Shannon Morris, Alnaji converted to Islam from Catholicism.

The Daily Mail reported that this was not the first time Alnaji had been suspected of murder. Alnaji was sentenced to death in Dubai for murder, which was later ruled manslaughter after he paid monetary compensation to the family of the victim. He was subsequently released from prison.

Media distortions of public figures have always been a thing

Clickbait from 1941

You probably already know how unreliable the media can be. But imagine the press purposefully distorting someone’s suicide for the purpose of generating clickbait.

It happened to someone you’ve probably heard of: Virginia Woolf.

Virginia Woolf was a writer, best known for works like Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and Orlando. In 1941, she filled her coat pockets with stones and drowned herself in the river Ouse near her home. She was 59 years old.

It is illustrative to see how some members of the British press distorted Woolf’s suicide letter, which had been left for her husband Leonard Woolf. ...

How the media distorted Woolf’s suicide note

According to Woolf’s husband, her statements, “I feel certain I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times,” referred to Woolf’s earlier bouts of depression. But the press changed “those terrible,” to “these terrible times,” to make it sound like she was referring to World War II. ...

Notice how the title said “Can’t go on these times.” Moreover, they said that the coroner said: “Woolf was undoubtedly of an extremely sensitive nature, and was much more responsive than were most people to the general beastliness of things happening in this world to-day.”

In other words, Woolf killed herself because she was so sensitive to the world events of the day. ...

Again, she was quoted as saying “I cannot go on any longer in these terrible times,” and the article states that “She was undoubtedly of an extremely sensitive nature, and was much more responsive than were most people to the general beastliness of things happening in this world to-day.”

Woolf’s husband, Leonard Woolf, tried to fact-check newspapers with the following:

I feel that I should not silently allow to remain on record that Virginia Woolf committed suicide because she could not face the “terrible times” through which all of us are going. For this is not true… Then newspapers give her words as:

“I feel that I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times.”

... But the damage had been done, and Woolf’s suicide was spun as an act of unpatriotic cowardice. Apparently, the attacks continued in the press for more than a year.

... Before she died, Woolf’s circle of friends and acquaintances had been under attack by the media because they had opposed the First World War. These were writers, artists, and intellectuals who had warned of the dangers of the Versailles Treaty, the rise of extremism and militarism, and the risks of appeasing Hitler.

In other words, they were anti-war dissidents. Does any of this sound familiar?

The media has always been full of distortions. Remember that now, whenever inconvenient people are excoriated or painted as racist or misogynistic or anti-science or whatever. It’s not that these labels never apply to anyone—of course they do. But the media’s spin on them cannot be relied upon.

Washington Post Staff Go on Strike amid Mass Layoffs as Outlet Suffers Major Losses

As the Washington Post suffers eye-watering losses, the embattled newspaper’s employees have just launched a major strike.

On Thursday, over 750 Washington Post employees launched a 24-hour strike.

The strike is one of the largest labor protests in decades.

The walkout comes as the Post is anticipating a loss of around $100 million in 2023.

Two individuals familiar with the Post’s finances reportedly told The New York Times in July that the outlet plans to eliminate roughly 240 jobs.

According to a Tuesday letter about the strike by The Washington Post Newspaper Guild, the company’s staff has struggled to achieve its objectives in negotiations with management on pay, flexibility, mental health, and layoffs.