Marionette Media
How the legacy news betrayed the public's trust...and what we can do about it
Joel Bowman with today’s Note From the End of the World: Buenos Aires, Argentina...
Of the many gifts that kept giving over the past year was the demise (and further demise) of the mainstream marionette media. Scarcely could a prestidigitating presstitute open his gaping maw without a torrent of lies, damned lies and outright propaganda gushing forth. From the allegedly “deep fake” videos of a president gone cerebrally awol, to the peddling of last-minute “gold standard” polling that attempted to convince voters Harris was going to “take Iowa by 3 points” (Trump won by… 13.3, a non-trivial margin), voters were repeatedly told: “Don’t believe your lyin’ eyes.”
And yet, much to the chagrin of those sanctimonious gatekeepers of the informational realm, free thinking citizens did just that, rejecting the force-fed narrative again and again.
From our seat down here at the End of the World, we covered the fall of the once-proud Fourth Estate with a mixture of shame and schadenfreude, having once moonlighted for a gangrenous arm of the legacy media during a former life in the United Arab Emirates (a story for another time). See our columns Media Culpa, Lies of Omission, and The Press Corpse for more on the bottomless well of manufactured mainstream agitprop.
Having seen what goes into “making the media sausage,” we were of course nauseated… but also optimistic that an alternative press – one that is held directly accountable by the reading public, instead of contemptuously lecturing it – would rise to fill the real world demand for honest, good faith, factual reporting. Read on for today’s installment of our “Best Of ‘24” series… and the ray of light Substack is shining into the legacy-induced darkness. Cheers ~ JB
[NB: This Note was originally published on March 22, 2024, from Buenos Aires, Argentina.]
Hoax after hoax... lie after lie... newspeak after newspeak... at some point, the question begs itself: are mainstream journalists evil, stupid... or both?
Hanlon’s Razor enjoins a charitable assessment: “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
And yet, one has to wonder...
Daily, it seems, do the talking heads and bloviating neckbeards in the popular press deliver The Message™ on behalf their elite overlords... and daily are they taken to task, their slander and deceit laid bare for anyone who cares to look, and invariably by those in the much-maligned (by the MSM) “alternative media.”
War of the Words
Last weekend’s “bloodbath hoax,” in which remarks by a certain former president were taken wildly out of context, is merely the latest example in a Niagara of gross misinterpretations, factual inaccuracies and “context-free” narrative shaping emanating from the foaming lapdogs in the legacy media.
Looking on the bright side, as we are wont to do, the Sages of Satire over at the Babylon Bee have never had it so easy...
(Much needed) mirth aside, all this is little comfort for skeptical readers, who remain keen to know:
What gives? Is truth to be found at all in this brave new world of flagrant mistruths, partisan hit pieces and undercooked pork pies? And if so, where?
A casual stroll down memory lane may help us follow the breadcrumbs...
Remember when suggesting COVID came from a lab was not only wrong... but also, somehow, racist? (More so, bizarrely, than stereotyping all Chinese people as rabid bat munchers?)
Recall when Hunter Biden’s laptop was part of “a textbook Russian disinformation campaign”? Only... it wasn’t.
Remember when we had “two weeks to flatten the curve”... when getting the jab meant you “will not get sick... will not pass it on”... when the ice-caps were going to melt... polar bears were going extinct...and the Great Barrier Reef was dying off?
Except... all that was wrong.
Remember when these were “peaceful protests”...
And this was a “woman”...
With a track record like this, one can only be grateful that mainstream journalists are not flying planes, building bridges or screening for cancers…
Lies, Damned Lies, and the MSM
Alas, not even the weather gets a free pass in the tossing tempest of misinformation spewing forth from mainstream outlets.
Remember when the Financial Times breathlessly reported that “hurricane frequency is on the rise”...
When The New York Times claimed “strong storms are becoming more common in the Atlantic Ocean”...
When ABC fretted about “how climate change intensifies hurricanes.”
When The Washington Post declared “climate change is rapidly fueling super hurricanes.”
All of the above outlets cited data from the U.S. government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
All were wrong, as the NOAA’s own website makes crystal clear:
“After adjusting for a likely under-count of hurricanes in the pre-satellite era, there is essentially no long-term trend in hurricane counts. The evidence for an upward trend is even weaker if we look at U.S. landfalling hurricanes, which even show a slight negative trend beginning from 1900 or from the late 1800s.”
Further, the “NOAA expects a 25% decline in hurricane frequency in the future.”
Same deal with intensity. Explained the NOAA:
“After adjusting for changes in observing capabilities/limited ship observations in the pre-satellite era, there is no significant long-term (since the 1880s) in the proportion of hurricanes that become major storms.
“We conclude that the data do not provide compelling evidence for a substantial greenhouse warming-induced century-scale increase in: frequency of tropical storms, hurricanes, or major hurricane, or in the proportions of hurricanes that become major.”
Did these papers publish retractions or corrections when this information was brought to their attention, after they had either knowingly (deliberately) or ignorantly (negligently) misled the public?
What do you think?
Substack vs The MSM
In fact, the above information, from the NOAA’s website, did not see the light of day thanks to hard-hitting investigative journalism from the mainstream press... but thanks to the diligence and vigilance of actual journalists, right here on Substack!
It was award-winning environmental journalist, Micheal Shellenberger, who did the heavy lifting for his excellent PUBLIC Substack. That same journalist who, along with fellow Substackers, Bari Weiss and Matt Taibbi, broke what should have been the biggest story of last year – one which was dutifully ignored by Pavlov’s pooches in the mainstream press – the so-called Twitter Files. (A story for anther day…)
Is it any wonder, then, that the actual public should come to question the competence and integrity of a supposedly impartial, objective press... when we’ve been given nothing but the mushroom treatment... kept in the dark and fed... ahem... fertilizer?
Last week, we published the following chart (from Axios), tracking the long and well-deserved demise of the once-esteemed mainstream media...
Fire the Firefighters!
Some readers took umbrage with “our” take, as if we are somehow responsible for the plummeting public trust in mainstream media... and not the lying knaves and jesters filing copy under their disgraced mastheads!
Perhaps we should blame short-sellers for alerting investors to corporate malfeasance, too, given that their work “depresses confidence” in fraudulent companies? And that’s to say nothing of those pesky firefighters, spreading fear and panic with their sirens and ladders and whatnot…
But hope springs eternal, as they say, and we remain cheerfully optimistic here at our Notes headquarters, down at the End of the World. You see, for every graph like the one above, there’s an inverse corollary like this one, courtesy of the fine folk at Wefunder.
There are now more than 35 million active monthly subscriptions to Substack publications, fulfilled by more than 17k independent writers, all contributing to the thriving Substack ecosystem, writing and researching on everything from world politics (that’s our category, here at Notes) to humor, crypto, parenting, food and drink, philosophy, health and wellness and plenty more.
No longer must a captured reading public rely on the questionable motives of the mainstream information gatekeepers. No longer are we beholden to self-appointed panjandrums of the realm, who decide what we can (and cannot) know. When it comes to credibility, to journalistic integrity and basic ethical standards, the marketplace for ideas is delivering precisely where the legacy media has failed us.
Unsurprisingly, jilted presstitutes, squealing for their sordid paymasters, are none-to-thrilled about readers doing their own research, actually thinking for themselves...
...which is exactly how you know you’re on the right track.
Stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World...
Cheers,
Joel Bowman
P.S. We are grateful here at Notes for the generous support of our members, who value independent writing and are happy to be part of the pushback against the mainstream media’s mono-messaging.
If you are not already a member, but would like to join our growing community of skeptics, critical thinkers and incredulous independents, please consider becoming a Notes member, today…
P.P.S. We’re currently #33 in World Politics. The higher we rank, the better our visibility across the Substack network. By supporting our work, you help us reach more readers, delivering the message of free markets, free minds and free people. Thanks in advance! ~ JB
Love the column, especially the way that you present unassailable facts that refute the BS pouring out of the MSM. The climate change data is especially compelling. Thank you!
JB.
Great Stuff!
Your message was so Forward Thinking …even if it’s now in the rear view mirror.
I am sensing, though through the lens of being a big SUBSTACK supporter/sponsor, that the tide has actually turned.
With MSM having been outed in a most conspicuous and compromising way, I think and believe that it is nearing the time to leave the narrative of MSM in the dust bin of history and forge on with the SUBSTACK ethos and substance.
Though in the context of the number of humans on our Earth, the number of Substackers is tiny, the potential impact at scale is a magnificent possibility.
Thanks to All for your focus/belief/tenacity!
Let’s make 2025 one for the record books!