Journalists need to take some sort of Hippocratic oath pledging to tell no lies, otherwise we could end up with a war even more calamitous for humanity than Iraq. As cited by American journalist Sharyl Attkisson in her excellent book ‘The Smear’, John H. Johnson, author of ‘Everydata: The Misinformation Hidden in the Little Data…
Last week, the White House revoked the press pass of CNN’s chief White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, and denied him access to the building. CNN responded by filing suit in federal court against the president. Acosta’s First and Fifth Amendment rights had been violated, said CNN. The demand: Acosta’s press pass must be returned immediately…
Face it: it’s been an abusive time, to use a word he likes to wield. In his telling, of course, it’s he or his people who are always the abused ones and they — the “fake news media” — are the abusers. But let’s be honest. You’ve been abused, too, and so have I. All…
The UK is banning the term “fake news” in official documents. The motivation behind this move is that the government thinks that the word is too broad and is urging people to employ more specific phrases such as “disinformation” and “misinformation” instead. This isn’t just due to some bureaucrats’ personal preferences, however, but because the…
One of the reasons that countries fail is that collective memory is continually destroyed as older generations pass away and are replaced by new ones who are disconnected from what came before. Initially, the disconnect was handled by history and by discussions around family tables. For example, when I was a kid there were still…
This is not at all comforting: during a week that’s witnessed Alex Jones’ social media accounts taken down by Facebook, Apple, Spotify and Google, and what appears to be a growing crackdown against alternative media figures including several prominent Libertarians, notably the Ron Paul Institute director, and the Scott Horton Show, who found their Twitter accounts suspended — we learn that…
