A lot of people – perhaps 1 in 5 Slog readers – tell me they never read the press media, the BBC or Channel Four. I read and watch them all the time, because it is by far the best way to catch the Establishment out in its daily task of post-rationalisation, spin, fear-creation, false causality and virusecrecy. An intelligent, open mind can detect ulterior motives almost every time.
Some examples from this weekend. The Telegraph runs a piece saying scientists are “excited” about a new type of test that can ‘help senior citizens get treatment more quickly’. It was so exciting, in fact, that the bedazzled journo forget to tell us what it is. Or how it works. Or why it might be better than simply giving the over 60s Ivermectin whether they have symptoms or not. It’s pure virtue signalling, designed to distract from the unsolved mystery of why experimental not-quite-vaccines that import mRNA (and kick other nasties down the road) have been preferred to HCQ/Zinc and Ivermectin….both of which were targeted by a concerted smear campaign from health bureaucrats, most notably the US and French.
Yesterday’s Times described the deaths from the Second Lockdown as “much worse than the first wave”. The definition of ‘death’ involving Covid was changed between the two waves, but the total seasonal deaths weren’t “much” worse. Again, the hack concerned somehow forgot to include the statistic that almost everyone ignores: 40% of second-wave deaths involved people who were absolutely fine until they arrived through the portals of an NHS hospital. The original rationale for draconian measures was to save the NHS; on this basis, perhaps The People need saving from the NHS.
This morning, the Sunday Telegraph leads with a scoop of the inevitable: that Boris Johnson is to extend the totalitarian coronavirus laws for six more months – legislation that gives far-reaching lockdown powers to close ports, ban protests and detain citizens – until late September. There was going to be no turning back on the ‘one way route’ out of New Normal by June 21st – remember that one? We were going to get our summer holidays back. Allegedly. The article ends with a squib promising that “dozens” of Tory backbenchers will rebel. Which is less than important, given that Labour will support the Bill.
Missing from the piece are (1) if the R number is now well below 1, why is that necessary? (2) Does this suggest yet more lockdown, given that France has already committed to a Third Wave? (3) If the vaccination really is the causal factor in reducing cases, why are we now facing “a delay” in the programme, given we ordered 100+ million of them? (4) Is one of the vaccines being quietly dumped and thus the cause of delay? (5) Or is it that the Resetters are anxious to hang on to the powers? (6) Why are we putting liberal democracy at risk for the sake of a virus so deadly, 99.865% of the population will survive it? And last but not least, (7) can we have a functional Oposition please, as opposed to one that funks every challenge?
Media “news” coverage now consists of breakthroughs without details, graphic details about myths that frighten people, virulent attacks on anything anti-EUNATO in nature, and jingoistic appeals to Do The Right Thing. Last Friday, most of the UK titles were scattered with articles that averred:
- GCHQ is going to crack down on anyone spreading “fake news from Russia about lockdown not working”
- The SAS is going to “go into action against Russian psy-op interference in other nations’ affairs”
- Britain needs to repair its relations with the EU “and David Frost is not the man to do it”.
Fake news from Russia, eh? Why? Nobody has locked down tighter than the RF. And now our brave SAS lads are going to stop all that Putinesque messing about; that’ll teach Ivan to mind his manners. Beware the danger of friendly fire, however, in places like the Ukraine, where the Biden family, the CIA, the Russians and MI6 are all at the same game. And as for the third hollow appeal, um, could it be that fishy business, a go-slow on all English mail in France, 11,000 expats in the EU with no driving licence, Von der Leyen blaming us for the EU vaccination shambles and then plotting to cut off our Pfizer supplies andonandonandonandon had something to do with soured relations?
It really isn’t that hard to work out why the “old” media are so compliant these days. The internet/website/digital social media explosion has ripped a 60 per cent hole in their business model. There is a simple quid pro quo going on whereby the State will support measures to silence genuinely valuable contrarian views online, in return for which everyone from The Times to Le Figaro has to stay in line….or else. You don’t think this is true? Get to know a few hacks at The Telegraph, the Independent or France Soir. They’re all being leaned on. Good Morning Britain too has a few outrageous skeletons in its less than cosy cupboard. Ask people at The Mail about Geordie Grieg.
Above all, the golden rule is no opeds or speculation about the bigger game in play.
You can mention that Covid has made Rishi Sunak’s life difficult. You can express the view that Biden’s spending splurge and opened borders may have risks attached. You can suggest that the EU has some existential problems. But don’t mention what the IMF is up to, don’t ask why “temporary” Zirp is still with us nine years later, and under no circumstances suggest that the Gigarich have everything to gain from a virus that miraculously appeared within months of them all hinting at ‘the danger’.
Because that sort of non-violent terrorism, of course, is also wild conspiracy theory. In the same way that standard blue masks simply cannot stop either the spread or inhalation of a virus, lockdown has no track record at all of reducing deaths, the NHS is being destroyed not protected, the cancer deaths alone make Covid mania a disaster, no known human expiration can land a droplet from two metres, the vaccines don’t innoculate, cheaper prophylactics work as well if not better, academia and health bureaucracy is riddled with Pharma funding conficts, and bigger health concerns of a mental and addictive nature are going to go ignored because of one ridiculously overblown Covid Sars virus.
When, during 1965, I spent some time in East Berlin, I noticed in a bar one afternoon that nobody was reading a newspaper, and asked the barman why this was. He smiled knowingly.
“Well you see,” he said, “If you take out the lies, there’s nothing in them”.
It was an observation that goes right to the heart of what the media should be about – when they’re done writing human interest cat-in-tree, celebrity garbage and limp attempts at humour – and that is what one might call ‘relevant revelation’. Orwell said the craft of journalism is “about publishing something the Establishment doesn’t want you to know about”. As in most things, he was excruciatingly right.
The best way to get someone’s attention is to ask, “D’yer wanna know a secret?” The human being is incorrigibly nosey: the thirst for inside track information is unquenchable; and if there is one thing the powerful hate, it’s being held to account. Revealing the size of Kim Kardashian’s buttocks isn’t revelation, because you can see she has an ocean-going keel from forty yards. Her ownership of this vast rear is not a secret. It is not a subject in need of investigation.
Nothing sells papers or gets site hits like the unwanted release of a secret never before published in the information stream of public life. And in 2021, the ‘old’ media just don’t do that any more. As a pro-am, small scale opinion-former myself – with the experience to seek out and analyse what figures might or might not mean – I can tell you that hits will at least double for any post that reveals truth to be myth (or vice versa) with the hitherto unknown facts to back up the accusation. The bigger the lie revealed (and the more powerful the liar) the bigger the audience becomes.
Unless something of a radically unexpected nature happens – always likely, by the way – nothing is likely to change the regrettable self-styled raison d’etre of the MSM in 2021. But the opportunity to take over the role of Fourth Estate is there for the taking among those sites like Off Guardian and Spiked! if they invest in the enormous payback that investigative journalism offers.
And here we alight upon something the Establishment is delighted about. Because to make that investment requires two things: white knights with both money and civic ethics; and cooperation to create a united front.
Veteran Sloggers will know that I have been calling for this development since 2009. But as with the smaller political Parties now emerging, egos are getting in the way of progress….and a woeful naivety about commercial mutualism is turning the fleet of foot into feet of clay.
I write here with the frustrating experience of feeling let down by high-profile “known” columnists, and almost entirely ignored by genuine players for the online team. Having failed completely to get any encouragement (or even response) from the latter group, early last year I began to import guest writers such as Amy Boone, Nobby Dee, John Day and Rolf Norfolk. But with no disrespect to any of these insightful observers, this is little more than polishing a sling-stone as a secret weapon against a million Goliaths in full armour.
I’m not talking about some kind of plonkey “collective” here; on the contrary, I mean getting investors with no agenda to back top-class investigative reporters. Then when the expert hack noses produce high hits, swapping stories with each other after (say, an eighteen-hour gap) would obviously multiply awareness of the story.
As for the perpetual “But where are these white knights?” whine, I’m sorry but the Unicorn excuse doesn’t hold water. The idea that everyone with tons of money is a sociopath is a myth beloved of the ideological Green>Feminazi>Leftlibs. Philanthropic social property developer (and friend) Roger Lewis is a rare but real example of Benthamite principles in practice. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind me suggesting that a powerful and principled media Opposition would be something close to a wet dream for him. Alan Sugar too is a politically homeless entrepreneur with an open mind, compassionate nature and genuine feeling for the underdog.
What we’ve been looking at over the last six years or so is a geopolitical project about disguise and distraction. Bourse capital and central banking’s twin failure to deliver any neoliberal economics promises is being hidden behind Brexit (blocism’s greatest enemy) and Covid19 (neoconservatism’s secret weapon). These in turn are being given an eighth veil in the form of Schwab’s WEF faux-philanthropy about The Great Reset.
My plea, as ever, is to build the kind of audiences for independent digital journalism that can help open minds – through deconstructive investigation – to be more confident in their doubts…and ready to accept a radical improvement minus ideological blinkers.
John Ward is that rare thing, a bloke who quite often knows what to do, and persists in being blunt about it. As a keen member of the herd, he is widely disliked for telling it why careening over a cliff is not necessarily the answer to an approaching pride of salivating lions. He lives alone in rural France. The first two sentences probably explain the third.
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