Tag: media

Elon Musk Lied to You

Karl Denninger proves, conclusively, that Elon Musk is not “adamant about defending free speech” no matter what he claims to be.

I posted the following about his new CEO in response to the NY Post (they asked “who is this chick?”):

@nypost A: A WEF lackey and jab-happy mastermind who in fact conned 2/3rds of this nation, on purpose, into taking said jabs under false pretense. She deserve the gallows but then again Musk has billions of reasons to not care about the PEOPLE in this country and, indeed, worldwide.

This drew me an INSTANT 12 hour suspension for “harassment.”

It is, according to Twitter, harassment and “abusive behavior” to factually state that she is indeed a WEF lackey (she JUST spoke there) and that she in fact while at NBC Universal, as her last major project, did indeed work to advertise and promote the jabs — which we now know were in fact based on the lie that you would not get Covid if you took them.

Let’s be clear folks: It is considered “abusive” by Twitter to state two truths about a public figure and call for them to be punished as a direct consequence of the harms that occurred to others due to their own personal and willful actions which they took for the purpose of profit, whether professional, monetary, political or otherwise.

Elon Musk is observably not on the side of the Good, the Beautiful, and the True. And yes, my @voxday account is still “permanently suspended” and that status was recently confirmed to be correct by Twitter customer support.

As Karl points out, the reports about Tucker Carlson making Twitter the foundation of his next platform tends to raise serious questions about which side Mr. Carlson truly serves.

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Like the Lambada, Only Math

Forrest Bishop dares to go where few have gone before: the Forbidden Equation!

There are two great branches of Physics, dating back centuries, called Mechanics and Electromagnetism, with the more recent Electrodynamics as a blending of the two. Mechanics is about billiard balls and roller coasters, buildings, rockets, and cars, stuff like that. Electromagnetism is about electricity & magnetism, optics, radio, the juice that courses through your devices.

Mechanics has a few foundational, algebraic equations, F = ma (force equals mass times acceleration) is as close to its core as any. Everything to do with engineering moving machines is built on F = ma, all the airplanes, satellites, the works. And yet it’s just three little letters and an equal sign. It may seem like such a trifle, but it is arguably the most useful equation in the world, far more so than the famous e = mc2 of Electrodynamics.

Electromagnetism has its foundational algebra, too, which precedes and enables all the fancy squiggles and Greek letters. There’s F=kQlQ2/r2, P = FV, and a few others. But there is one seemingly little trifle that sits right at its core, three little letters and an equal sign: i = qc. It plays a role similar to F = ma. being the condition precedent for Maxwell’s Equations, Quantum Electrodynamics, and the Standard Model. And it is arguably the most Forbidden Equation in the world.

One gets the sense that Dan Brown could write an incredibly bad novel with a title like that. Frankly, I’m tempted…

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The Cult of Free is Over

It was always fake, gay, and propped up by free money handed out to the ticket-takers. And now that the free money flow has been shut off, the propped-up organizations are failing one after another.

The American-Canadian digital media and broadcasting company Vice is preparing to file for bankruptcy, New York Times has reported citing two people with knowledge of its operations.

This news of bankruptcy comes just days after after the well-regarded TV and online video outlet laid off staff and canceled its flagship program Vice News Tonight. Last week, Vice Media said it will cancel popular TV program “Vice News Tonight” as part of a broader restructuring that will result in job cuts across the digital media firm’s global news business, capping years of financial difficulties and top-executive departures.

Vice, which operates a cable channel of the same name and creates documentaries and other video content for its own outlets and others, was once valued at $5.7 billion. Investors included Walt Disney Co. and Fox Corp., although their equity may now be worthless, the Times said. Its largest debt holder is Fortress Investment Group, according to the newspaper.

This potential bankruptcy also comes at the time when several other media and technology firms have had to downsize in recent months due to a challenging economy and a weak advertising market.

This is why it is so important to support projects like Arkhaven, Castalia Library, and UATV with your subscriptions. And the strong foundation provided by the subscribers is why these projects not only survive, but continue to thrive, while their much larger competitors are collapsing.

The deplatforming and demonetization by various platforms actually did us a favor when viewed in retrospect, as it forced us to prepare for times such as these several years in advance. Sometimes, the silver lining proves more significant in the long-run than the black cloud.

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Gell-Man Amnesia in Action

It’s fascinating to see how completely the media fails to understand both the socio-sexual hierarchy and the sigma male.

Men online are more lost than ever, to the point of turning an actual psychopathic killer into a point of reference. Bateman is hailed for not conforming to the models of masculinity that’ve arisen on the web 2.0. He’s neither an alpha (a dominant asshole at the top of the social hierarchy) nor a beta (a submissive loner who’ll never get a girl). Bateman represents a new model of masculinity: The “sigma male”, inexplicably named with another random ancient Greek letter.

According to Google trends, the “sigma male” search term first appeared in early 2021 and quickly gained popularity over the past two years. In 2023, #sigma has over 46 billion views on TikTok. Sigmas “are known as the rarest males on earth, which makes them irresistible to women,” says TikToker Sel Nakim in an explainer video with almost 900,000 likes. “They’re at the top with the alphas, but they’re outside the hierarchy.”

Instead of boasting about their status like alphas, sigmas tend to be mysterious loner types. They think outside the box; they accept themselves and are proud to be different. They attract success and respect. Basically, they’re perfect. And Bateman – a man sophisticated enough to wear a suit to murder a homeless person – is their aesthetic king.

As it happens, the term “sigma male” was coined in 2011. But given the complete inability of the media to even understand which party is winning the war in Ukraine, it can hardly be surprising that they understand neither the concept nor its genesis.

Neither fictional characters created by Brett Easton Ellis nor serial killers have anything to do with sigma males. And they are very far from perfect; to the contrary, there is usually something fundamentally broken in them that prevents them from being able to operate within the hierarchy.

Nevertheless, the ideas, they propagate.

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Tucker Leaves Fox News

FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor. Mr. Carlson’s last program was Friday April 21st. Fox News Tonight will air live at 8 PM/ET starting this evening as an interim show helmed by rotating FOX News personalities until a new host is named.

It will be interesting to see if Tucker is bigger than Fox now or if it was Fox that was propping him up. Either way, he’s in a remarkable position going forward, and if he plays his cards right, he could set up an organization capable of competing successfully with CNN and MSNBC before the end of the year.

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Experts vs Media: A Retrospective

Peter King revisits the big draft question of 25 years ago, and in doing so, underlines my point about the mainstream media. Which is, namely, never believe anything it tells you.

A quarter-century ago this week … A couple of months before the draft in 1998, I took a VHS tape with 30 to 35 plays each of Tennessee QB Peyton Manning and Washington State QB Ryan Leaf, the presumptive top two picks in the draft, around the country to show six people and to ask: Who would you pick among these two players? (VHS qualified as high-tech in 1998.) My panel of experts: Hall of Fame coach/QB guru Sid Gillman, retired Niners coach Bill Walsh, Giants QB Phil Simms, Denver coach Mike Shanahan, Tampa Bay director of player personnel Jerry Angelo and UCLA coach Bob Toledo (who’d faced both players).

There was some debate over who should go first that year. ESPN published a long magazine story opining the easy pick was Leaf. “Come 2018, Ryan Leaf, not Manning, will be strutting up to a podium in Canton,” was one line from that story, one of the great wish-we-had-that-back lines ever. ESPN wasn’t the only one to go all-in on Leaf. But I sat with each expert and asked the question.

The vote: Manning 6, Leaf 0. “Now this is a pro quarterback,” the 86-year-old Gillman said in his Carlsbad, Calif., home. “Is that a beautiful throw, or is that a beautiful throw? I’d draft this kid in a second.” The iconoclastic Walsh favored Manning over Leaf, but also said he’d pick another position first in the draft, then chose Brian Griese in the second round.

When I wrote the story in early April, I remember a few stories like the ESPN one, or ones quoting anonymous scouts or GMs saying they’d pick Leaf. I wondered if I’d picked the wrong guys to poll. But sitting with Gillman, a seminal figure in quarterback history, and Shanahan, and hearing their this-is-no-contest tone, I thought Manning was the guy. “Peyton will handle the inferno of going to a 3-13 team. He’s a sure player,” Angelo said. And he was.

Forget sports. Forget the NFL. Forget the converged reporter concerned. The salient point here is the massive gap between the unanimous position of the proven experts and the expressed conclusion of the media. The experts consulted by Peter King had unparalleled and unquestioned chops. ESPN could have consulted them even more easily than King did.

And yet, the mainstream media organ somehow managed to present a conclusion diametrically opposed to the conclusion of the experts. This is par for the course. Never forget that.

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Liars Fear the Truth

NPR flees from Twitter in response to being labeled as both “state-affiliated” and “government-funded” media despite observably being both:

After briefly being labeled “state-affiliated media,” NPR has decided to abandon Twitter.

Under the leadership of entrepreneur Elon Musk, Twitter attached a descriptor to the account associated with National Public Radio, characterizing the account as “state-affiliated media.”

After swift backlash, though, the social media site exchanged the label for a different, more accurate one: “Government-funded media.”

Supporters of NPR were angered by Twitter’s original label, seemingly lumping the U.S. news outlet in with sites like Russia Today (RT) and China’s Xinhua News Agency.

Apparently displeased with both designations, NPR announced Wednesday it was suspending its Twitter accounts.

A news article from NPR reported, “NPR will no longer post fresh content to its 52 official Twitter feeds, becoming the first major news organization to go silent on the social media platform. In explaining its decision, NPR cited Twitter’s decision to first label the network ‘state-affiliated media,’ the same term it uses for propaganda outlets in Russia, China, and other autocratic countries.”

NPR will “no longer be active on Twitter because the platform is taking actions that undermine our credibility by falsely implying that we are not editorially independent,” the outlet said in a statement.

John Lansing, CEO of NPR, told the news site he leads abandoning Twitter is about “protecting” NPR’s “ability to produce journalism without ‘a shadow of negativity.’”

The amusing thing about NPR’s little tantrum is that both Russia Today and the Xinhua News Agency are considerably more reliable than National Public Radio, which is both affiliated with the U.S. government and funded by it.

NPR gets another 31 percent of its funding in programming fees from member organizations. Federal funding indirectly contributes to the latter category because the publicly funded CPB provides annual grants to public radio stations that pay NPR for programming.

The media tries to conceal the fact that the Federal government gives the money to NPR’s member organizations, which than gives the money to NPR. There is nothing private or independent about NPR, though at least, unlike the BBC, citizens are not forced to pay a direct fee for it.

It is certainly both telling and amusing to see the extent of their reaction to being correctly identified in this way. The wicked flee even when no man pursueth.

UPDATE: The government-funded Public Broadcasting Service has reportedly followed suit and exited Twitter. It will be informative if the totally-independent and not-at-all marching-in-lockstep mainstream media organizations do the same. In, you know, protest and solidarity and all that.

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The Decline of the Newspaper

It is not to be mourned, but rather, celebrated, given the complete irresponsibility and outright wickedness of the media institutions:

The country’s largest newspaper company, Gannett, is once again forecasting it will sell off more of its daily newspapers. Since its merge with newspaper company GateHouse Media in 2019, Gannett has closed or sold hundreds of papers and slashed staff by more than half, and that is projected to continue. Joshua Benton has been writing about this for the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard, and he joins me now. Welcome.

JOSHUA BENTON: Good to be with you.

FLORIDO: Joshua, Gannett had 25,000 employees at the end of 2019, and less than four years later, it has just over 11,000. It slashed staff by more than half. I mean, newspaper revenue has been steadily declining over that time but not by that much, not at that rate. So what’s going on here?

BENTON: The Gannett that we have now is the result of the merger of two very large companies. The idea was an individual newspaper might struggle on its own, but if you buy enough of them, you can extract as much of the cost of producing the newspaper from the local community as possible. You cut down on print days. You have the page layout and editing done elsewhere. The thought was you could achieve these economies of scale and make a profitable business. The problem is, as part of the merger, Gannett took on a lot of debt, and they have to pay off that debt. So they need revenue. And the way that they have been doing that is by cutting costs to the bone. That means cutting staff and cutting the quality of their newspapers.

FLORIDO: I guess it goes without saying that print circulation of newspapers has plummeted in recent years. It’s been on the decline for decades, actually. And today, most people get their news online. Is it just the case that these Gannett newspapers aren’t managing to get people who used to subscribe to their print paper to subscribe to their digital product instead?

BENTON: Yeah. Newspapers have generally given up on the idea of creating new print readers. They’re not really making new print readers anymore. So the idea has been to shift to digital, and Gannett claims some degree of success in doing that. But even when that does happen, newspapers generally make significantly less money off of a digital subscriber than they do from a print subscriber. The other problem is that there are lots of other free alternatives for a lot of local news and information, and people will be happy to consume those without bothering to subscribe to the local daily.

Better uninformed than misinformed and propagandized by the corpocracy. The only real loss is historical, but that was inevitable once paper moved to digital. It will be good when government-funded media institutions like NPR and the BBC eventually fail as well. No one’s lives are enhanced or improved by learning very important information about a deadly hurricane in Bali or a fatal shooting in Chicago, or by being told lies about war, geopolitics, and the economy.

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