Epstein Arrest Leaves Top Technology Figures Racing to Distance Themselves

An independent activist journalist has been digging into the case and has come up with some interesting and alarming connections and history. Worth a read: https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2019/07/08/the-jeffrey-epstein...

I find it interesting that both the words independent and activist had to be brought out to qualify the wonderful journalism from Michael Krieger. Wasn't there a time when it was somewhat assumed that journalists were both independent and activists to some extent?

Thanks for sharing the link!

Journalists at quality publications (Economist, NYT, AP) still are independent, at least in the sense that they are not accepting bribes from Epstein or the oil industry etc.

The linked site has all the markers of being untrustworthy: conspiratorial headlines ending in "What's really going on"; A fascination with cryptocurrencies; Incessant calls for donations, the name, etc.

FWIW the Epstein angle – that he is a Mossad agent – isn't "buried" by the mainstream media. I have seen this theory mentioned. It is just not featured prominently because there is no substantive evidence for it. It's just a Deus Ex Machina that could conveniently explain the dereliction of duty of the criminal justice system in the case.

Journalists never were supposed to be "activists", except for some universally accepted concepts such as democracy and transparency. There is a memorable scene in a documentation of the NYT called "Page One", where Brian Stelter is filmed asking Assange if he considers himselself a journalist or an activist.

What has changed are the widely-shared "assumptions". It's become a marker of one's smartitude to rail against "mainstream" journalism.

Every journalist is an activist for some point of view. An establishment-friendly bias is just as much a bias as anti-establishment bias. There’s nothing wrong with this—journalists are just people. But it’s dishonest to pretend that your own bias doesn’t exist and you are doing ‘objective journalism’ while other perspectives are ‘activist’.

An informed reader should understand the biases present in anything they read and weigh the arguments accordingly—pretending objectivity discourages this kind of responsibility and is very harmful to good-faith discourse.

Yes and no, but mostly no.

Every person who is a journalist has a bias. But the point of the practice/process of journalism is to mitigate those personal influences.

Just because you're investigating and writing does mean you're a journalist. Maybe you're doing glorified op-ed. Maybe you're being a wannabe reporter. But being a journaliat is a higher level.

If you're not aware of the difference between op-ed, reporter, and journalism then...you're not a journalist. One of the biggest communication problems we have today is that too many assume they understand the definition of journalism (and the processess and ethics on which its built), but they do not. Yet they continue to use the word inappropriately. Others blindly follow. And so on.

Long to short, people use "journalism" like they use "literally"; most of the time in the wrong way at the wrong time.