[Edit, 24-November-2011: Boy, this story just won’t die. It’ll calm down for a while, and then I’ll see another person step forth with a horror story of AI/Desmond’s unethical behavior or malfeasance or what have you. With the swapping back and forth between platforms and the server migration, there have been many changes made here; at one time I’d broken this up into several smaller posts on the WordPress version of LowGenius.Net, but now I’m back on BlogEngine…so here I go again. I’m going to go ahead and split this into smaller posts again, and re-edit some of the rougher language back out.
Please note that another casualty of the various technical changes was the loss of the original comment threads which are referenced in this post. I’m working with Disqus to try to get them back, but I can’t make any promises at this point.]
Edit, 03-July-2011: In response to several remarks in the comments here, I’ve updated this blog entry.
- Image links will now display full-size images without reduction.
- Mr. Desmond has been a busy boy. Not only did he remove all of my comments as well as his attempt to intimidate me into silence by threatening a libel suit, he’s removed several comments
from user “daBlond,” who also appears in the comments below, which asked the same questions. Desmond left in place, however, comments that included standard right-wing paranoia remarks about being a “tool of the liberal media.” Why? Because that plays to confirmation bias and allows him to feel like a victim without having to treat the issue of his unethical behavior seriously. - He also took the time to “like” my FB fan page (see screenshot) and check all the users there…and remove himself from their friends’ list. Whether he’s also banned them from his page, “Republicans Are idiots,” I don’t know.
- As of a few minutes ago, Desmond has STILL not retracted his headline (see screenshot, with my windows clock included as a timestamp.)
- Matthew Desmond is, unfortunately, not very bright it seems. While he deleted my comments, he left several in place that were direct responses to my comments. Those also are still visible as of a few minutes ago. (See screenshots.)
In the end analysis, the fact remains: Matthew Desmond and AddictingInfo.Org have deliberately chosen to continue passing off information they know is not accurate as though it was legitimate news. Contrary to the assertions in the comments below, I went to great lengths to ensure that there was clear separation between what I know – that Desmond is deliberately lying – and what I suppose, as follows:
- I suppose that his motivation for lying is that the truth won’t draw as much traffic to his website.
- I suppose that his refusal to accept that he made a mistake – and that mistake, as I’ve said, crossed the line to deliberate deceit when he refused to correct it – is what poker players call a “tell,” that is to say his behavior of putting his ego and profit as a higher priority than accurate reporting betrays his fundamentally un-liberal mindset.
- I suppose that his rudeness, name-calling, refusal to correct his factual error, rolling a sockpuppet to comment on this page (as detailed in the comments below – the referrer that led to this page from the admin section of his site could ONLY have happened if someone who has administrative rights to his site clicked the link in my comment from that restricted, admin-only section of his site), the magical disappearance of the link to this page from my own fan page in response to “spam” complaints, and his perving my fan list are all clear signs that this man is not a liberal at all, but just another money-grubbing carnie hack trying to take a bunch of marks for a buck by stirring up fake controversy and passing along third-hand information he steals from other sites, often with misleading sensationalist spin – sort of like Matt Drudge or Andrew Breitbart.
- I suspect, but cannot prove, that the “coincidence” of most of the wiki edits originating from locations in California, many within a few miles of the IP that we KNOW to be him, indicates that the edits were like created by Desmond or people he knows for the express purpose of creating this fake controversy. (Anyone wishing to check those addresses and the edit history only needs to visit the relevant Wikipedia pages and see for themselves, and know just a tiny little bit about how to identify an IP address.)
- I suppose that Desmond’s choice to allow ignorant flames directed at me to remain in the comments of his article are motivated by his desire to discredit me. I got a particular kick out of the one where some guy calls me a “moran” and accuses me of being a right-winger, but the one where some idiot takes my (now deleted) examination of the IP addresses used in the wiki edit as evidence that I “hacked” Wikipedia is also pretty hilarious. (see screenshots).
Again: the point here is that there’s some asshat pretending to be a liberal news source who is deliberately lying to people to stir up manufactured controversy and drive traffic to his website. The secondary point is that this is not the behavior of a principled journalist, or a person with a liberal mindset. Liberals don’t suppress dissent, they encourage it. Liberals don’t run and hide from their errors, they correct them. Liberals don’t value profit over truth – if they did, I’d be a very wealthy man instead of having to beg for rent money through this site.
The ultimate point: betraying the principles of integrity, honesty, and ethics in reporting is poison to everything that liberalism is about. It corrupts the democratic process, corrodes the utility of political discourse, and renders those who claim to oppose authoritarianism and despotism as authoritarians and despots themselves, and NO liberal or progressive voter or citizen worthy of either privilege will tolerate that behavior, at all.
We now return you to the original article and video that started this discussion.
Multi-Part Post: Ethical Crisis In Liberal News Media
This is a four-part series.