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By Douglas Herman
2-25-17

“If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re misinformed.”
- Mark Twain

As a longtime reporter for the Alt media ( Confessions of a Fake News Reporter ), I try to get the facts straight rather than spin the truth. I prefer to emulate that 19^th century newspaper columnist, Ambrose Bierce, who wrote: “Cultivate a taste for distasteful truths. And finally, most important of all, endeavor to see things as they are, not as they ought to be.”

On rare occasions when a column of mine appears in the legacy media, I try to insert myself into the story and get some fresh perspective, some distasteful truths. Like in Boom to Bust on Bristol Bay, or a similar column, Slim, Slammed and Hammered, a column published by National Fisherman. That NF photo feature won me no awards and got me fired, and people I quoted grimaced, seeing their truthful words in print, but it changed things for the better I believe. The following summer, after my lambasting of the Alaska salmon canneries and processor cartels in print, the price for Alaska red salmon rose 25%. Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not.

Maybe it was just a huge coincidence when I linked a column I wrote two years earlier for Jeff Rense called ­ The American Media Is The Enemy Of The American People - to the comment section at Zerohedge recently. The following day, President Trump said almost the exact same thing and shocked ALL the snowflakes in America AND the presstitute media too. Coincidence? Emulation? Plagiary? You decide.

Great Americans vs Their Media

“The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers,” wrote Thomas Jefferson. But what did Jefferson know, right? He never appeared at halftime of the Superbowl or as a regular guest on The View.

“All I know is what I read in the newspaper,” added humorist Will Rogers, “And that makes me the most ignorant man alive.” Will Rogers wrote for those same newspapers. More popular than Bill Maher and Michael Moore combined, Rogers delighted in skewering pompous poseurs of his day, like Congress or the media. But he would have drawn the line at innuendo and anonymous accusations regarding the president. Today, a huge beach in LA and a lovely state park are named after Will Rogers. None that I know of are named after Mike Moore or Bill Maher or even Bill O’Reilly.

“Journalism is the one solitary, respectable profession which honors theft, “observed Mark Twain, another journalist. “When committed in the pecuniary interest of a journal & admires the thief. . . However, these same journals combat despicable crimes quite valiantly ­ when committed in other quarters.”

Speaking of despicable crimes. When PeeGate burst like a swollen bladder, in the Paleo media, I thought: Why doesn’t Rachel Maddow or Joe Scarborough, or even that blood-soaked, war dinosaur Wolf Blitzer, get some interviews with some washed up Russian hookers? Why not get some photo-shopped images of the accused president live streaming? If the Paleo media resorts to yellow journalism, then certainly we Alt media can be forgiven for taking a piss on them.

As a proud member of the Alt media, whenever I meet the president or my US Senator, I try to get a selfie and then get a great quote. Months before the election, when I wrote The First & Last Tabloid Presidential Elections?,  I didn’t resort to innuendo or accusations from some anonymous (made up) sources. Certainly I respect the media’s need to be a watchdog of free speech, but where were these overpaid scribes when their peace prize- gifted president was droning wedding parties and toppling lots of prosperous brown nations? I guess Black Lives Matter, except when your black president is a certifiable war criminal, right?

Legacy Media = Jurassic Media Today

Fortunately, the American media is like those monstrous, cloned creatures in the Jurassic Park movies. They’ve escaped and begun rampaging over the peaceful countryside. But smart phone wielding millennial warriors and old deplorable laptop bombardiers are wounding them ­ death by a thousand Alt cuts - and even Whoopie Goldberg and Lady Gaga cannot stop the dinosaur bloodshed. More folks today respect standup comedian George Carlin than ALL of the news spinners and channelers combined, Rachel Maddow ($7 million annually) Chris Matthews ($5 million) or even Megan Kelly ($15 million).

“Don’t just teach your children to read, teach them to question what they read, teach them to question everything,” Said Carlin. “I have certain rules I live by. My first rule I don’t believe anything the government tells me and I don’t take seriously the media, or the press, in this country. Most of the time their function is kind of an unofficial public relations agency for the United States government, so I don’t listen to them.”

And lastly : “A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier,” wrote H.L. Mencken. He was a newspaperman so I guess he would know.

Douglas Herman wrote the political crime thriller, The Guns of Dallas, and directed the feature film, Caution to The Wind. He lives on Planet Reality, in a galaxy far away from the media spin.