"The true job of a reporter is using facts to overturn
reality. Things are already upside down, and his job is to show that. In
his work, he has to be relentless. This inevitably leads him to
publishing his own words, on his own, because entrenched
press outlets are in the business of propping up the very reality he
aims to expose. He can't go to them for publication. Once he learns
that, he's launched, and his life is never the same. It improves
exponentially." (The Underground, Jon Rappoport)
There was the time a newspaper publisher inserted his own
paragraph at the top of my story, under my name, as if I wrote it. He
didn't tell me. I found out later when the paper came out. I called him
up. He was clueless. To him, his intrusion meant
nothing. It was my story, but it was his newspaper. I learned
something. If you want your own words, and only your words, to stand,
publish them yourself.
There was the time I wrote a story about a dubious
drug/supplement people were selling under the counter at health food
stores. I took the supplement for a week and folded my experiences into
the article, which was mainly about the unfounded "scientific
background" in the package insert. The editor couldn't fathom how a
story could contain "two separate threads." He axed half my story. I
learned something. If you want your own words to stand, publish them
yourself.
There was the time I wrote a piece about widespread fraud in
psychiatric diagnosis. The editor claimed I had employed "too much
logic" and not enough "expert opinion." He said "original research" was
"out." To no avail, I pointed out that logic was
in the public domain, and therefore my "original research" could be
checked. I learned something. If you want your own words to stand,
publish them yourself.
An editor once told me an article I'd written criticizing a
senator wouldn't be published. My harsh criticism was valid, he said,
but readers might infer that the newspaper was turning against the
senator's political party. I learned something. If
you want your own words to stand, publish them yourself.
Once my career as a reporter was launched, magazine editors
began contacting me with all sorts of proposed assignments. The subjects
of the stories were boring, to say the least. I soon realized the
editors were using those stories to fill out their
no-context version of reality. I learned something. If you don't want your words to be published, don't submit them.
A newspaper editor once told me (paraphrasing from memory):
"This story you wrote...part of the reason we don't want to publish it
is we don't want to give it the contagion factor. If we publish it,
other news outlets will pick up on it. We're in
an echo chamber. We ricochet stories back and forth. We all use the
same experts to bolster our stories. So we take your controversial story
and publish it, and then when the roar gets loud enough in the echo
chamber, people are going to object. And we'll
be the ones they blame because we started it."
I said to an editor, a year or so after 9/11: If I could give
you ironclad evidence, from many reputable sources, proving that the
planes crashing into the Towers couldn't have caused them to fall, would
you print the story? He said: The official
story is already in place. There's no way anyone could dislodge it now.
I said: So it doesn't matter what the truth is. He said: It matters,
maybe 30 years in the future, but probably not.
A publisher once told me: We have our own definition of
"controversial." We decide what that is. It's not your definition. It's
okay to write about impeaching a president, but if you find out there
are people behind the scenes who are managing the
presidency, people who aren't in government, we wouldn't touch that. If
we did, that would break the mold. Everything would be up for grabs.
People would realize most of what we publish is a tempest in a teapot,
because there are more powerful forces at work.
An editor told me: After a big environmental catastrophe, we
cover the story for a little while and then we let it go. We don't want
to look like we're attacking the polluters too hard. So we don't track
what's happening every day or every week.
We let it go, and then after a few months or a year, we write a
follow-up piece. We're not crusaders. We don't want to look like we're
out to get somebody. That would injure our reputation. We're not
muckrakers. We might favor a point of view, but we don't
lean on it too hard.
These and other similar encounters convinced me, 25 years
ago, to step away from the news business. "Somebody else" is always
running things. Their quirks and agendas are corrosive. They've gained
their positions through compromise. They know that
and accept it. And then they set about forgetting it.
Now, in the "information age," these mainstream professionals
are howling about fake news; they're burying, even deeper, their
knowledge that they are the prime fakers.
"I fake it, I bury my fakery deeper and deeper, and then I scream at other people for faking it."
These are the actions of a temperamental child. And indeed,
these people are angry little children in adult bodies. Luckily, they've
found a business that honors that grotesque configuration. They've
found a home.
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