Dismantling Lazy Journalism from the BBC PizzaGate Article
Just read this BBC blog post attempting to debunk the entirety of the PizzaGate scandal, by Mike Wendling (@mwendling). The only conclusion I reached at the end of this read was that "This guy obviously didn't care enough to do his own homework."
I have done my own homework, however. Dismantling this was rather simple. Here's why:
And physical evidence? That doesn't exist either.
Sooooo.. emails aren't 'physical' you mean? Pretty sure they hold up in a courtroom. Pretty sure text messages, carrier pigeon, and telepathy (soon ^tm) would hold up as well. I would love to have the authority of a detective to have some questions from the community asked.
Unfortunately, since there is no media to speak of, we're left to do what we can with the tools available.
"But thousands of people are convinced that a paedophilia ring involving people at the highest levels of the Democratic Party..."
Only a fool would assume, or even accept the assumption, that "the highest levels of the Democratic Party" would ONLY be operating out of a small pizza place in D.C. Hah! The only claims on Comet is that its connected in some way.
Also -- due to the Podesta emails, the Democrats are only in the spotlight because they're the closest to the story. Only fools would assume this sort of conspiracy would be some partisan issue.
Quick Pro Tip: When you're doing a link analysis and all the lines make a hub around one person or location, you can make some pretty easy guesses as to their role in the bigger picture.
"...is operating out of a Washington pizza restaurant."
Had you spent a moment or two doing your own homework, you would have realized that where its 'run' is only conjecture. The evidence points to involvement. If you actually did your research, then this is a subtle strawman argument. Nicely done. Unless you didn't do your homework and don't really know what is being claimed.
"So how did this fake story take hold amongst alt-right Trump supporters and other Hillary Clinton opponents?"
Good thing we did away with the silly pretense of objectivity by the 4th paragraph. I guess this is an editorial, but its certainly not presented that way.
"In early November, as Wikileaks steadily released piles of emails from Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta, one contact caught the attention of prankster sites and people on the paranoid fringes."
lulz.
You completely ignored the ONLY tangible piece of evidence in this entire equation: Podesta's communications. In an article I wrote a week ago, I point out that without the Podesta emails, there would be no PizzaGate, or Spirit Cooking. This investigation would never have began. To ignore that element shows a high degree of dishonesty, or more likely, you didn't care enough to do your own homework. Either way, that's a big no-go.
Eyebrows tend to raise when high ranking officials are discussing 'pizza-related handkerchiefs'
and 'dominoes on pizza or pasta'. Or perhaps you're more interested in dreaming about 'hot-dog stands in Hawaii'.
Maybe they're just talking about black market Pepe cards.
Fun Question: Why does the Wikipedia page about the Podesta Email leaks not contain any reference to the PizzaGate emails in question, or even the Spirt Cooking email?
"They trawled Alefantis' Instagram feed for pictures of children and the modern art..."
Wow... again, if you actually did your homework and reached the conclusion that he was being 'trawled for pictures of children and modern art', I don't know what to say. Or more likely, you didn't even do that 'journalist' thing where you investigate before rolling your face on the keyboard.
More worrisome than the images were the comments next to them. That's what really got people raising eyebrows with this.
"... dreamt up a paedophile sex ring involving prominent politicians and political donors."
I like the use of the phrase 'dreamt-up'. For the casual observer (who hasn't done their own homework), it would certainly seem like this was 'dreamt-up'. However, if you actually read the Podesta emails using a coded language related to 'pizza', 'pasta', and 'dominoes', you should at least recognize that there is something rotten in that fridge.
Perhaps they're dealing in stolen Pepe cards... but I doubt it.
"We don't even have a basement."
Hmm... if you speak with Mr. Alefantis again, please ask him where he keeps his cans of tomatoes. He said they are stored in his basement during an interview back in 2015. So, he either lied about having a basement, he was talking about storing tomatoes in another basement, or forgot that he had a basement. Do that journalism thing where you ask questions and get answers based on existing evidence and missing pieces of a puzzle.
Oh -- there's also this property assessment saying he has two stories. So... there's that. Does Jimmy have an upstairs?
""Sometimes an innocent picture of a child in a basket is just an innocent picture of a child in a basket and not proof of a child sex trafficking ring," he says."
How about an innocent picture of a baby chewing on stacks of foreign currency? What about an innocent picture of a girl with her arms taped to a table? How about an innocent picture with a small girl playing with PVC tape? Don't worry about what is written beside the images in the comments, either. That's as unimportant as Podestas emails, which started this rabbit hole vortex.
"Despite the complete lack of physical evidence or victim testimony..."
... If you were committing these sorts of crimes as speculated, why would you leave victims to give testimony?
The Jimmy Saville scandal in the UK has featured in speculation as an example of a serial child abuser getting away with his crimes.
Nice of you to throw in some historical context, at least! More than the New York Times did. Understandable though, since their CEO defended and blocked reports on Saville while working at the BBC.
"There is some evidence that presenting critical information can reduce belief in a theory, but only among people who have not made up their minds yet," Swami says. "For the people who have already made up their minds, it probably won't change anything."
I would be ecstatic if someone could provide credible evidence to explain the meaning behind the code words in Podestas emails and for James Alefantis to explain his 'pedophilic sense of humor'. Never thought I would write that phrase.
Meanwhile, on 4chan, where the whole saga started, while some users continued to promote the rumours, others were lamenting what had happened.
So, the same 4chan that lacks credibility a few paragraphs above is now used as anecdotal evidence of a collapsing hoax. Well played.
Hey Mike Wendell... I think I figured out the problem with most media outlets. All of us that have been living on the internet for years are slowly realizing we can pretty much do our own journalism now, and do it more objectively than relying on being spoon fed from folks such as yourself.
What's the lesson of today? DO YOUR OWN HOMEWORK.
Read my previous post on PizzaGate: Simple PizzaGate Thought Experiment
Check out pizza-it.org
Pizzagate is looking pretty solid.
David Icke did mention this stuff 20 years ago and everything he wrote about pedophilia (like BBC, USA and UK politicians involvement, and Jimmy Savile) has fully stood the test of time.
Icke has done so much good. i sure wish he had, at least, kept the interdimensional, lizard demon controlled bloodlines to himself until there was a way to bring evidence to the party.
His evidence on Jimmy Savile was a lot more solid than on the lizard people...
http://disinfo.com/2012/10/did-david-icke-call-out-the-british-establishments-pedophile-jimmy-savile/
So back to pizzas - which bit of pizzagate has been disproved?
i agree. it's just so tedious debating the weak minded people who want to throw the baby out with the bath water. Icke has so much that is accurate and way ahead of the curve.
just so you know, it is only useful to argue with CJ for fun. he's only good at being contrary, not at actual thought.
excellent post. it is apparent the BBC is driven to out themselves as the largest purveyor of fake news, they still have some rather stiff American competition, New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, Huffpo, Wapo, et cetera. Keep thrashing these fakers until all the evidence falls out. it seems that, every time they lie, they only bring more attention to the facts, i guess they don't understand the Streisand effect.
Great article, I also wrote to Wendling on his bad Journalism highlighting similar points. Have you heard this interview yet?
Interview with Retired Navy Seal Erik Prince on the NYPD and FBI investigations into 650, 000 Podesta emails with incriminating evidence on Hillary Clinton and other members of Congress as well as James Alefantis in the NYPD department and Judicial system to stop this case being fully reopened
https://soundcloud.com/breitbart/breitbart-news-daily-erik-prince-november-4-2016
Great post, thank you.
fyi: The same bonehead new account who went rambling after you on your pizzagate post last week did the exact same thing to me on a different post I commented on.
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"Sooooo.. emails aren't 'physical' you mean?"
"You completely ignored the ONLY tangible piece of evidence in this entire equation"
So you admit these emails are supposedly the only tangible evidence. The problem is those emails aren't evidence of anything other than buying pizza. That is why the journalist was indeed correct in their assertion that there is no evidence.
Inventing a secret decoder ring out of thin air to transform the emails into what you want them to say is not evidence.
If only you would apply the same rigor you used here with a little bit of reason and scrutiny to pizza gate you might have come to an entirely different conclusion.
Also- if the emails were just about "ordering pizza" as you say, why didnt the nytimes, BBC, or snopes declare that in their pieces? What gain is there to ignoring a key catalyst to the question being asked in the first place?
What are you talking about? Was that a typo? They didn't mention the emails?
Lol yea that was a typo but thank you for proving my point. (Edited)
But they did mention the emails. You aren't making any sense.
You've claimed the only real evidence is the emails yet the emails are not evidence of anything. The articles you reference actually do mention the emails but regardless of what the articles mention there still isn't any evidence.
Try and be objective.
The Podesta emails were mentioned three times in the email - but none of them referenced the specific coded emails in question:
WHAT caught their attention? They don't say. Is that not a vital piece of information for readers?
The other references of the emails point out that Alefantis and Comet Pizza are mentioned in the emails as well. But they don't tie that string to the use of code words in the emails.
Actually what caught their attention isn't all that important since it had to be rewritten using a fabricated decoder. Are you saying had he included a sentence saying that emails about ordering pizza had caught their attention? Yea, I guess it would have been a nice detail to add in order to give the whole pizzagate name context but I don't see any issue with not including it either.
The story isn't really in what those emails said it's what was fabricated after.
You seem not to understand emails as evidence. There is literally nothing in the emails that is evidence of connection to a pedophile ring. A wholly fabricated substitution cipher has to be applied.
That is not evidence that is just making shit up.
All that I'm claiming as a certainty is that the emails are evidence of a conspiracy. Numerous people using similar code language in odd contexts is something.
The pedophilia stuff is conjecture based on the most common usage of those terms outside of their normal usage.
You aren't being objective and I'm unsure you know what "certainty" is.
Your own comment betrays itself.
"I'm claiming as a certainty"
vs
"code language in odd contexts is something"
So you are certain that it means something. Wow what a claim. Words mean something.
"pedophilia stuff is conjecture"
Yea, that's why what you are claiming to be evidence isn't and the journalist you critiqued did a far better job of remaining objective than you did.
I AM CERTAIN they're not simply talking about pizza, pasta, maps, dominoes and cheese. No explanation of the common use of those words could answer for the broader context in which they're used in these emails.
Words do mean something, as do legal requirements for conspiracy to commit crimes.
I don't write for BBC and I didn't pretend to be objective about his piece -- my stated intent was to dismantle it.
So what was Podesta and friends talking about in the emails?
"we can pretty much do our own journalism now, and do it more objectively than relying on being spoon fed from folks such as yourself."
That's what makes me think you are espousing being a better and more objective journalist yourself, and why I'm laying into you on being objective. The only thing I'm certain about with this fiasco is that there currently does not exist evidence in the public domain to support the allegations being touted.
Personally if I were to start making wild guesses at what might be a code or what might not be I would bet on drugs. Then again it could literally just be pizza.
This is good, I want to see the email text on msm, let the viewer decide.
There is plenty of circumstantial evidence surrounding key individuals in this picture, but yes, Podesta emails are the core of the investigations.
As far as "they're only ordering pizza"... seriously? Have you read all of the emails in question? The mafia spoke in code to explain assassinations and more. That was used as evidence in wiretap evidence plenty of times.
You seem like you haven't gone too far down the rabbit hole and can understand that at best there is some weird language that might be a code in those emails. As you said yourself all the pedophilia is conjecture. So by definition there isn't any evidence. Given that how can a responsible and objective journalist be expected to report unconfirmed conjecture as evidence?
You are grasping at straws. What is your interest in this non-matter, as you would say.
My interest is Steemit and the amount of baseless allegations being posted. Probably to the detriment of my earning potential I've decided to start engaging pizzagaters to challenge these claims.
It seems to me that the allegations are not "baseless," since I'm seeing red flags all over this. Why don't we all, including law enforcement, do a bit of investigation and see if you're right, and this really is baseless.
The biggest red flag to anyone should be that this started on 4chan.
I am crazy busy right now with you know what coming right on time, that I have nothing to say except that I am posting and upvoting every single post in this category I can until it gets "accidentally erased"