> What has changed is that the press used to maintain certain boundaries in the relationship, observing the incest taboo. It kept its pants zipped, at least in public. It didn’t hire ex-CIA directors, top FBI men, NSA brass, or other past and future sources to sit beside its anchors at spot-lit news-desks that blocked our view of their lower extremities. But it gave in.
Incredibly, this essay about bullshit is bullshit. Here's a snip of journalism from 1977:
"Alsop is one of more than 400 American journalists who in the past twenty‑five years have secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency, according to documents on file at CIA headquarters. Some of these journalists’ relationships with the Agency were tacit; some were explicit. There was cooperation, accommodation and overlap. Journalists provided a full range of clandestine services—from simple intelligence gathering to serving as go‑betweens with spies in Communist countries. Reporters shared their notebooks with the CIA. Editors shared their staffs. Some of the journalists were Pulitzer Prize winners, distinguished reporters who considered themselves ambassadors without‑portfolio for their country. Most were less exalted: foreign correspondents who found that their association with the Agency helped their work; stringers and freelancers who were as interested in the derring‑do of the spy business as in filing articles; and, the smallest category, full‑time CIA employees masquerading as journalists abroad. In many instances, CIA documents show, journalists were engaged to perform tasks for the CIA with the consent of the managements of America’s leading news organizations."[1]
The long, well documented history of intelligence services mixing in with journalism is impossible to miss if you do any research at all.
> The other day when Cuba erupted in protests, numerous stories explained the riots, confidently, instantly, as demands for COVID vaccines.
This is more bullshit. The protest started on July 11th. Here are some headlines/bylines/opening paragraphs from that week:
(BBC 7/13) Cuba protests: Arrests after thousands rally against government: Dozens of people have been arrested in Cuba after thousands joined the biggest protests for decades against the island's Communist government, media and opposition sources say.[2]
(Reuters 7/11) Cuba sees biggest protests for decades as pandemic adds to woes -- Chanting "freedom" and calling for President Miguel Diaz-Canel to step down, thousands of Cubans joined street protests from Havana to Santiago on Sunday in the biggest anti-government demonstrations on the Communist-run island in decades.[3]
(WaPo 7/12) Cubans hold biggest anti-government protests in decades; Biden says U.S. stands with people -- Communist Cuba erupted in its largest-scale demonstrations in decades on Sunday as thousands of people chanting “freedom” and “yes, we can” took to the streets from Havana to Santiago de Cuba in a major new challenge to an authoritarian government struggling to cope with increasingly severe blackouts, food shortages and a spiking coronavirus outbreak.[4]
The only way you could arrive at the same conclusion is if you did not read any of the news from that week.
Take the author's advice, avoid bullshit. However, actual bullshit is usually essays like this, which are really opinion pieces that do not attempt to mention any facts at all. If your "alternative media" is nothing but opinion pieces that count other similarly prejudiced opinions as research, it's bullshit all the way down. Journalism has some bullshit mixed in, as does everything, but at least there's a chance you will walk away with some information.
[1] http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-57813704
[3] https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/street-protests-break...
[4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/07/11/cuba-protest...