A few days ago I watched an interview of Edward Snowden with Lyin’ Brian Williams where he caught my attention about the distinction between providing classified material to a journalist or foreign spy (watch the first 2:00 minutes):
I’m not sure why until now I didn’t think about the purpose of foreign money funneled to media organizations and think-tanks beyond purchasing journalists and controlling the news. We know the media is completely controlled by our enemies, but what else do those dollars procure? That interview shifted my perspective on the media’s role in commoditizing national security, and why they’re probably in some very serious trouble.
This new perspective reconciles a nagging question I’ve had over the past few years while the fake news went stratospheric and inversely proportional to ratings. I may seem to go off on a tangent in the next few paragraphs, but stay with my thought process because it leads to the doorstep of (what I believe to be) my Eureka moment.
How can major news organizations sustain their operations with a declining viewership that’s less than a mid-size popular podcast? To make my point, let’s compare one I really like, Mark Dice, and CNN (because I’m from Atlanta) with clown Don Lemon.
Don Lemon is CNN’s second highest-rated show, and he averages ~800k viewers per show; yes, you read that right (image 13 of 14 in the image slider):
13 of 14
The network’s top daily news programs, based on total viewers during April 20162. “CNN Tonight” with Don Lemon is the network's second most popular show, averaging 807,000 viewers in April. It typically airs at 10 p.m. ET, but is often extended or shifted for coverage of breaking news.
Compare that to Mark Dice, who has 1.53mm subscribers on YouTube. In a 5-10 minute video, he’ll get between 150k and 500k viewers, and sometimes even upwards to a million. This is with Dice swimming upstream against content suppression and YouTube manipulating view counts. CNN continues to pay airports. Dice provides funny commentary on real stories, while CNN provides commentary on fake stories.
For an apples-to-apples comparison of Lemon’s hour to ~60 minutes of Dice’s videos, it’s not a fair fight. People seek out Dice’s videos, while people watch CNN at a particular time slot because that’s what happens to be on TV as they’re channel surfing.
I went this scenic route to make the case that CNN must sustain massive operations with their salaries, operating costs on the CNN building, paying airports to give some life to their ratings, yet their second biggest money maker has less viewership than a guy who cuts videos from his kitchen table in his pajamas. That’s mind-blowing if you think about it.
CNN clearly doesn’t care about competition, and seems to feel exempt from the laws of the free market. They have no problem alienating viewers by spewing fake news and really bring nothing of value to their audience.
How does a business not care about delivering a better product to compete for market share? Their cable subscriber fee has to be close to a nickel for their next rate negotiations (it was ~.61 per subscriber in 2015), and every month consumers are cutting the cord and going digital. They could solve their woes overnight, or at the least stop the bleeding and claw back credibility and begin the journey back to the top. Why not do this?
This is the mystery for which I’ve had no answers, or even decent theories.
My brain has not been able to contemplate this kamikaze business model. To me it feels as if I took my coffee cup, dropped it, but instead of falling to the ground it just hovered in mid-air. However, as I saw more news circulate about foreign money pumping into our American media and auxiliary think tanks, I began to wonder if that’s keeping these organizations from drowning. I still didn’t understand what they were receiving for their money beyond the control of propaganda. Controlling our media is valuable, but it’s not like it’s been effective over the past five or ten years.
There’s an intense desperation from foreign actors like China and Iran to get rid of Trump, just as there’s a desperation for news outfits to stay alive in the media space. I see an ugly rich guy who can’t get laid sitting at a bar at closing time talking to a crackhead prostitute (no, that wasn’t a Hunter Biden joke). They’re going to get together.
To reiterate, this is a theory of mine, and I have no hard evidence of what I’m leading up to, but with what we now know about the Clinton campaign, foreign intelligence agencies, Obama’s CIA, FBI, and DOJ, and all the players involved in the desperate coup conspiracy to remove Trump, I don’t think I need to go grab the Reynolds Wrap and start shaping a new hat. I’m operating on solid ground.
Back to the Snowden clip above, he mentions in his espionage case that the law says there’s no distinction between leaking classified material to a journalist, or a foreign government (spy).
That’s what got me thinking...
The media organizations are infested with intelligence officials. This Daily Caller article talks about fifteen well-known personalities, but I saw a list last year with a lot more, but for the life of me I can’t find it, but it’s a hell of a lot more than fifteen that happen to be in the public eye.
Think about Snowden’s comment, then think of the foreign actors entrenched with our American media that’s stocked to the brim with intelligence officials. What are tens and hundreds of millions of dollars buying? Puff pieces? A few stories to shape a narrative? I don’t think so.
I think these (some) media companies are using the guise of journalism to facilitate and sell national security information. Maybe they transport information, and maybe they play matchmakers between our spooks and the foreign actors with money. This may be old news to some, but it’s a new perspective I’ve adopted that's really clicking for me.
Previously, I had the perspective that foreign money buys the media so their puppets parrot what they’re told, and ditto from the spook side, where spooks do the sqwaking or tell the media personalities what to say and write like good little mockingbirds. I assumed the media’s primary role was prostitute who knew they were behaving seditiously, or covertly, but needed the cash.
All that happens, but I think it’s more of their cover than primary role. Now I think such a media company is simply a brand or logo acting as an umbrella for spooks and foreigners to get together under the cover of “journalism”, i.e.:
FBI: “Why did Abdul Alalahahaha Akbararalakalaka pay you $150k?”
REPORTER: “He wanted us to write a favorable anti-Saudi, pro-Qatari piece. See? Here it is.”
FBI: “Oh, OK, but this may be a FARA issue.”
REPORTER: “Oh, shucks. OK, you caught me. I’ll go register tomorrow on my lunch break.”
or:
FBI: “Why did you meet with known Iranian spy Malala Akrabalakaka at 03:00 at a diner?”
REPORTER: “I was tipped off that he may have information about a story I’ve been working on. I’m a reporter, that’s what I do. Sometimes I have to talk with shady people to chase down a story.”
FBI: “What was the story? Who tipped you off?”
REPORTER: “Hey man! I don’t give out my sources! I’m a journalist! Why are you harassing journalists?? What is this, NAZI Russia?!?!”
If you or I meet with a shady foreign spy in secret, we’d need a damn good cover story. A journalist, however, can meet in broad daylight and say he’s chasing a story. I’m painting with broad strokes, but you get the picture. Instead of three entities (media, foreigners, spooks) it’s two entities (foreigners, spooks), where media acts as the go-between, moving data, and probably even plugged directly into our intelligence systems running 702 queries. I’d bet money a lot of them have the CrowdStrike Blackberries. Does it sound that far fetched? FusionGPS acted as a facilitator to the media outfits per Glenn Simpson under oath, and there’s a strong suspicion they, and CrowdStrike, had their grimy little paws in the databases running queries on Americans.
To the punchline of my theory: are media personalities in danger of catching an espionage charge? If they’re facilitating and disseminating classified information to foreign governments, then they would be guilty like Hillary. Recall, per FBI General Counsel James Baker’s testimony under oath, they were ready indict Hillary under the espionage act before the DOJ squashed it.
If this is the case, it seems like any seditious behavior where they promoted news they knew was fake for the purpose of taking down the President takes a back seat to straight-up espionage and treason. It explains the behavior of the fake news media and their seemingly careless approach to business and panicked desperation. It explains the ridiculous number of intelligence professionals employed and contracting, and it explains the large sums of foreign money, and what would ultimately be the biggest prize on the planet: the national security of the United States.
