Monday, October 21, 2013

As I Continue to Work Diligently to Drive Down My Insufferability Quotient...


...by temporarily suspending the conceit that I am right about some things and other people are wrong or are so late to the party that they should at least wipe their feet before heading for the keg, I am going to continue to look even assiduously for more feel-good tales of hardworking folks who are finding ways to make it in this crazy world!

Like, for example, this inspirational story about how someone is finally paying the effing writing! 

Fox News Reportedly Used Fake Commenter Accounts To Rebut Critical Blog Posts
New Book Details An Extensive Campaign By The Networks' PR Staffers

NPR media reporter David Folkenflik writes in his forthcoming book Murdoch's World that Fox News' public relations staffers used an elaborate series of dummy accounts to fill the comments sections of critical blog posts with pro-Fox arguments.

In a chapter focusing on how Fox utilized its notoriously ruthless public relations department in the mid-to-late 00's, Folkenflik reports that Fox's PR staffers would "post pro-Fox rants" in the comments sections of "negative and even neutral" blog posts written about the network. According to Folkenflik, the staffers used various tactics to cover their tracks, including setting up wireless broadband connections that "could not be traced back" to the network.

A former staffer told Folkenflik that they had personally used "one hundred" fake accounts to plant Fox-friendly commentary...
Writing multi-character fiction is not easy!

Glad to see fellow writers finding ways to make a living in this tough economy.

2 comments:

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

yeah but in order to get paid, they had to blithely spout Fox-approved talking points in opposition to all observed reality.

I think writing porn scripts would be less damaging to your self-esteem.

Horace Boothroyd III said...

Ah, the great troll hunt. During the heyday of the Snowden\Greenwald leak-a-palooza, hysterical ninnies at dailykos.com would shriek such accusations at one another by way of greeting.

Everyone pretty much knew that dishonest actors were always around, planting disinformation. The real questions were how many and how active, and were they responsible for the rampage of paranoid character assassination that maimed the community.

The short answer, of course, was "no." There is a reason that witch hunts are in such disrepute.