Objective Journalism, Nyaaah

Immune Resistance to Propaganda

“The only thing I ever saw that came close to Objective Journalism was the closed circuit TV that watched shoplifters in the General Store at Woody Creek. Don’t bother to look for it here, not under any byline of mine, or anyone else I can think of. With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a gross contradiction in terms.”

Hunter S. Thompson, on his 1972 Fear and Loathing on the Campaign
Trail reporting for Rolling Stone.

Didn’t read Dr. Thompson (“Doctor of Divinity, Reverend of the Church of New Truth”, Original Gonzo Journalist) until long after I’d dropped out of J-School at the University of Florida in 1978. Not on our reading lists. Learnt the Four W’s lede, inverted pyramid, reportorial distancing from those accused, fair and balanced sneering. Only Why if quoting an approved authority. Drinking after deadline. Sucking up to editors. That one I definitely did not retain.

An intro anthro class provided a social scientific refutation to Objective Journalism. Impossible for participant observers in a psychosocial culture, seeing only what we believe. That’s not why I chose Advocacy Journalism in the spring of ‘77 for my community college paper. OJ is purposely boring to sell washing machines. AJ is selling soap for a reporter. Akin to Dreaded PR. They were wrong about nearly everything. OJ the least among them.

I was a hippie health nut, with a few years of reading Mom’s Prevention magazine subscription, being dosed with orthomolecular supplements, ingesting available health books, alternative medicine screeds, copious cannabis and bicycling daily to campus or beach. Cold water soaking demanded New Journalism evangelism. Liberal Loser George McGovern, Mr. Clean reflected in 1974, “The nation now sees itself through the prism of Watergate and the Nixon landslide, as at last, perhaps, we see through a glass clearly.”

Health and Wellness wasn’t even a category. The Food Pyramid was still a Plate. Naturally, my spring ‘77 series, The Health Habit splashed blood on White Sugar. Heart Attacks are Self Defense, Benefits of Bicycling, Perils of Tobacco followed. My chain smoking Journalism professor/publisher hated that one. Actually hated all of them, but health was hip and The Phoenix needed clean copy. He asked suspiciously if I’d “only read a book” after the inaugural column, with that smarmy editor, Brit Peckwith in the background. * The Real Evil Weed was my answer.

Oddly enough, neither fluoride nor vaccinations surfaced, although my conspiratorial world view provided long lasting immunity to their brain blotting propaganda. The fluoride communist plot was in Bircher pamphlets left at the laundromat. The Swine Flu preview of coming attractions made a newsplash in the bicentennial.

As an investigative journalist distilling the Truth about Preventing Disease with Diet and Exercise I was no longer a stenographer of suds. Most of my “opinions” then are inked into the Public Health Bible now. Largely unread, rarely funded. Since this is a Long War, stay healthy so you can dance on the graves of those who called you Crazy. Health Food Nut and Bicycle Freak.

NPR prides itself on producing objective journalism, except for talk shows. “Researchers estimate that the shots prevented about 2 million American deaths in the first year after they were introduced, in addition to preventing serious illness and hospitalizations. But that’s not stopping conspiracy theorists from spreading misinformation about the shots, including the use of the hashtag #DiedSuddenly, to falsely claim that sudden deaths — particularly among children, actors and athletes — are caused by the vaccines. The movement, which includes a ‘documentary’ by the same name, is causing outrage among families who say their loved ones did not die of vaccine-related complications — among them a parent whose son died in a 2017 accident, years before the pandemic.” was the intro for Here & Now’s Robin Young dishing with Renee DiResta.

When diving into AJ, especially in dark waters, fact check thoroughly. Not that one blemish is proof of absence of evidence, but it will be the dark glass seen through. Young and DiResta, technical research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory agreed. There is no connection between the clot shots and sudden deaths or strokes. The last word is Young’s plaintive cry “It’s Not True!” Her medical training consists of two knee replacements, while DiResta “investigates the spread of malign narratives across social networks, and assists policymakers in understanding and responding to the problem. She has advised Congress, the State Department, and other academic, civic, and business organizations, and has studied disinformation and computational propaganda in the context of pseudoscience conspiracies, terrorism, and state-sponsored information warfare.” Probably a PhD in there, but no MPH, or M.D. Not that many doctors would dare disagree.

You can’t calculate synchronicities from dipping into the rabbit hole. Robin Young criticizing Andrew Callaghan, on his show. He’s a young, video journalist who dove deep under the surface of the January 6th capitol riot. Haven’t watched his doc. To be honest, I grew bored with the “insurrection” after Shaman Guy was granted “no spray” meals instead of the “organic food” he was fasting for.

Young slings mud at the newbie for some journalism red line, probably objective journalism. I skipped through it, but in the last ten minutes they agree on Hunter S. Thompson. They’re basically ignorant about the master of hallucinatory participatory parody, only Gonzo Journalism and too many drugs are mentioned, but they bond over nostalgia for his inflated alter ego, Raoul Duke, sports editor. HST’s true genius was tye-dyeing socio-political insight with scatalogical outrage into revolutionary advocacy journalism. Nothing about Health and Wellness, except eating half a dozen grapefruit for breakfast without vodka, whatever the hour.

*A Flash of Green or Who Killed Jack Kerouac, Stephen Simac, Paradise Press 2023.