“At BizNews, we have an old-fashioned view of the purpose of a media business,” writes BizNews founder Alec Hogg. “We serve rather than advocate. That means we provide a platform from which all sides of a story can be ventilated, working on the belief that one can never overestimate the intelligence of the community we serve. This approach is based on a deep contention that in our increasingly complex world, nobody owns the monopoly on truth. As we bob along like corks in an ocean of unknowns, exposing our community to all perspectives is the only rational approach. History has many examples of how today’s perceived wisdom is abandoned tomorrow.” On occasion, BizNews has been accused of holding a particular view on various topics, simply because it tells all sides of the story. This is because we believe readers should be allowed to form their own opinions on what is true. In this article, Simon Lincoln Reader, a London-based technology investor and popular columnist at BizNews, advocates why presenting both sides of any story can never (and should never) be regarded as disinformation. – Claire Badenhorst
If you want to accuse others of ‘disinformation’, first try to understand what ‘journalism’ actually means
By Simon Lincoln Reader*
Good news for you South Africa – local wheeler-dealer Phumzile van Damme has appointed herself prime arbiter of truth and established ‘The 2021 Local Government Anti-Disinformation Project’. To this caper, she has invited another notorious chancer, Chris Roper at something called ‘Code for Africa’, as well as Open Society largesse beneficiary Right2Know. In an interview with Beijing24, Phumzile was kind enough, after an introductory discussion with the host on the subject of nail polish, to explain what she classifies as “disinformation”: “Trumpian”… “anti-mask”… “anti-
The problem isn’t just that nobody – save for a troop of white, liberal middle-class data monkeys and Max du Preez – likes these people. It’s that they themselves don’t like the truth if it doesn’t support their position.
This has happened to her personally. Once again I refer to that retweet from Roper on the 8th of June 2021: “Somebody shared this with me, with the comment ‘alec is going deeeeep into the alt-right jungle’. I can’t better that”. The original tweet belonged to Alec Hogg, addressing the subject of the Wuhan lab leak theory, which was initially dismissed by people like Phumzile and Roper as “racist” or “a conspiracy theory”, but is since the subject of multiple lines of inquiry. The first person to respond to Roper’s retweet was Phumzile herself: “Oh God. WHY is this happening?! I despair”.
Not that she’d know, but it happened because it’s called investigative journalism, where events are best examined in their entirety. The late former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks once remarked: “Science takes things apart to see how they work – religion brings things together to see what they mean”. Real journalism functions upon Sacks’ interpretation of religion: when things are not put together, you get Nickolaus Bauer, or ‘the Cato Manor Death Squad’, or Jacques Pauw at the Waterfront, or GroundUp unwittingly lobbying for the release of a cold-blooded murderer (Carl Schoombie’s killer, Juane Jacobs) or even that other creepy data monkey (what is it with this species?) who tried to get me canceled from Business Day for condemning a one-handed pedophile.
Phumzile is now also a ‘brain’s trust’ member of ‘The Real Facebook Oversight Board’ which is just like the ‘Facebook Oversight Board’ but with added Karen-age to make it sound like an actual job, indirectly co-founded by the most demented British activist in recent memory, Carole Cadwalladr, whose comprehensive list of ‘corrections’ for the Guardian reads as an encyclopedia of disinformation.
The RFOB exists for one reason: to eliminate diversity of opinion. They want to turn Facebook into Twitter – to normalise double standards in moderation. This is a curious position considering the details of Mark Zuckerberg’s generosity which ‘fortified’ the US elections of 2020. Zuckerberg personally funded The Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL) for election operations in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin. I’ve yet to encounter any criticism from RFOB for this, which would suggest they’re selective about impropriety or its appearance. Everything they don’t like must be censored.
So what will The 2021 Local Government Disinformation Project do? Apart from cyberbully through pile-ons anyone whose politics departs from the activist/establishment/data monkey obsession of the day, that is not clear. But what has become gin-clear is the identity of those circulating disinformation. Most sensible people can today quote a recent example of CNN circulating disinformation (this it does whilst employing ‘fact-checkers’). The New York Times circulates disinformation – and its biggest dissembler, a social justice activist called Apoorva Mandavilli, is still happily employed. Ditto USA Today, MSNBC, the BBC, the pederasts at the Lincoln Project, and thousands of others. This is why it is hard to take seriously Phumzile and co: beyond the shrieks of ‘democracy!’ these people are just pee-tape brainwashed ideologues, allied to disinformation’s worst culprits.
- Simon Lincoln Reader works and lives in London. You can follow him on Substack.
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