20 June 2017

Rolling Stone Reporter Matt Taibbi Uses Alex Jones For A Punching Bag

Caught in Matt Taibbi's most up-to-date crosshairs, he spares no punches to a media mongrel. The occasion:
Megyn Kelly Vivisects Bloated Conspiracy Hog Alex Jones
One of America's greatest goofs ODs on his own self-importance on national TV
First, your MesaZona really admires hard-hitting media reporters like Jonathan Pie and Matt Taibbi - they have a strong with words. Matt's father Mark Taibbi was a local reporter for years in New York City with a more under-stated presentation but with the same instinctive gut to tackle the news. Matt, really out-there with a brilliant mind and way-with words has gone against the establishment breaking first into a packed line-up of reporters who barely scratch the surface - Matt gets under people's skins. Read him yourself this time around in Rolling Stone ...this is just to get you started off with opening lines:
By
"Last year around election time, I sent a clip of Infowars lunatic Alex Jones to a friend. It was one of the ultimate Jones set pieces: his classic "gay bomb" rant, where the balloon-faced TV host turns baboon-ass red working himself up into a rage about Pentagon-designed hormonal weaponry that supposedly can "turn the frickin' frogs gay!"
What do you think tap water is?" he croaks, in the broadcast. "It's a gay bomb, baby!"
My friend wrote back. "Who the hell is that?" he said.
Why, I responded, that's Alex Jones, one of the most influential people in the United States.
My friend didn't believe it. "Come on, this is a gag or something," he said. His actual quote was that the Jones show was like a Nazi version of Tommy Boy, which to him was too funny of an idea to have been generated unironically.
This isn't an uncommon reaction. Most sane people can't process Jones. Nor can they deal with the fact that he drew 83 million page views during election month last November, or that Infowars had 5.3 million unique visitors in May of last year . . "
. . . This is a crazy conception of how media is supposed to work. Judging a report by how tightly it keeps control over whatever you think the desired message is supposed to be is pretty much the opposite of what we're taught to do as journalists. We're describers, not politicians, and the best way to convey the essence of Jones is to let him betray it himself. . . "
He's an epic dingbat, but one of tremendous power and influence. People need to understand how acts like his work and why. No effort to consign him to the margins is going to be successful, because he's already burst way beyond those parameters.
Read more > Rolling Stone

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