Maybe it’s my wounded professional pride, but I came to the Sunday programme’s segment on conspiracy theory magazines with the thought that “This will be a bit rubbish.” I mean, really, they had to go to Australia for an expert? I’m right here in Ponsonby/Grey Lynn.
So, with that egotistical bit out of the way, “Sunday,” this last Sunday, featured a segment on Jonathan Eisen and “Uncensored” magazine (the internet for people who can’t afford dial-up), as well as the chap who runs “Nexus” over in Australia. You can watch it here.
The thesis, as put forward by the publishers of “Uncensored” and “Nexus,” is that the so-called Mainstream Media (MSM) only appeases vested interests and doesn’t fulfil the remit of informing the general populace. This wasn’t questioned by Ian Sinclair, the reporter for the piece, which was strange because he works for the MSM and thus… Well, it’s not really clear what the piece was about. It wasn’t about debunking the claims that magazines like “Uncensored” put forward, because whilst there was some very casual debunking ((For example, Clare Swinney asserted that some fairly innocuous cloud cover were actually chemtrails. Sinclair showed said chemtrails to a scientist, who said they were perfectly normal cloud cover, which then caused Jon Eisen to say that the scientist must be a minion for the “Man.” Hardly award-winning journalism.)) most of the piece seemed designed to allow the publishers of “Uncensored” and “Nexus” to say ‘You aren’t getting the whole truth from the media,’ as if a) most people don’t already know that and b) the publishers of “Uncensored” and “Nexus” would give you such truths.
All fairly predictable.
I really can’t think of anything particularly interesting to say about the piece, really. The segment had nothing new to say; it didn’t exactly paint Eisen as a crackpot or as a serious journalist but rather as… a man who prints a magazine. I’m curious as to what “Sunday’s” mostly middle-class audience thought of the piece. I could understand if they had brought Ian Wishart into the discussion, because Wishart, in “Investigate,” talks to the concerns of the white middle-classes but this?
Consider me bemused. And obviously not doing any work of substance if I can spend an entire morning trying to write this post.