{"id":29413,"date":"2018-01-05T10:43:24","date_gmt":"2018-01-05T15:43:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=29413"},"modified":"2018-01-05T10:43:24","modified_gmt":"2018-01-05T15:43:24","slug":"ghosts-in-the-propaganda-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=29413","title":{"rendered":"Ghosts in the Propaganda Machine"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"headline\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2018\/01\/05\/ghosts-in-the-propaganda-machine\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Ghosts in the Propaganda Machine<\/a><\/h3>\n<div class=\"post_content\">\n<div id=\"attachment_98322\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-98322\" src=\"https:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2017\/12\/1512319374359.jpg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 509px) 100vw, 509px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2017\/12\/1512319374359.jpg 200w, https:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2017\/12\/1512319374359-150x150.jpg 150w\" alt=\"\" width=\"509\" height=\"509\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>S. Mangal\u2019s social media profile and author photo.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cWhen <i>I<\/i> use a word,\u201d Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, \u201cit means just what I choose it to mean\u2014neither more nor less.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe question is,\u201d said Alice, \u201cwhether you <i>can<\/i> make words mean so many different things.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe question is,\u201d said Humpty Dumpty, \u201cwhich is to be master\u2014that\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Lewis Carroll, <em>Through the Looking Glass<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Is this what online journalism looks like in the era of Russiagate fever?\u00a0A fake writer (read <a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2017\/12\/25\/go-ask-alice-the-curious-case-of-alice-donovan-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Alice Donovan<\/a>) catfishes CounterPunch and a dozen other online websites. A handful of her articles are published over a two-year period. The FBI is tracking her and believes this writer, whoever is behind the moniker, has some ties to Russia. What kind of ties and how deep do they go? We aren\u2019t sure. No evidence is presented, perhaps because there isn\u2019t much, or perhaps because the NSA and the FBI are also spying on actual journalists and editors right along with the alleged imposters. The <em>Washington Post<\/em> calls for a quote on the FBI\u2019s allegation and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/national-security\/kremlin-trolls-burned-across-the-internet-as-washington-debated-options\/2017\/12\/23\/e7b9dc92-e403-11e7-ab50-621fe0588340_story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">runs an article<\/a> a month later on Kremlin operatives \u201cburning across the internet\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>More panic ensues.<\/p>\n<p>But only one troll was named in the <em>Washington Post<\/em> piece, Alice Donovan \u2014 our suspected interloper. Prior to the <em>Post<\/em>\u2019s article, we found out Donovan likely was not who she claimed to be and was a plagiarist to boot. We apologized for our screw-up and issued a lengthy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2017\/12\/25\/go-ask-alice-the-curious-case-of-alice-donovan-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">investigation into the whole Donovan ordeal<\/a>\u00a0and the challenges of vetting writers in the fast-paced world of cyber-journalism. The story ends there, or does it?<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ghosts in the Propaganda Machine S. Mangal\u2019s social media profile and author photo. \u201cWhen I use a word,\u201d Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, \u201cit means just what I choose it to mean\u2014neither more nor less.\u201d \u201cThe question is,\u201d said Alice, \u201cwhether you can make words mean so many different things.\u201d \u201cThe question [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5493,2779,301,11912,17772,577,655,15282,5228],"class_list":["post-29413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-counterpunch","tag-fake-news","tag-fbi","tag-jeffrey-st-clair","tag-joshua-frank","tag-nsa","tag-propaganda","tag-russiagate","tag-washington-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29413"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29414,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29413\/revisions\/29414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}