In September, 1987, I visited the northwest of Ireland with my wife, Ellen, whose father was raised with five siblings in a thatched roof farmhouse in County Mayo.
As an adult, the only occasions on which I have watched "the News" were the Chernobyl incident and 9/11, both acts generated by fraud and mendacity. I knew Covid was a deliberate act of the same ilk and never gave it the time of day.
Me too, Gwyneth. I spent about zero seconds worrying that a new, spontaneously-occurring coronavirus was going to wipe out large swaths of the planet. By March 2020, I already knew that I shouldn't "trust the experts" ... nor the MSM.
This was another thought-provoking piece of journalism/commentary. For example, your point that Ted Turner did a terrible thing giving the world “24-hour, non-stop news” is an original and provocative observation.
Ted Turner also famously gave the U.N. a billion-dollar financial gift, which is another example of how obtuse this maverick and allegedly sage entrepreneur must have really been.
This global bureaucracy surely squandered every one of these dollars or did no good with the programs this money funded. These programs almost certainly made the world a worse place to live. (Did anyone in the UN question the Scamdemic?)
Also, as far as I can tell, the UN hasn’t prevented any global wars. The programs and agendas of this “democracy”-enhancing debating forum are themselves, all scams. (The UN wants far more mRNA vaccinations and, I think, created another Globalist Bureacracy, the WHO).
Still, Ted Turner was celebrated far and wide for supporting such an awful, unnecessary organization - which is something real journalism could prove IF authentic and important journalism was ever practiced or allowed.
I also like your point that almost all news reports are simplistic and easy to produce - just cover a press conference or a “White House” statement - throw in a 6-second sound bite - and there’s your story.
As you note, real and important journalism takes time-consuming work and would focus on important changes or significant trends.
In the macro picture, the world’s real rulers want greater CONTROL and, to achieve this objective, need to control the legacy or corporate news organizations which, in turn, manipulate the thinking of the mass public by the superficial stories they produce - and, more importantly, all the stories they will never run.
Basically, they produce the Fear Narratives that allow our real leaders to control the world - an end-result Ted Turner clearly embraced.
Thanks, Bill, especially for being an independent journalist willing to dig and to write--very well--about topics the MSM won't touch.
I didn't know that Turner had funded the UN. Any nation that supported the Covid freakout made billions of people poorer. Many of these people went hungry.
Nice piece, Mark. I have avoided news programming for decades, although it was a daily routine for my aging parents. They had to watch the execrable David Muir every evening; even now, my mother routinely tunes in at her assisted living facility to hear the latest depressing "news". We are all better off if we ignore their non-stop bleating and instead focus on our own interests, friends, and family.
"But to me, the hanta focus feels more like an attempt to reinforce the narrative that lethal viruses are always lurking and thus, to retroactively justify the Covid response. "
And that's why we have the phonies congressman Massie and Rand Paul bringing up the lab leak nonsense.
It only justifies the fear and the lab leak story was purposely seeded as a false alternative.
We know that before the clot shots the years of life lost due to "COVID" was close to zero, meaning there was nothing new.
After the shots, years of life lost increased as younger people died. They blamed it on COVID which is the typical sham... Like when someone dies from chemo, they blame cancer... Etc
I know this from my "early spread" research. Even if there was a lab leak in Wuhan in December of November 2019, any people who got "sick" from any novel virus were NOT the "Case Zeroes" in the world.
The virus had galloped around the world several times by early November 2019. Where were the "Covid deaths" from this contagious virus?
Officials knew this virus had been "spreading" and, more importantly, they knew it was not a "deadly virus." Thus, there was no need for lockdowns or a rushed, experimental mRNA "vaccine" to save lives. Early spread shows almost nobody was at risk of dying from this virus.
(I wish Rand Paul, or anyone "who matters," would read some of my "early spread" stories and offer his comments on my conclusions.)
If they did, even belatedly, "confirm" this, it would show the entire Covid Panic Narrative was bogus. It would show they were accomplices in a plot that created "crimes against humanity."
Excellent writing, as usual. I was raised with watching the local news on at 6:00pm and the national news on at 6:30pm. But now, for reasons you discussed, I rarely if ever watch the national news or even read a newspaper. It is a shame that the corporate media doesn’t do more in depth reporting but if big pharma is paying your bills do you really want to broadcast any negative news about them.
Thirty nine years later you got a good story out of your Ireland Pub Crawl though. Even tipsy yourself, your photographic memory allows you to remember quotes from your drinking buddy.
It was a different kind of night. One I've not repeated.
Though a few years later, four friends and I drank a beer at every of the 14 bars on the main street in my town, Kearny, NJ. Difference was that in Kearny you could get "short beers," 7 ounces instead of pints.
I stayed in the west of Ireland in 1995, on the local news they discussed "the hedgerow policy" (honest!) and there was going to be a town hall meeting about it and also, a lady had left her medications on the bus and it was handed in - could she collect it from the police station in Dingle please...
Regarding our captured and/or obtuse "journalists," they KNOW all the stories they are supposed to put into heavy circulation. Perhaps, more importantly, they also KNOW all the stories they are NOT supposed to cover (or dismiss as dis-information from science-denying kooks).
For example, journalists (and everyone "who matters) know all about the phenomena of the white, fibrous embalmers clots ... and won't ever cover this. They also must know that "early spread" happened.
... Which was the theme I tried to develop in one of my recent Substack commentaries.
As a young woman-50 years ago-I read a story about how the government spent its research money. When I saw how much was being paid to a group studying homosexuality in seagulls, I knew that honest scientific research was dead. It had become a way to make money without actually looking for value or benefit. I have ignored almost everything coming from the scientific community since
Much of this "scientific research" produces toxic results. For example, in my state, UAB was a lead investigator in the trials to make remdesivir the approved treatment for people with severe Covid. This "research" - funded by tens of millions in government-provided grants - killed probably tens of thousands of people ... and is still killing people today.
"...the hanta focus feels more like an attempt to reinforce the narrative that lethal viruses are always lurking and thus, to retroactively justify the Covid response."
I think you may be right about this. Fear is a powerful tool (as evidenced by the covid years) and reinforcing this fear will help the powers that be in the future when this tool is needed from the tool kit. I'm still of the opinion that covid was nothing new or unique but rather, rebranded flu + other respiratory illnesses. Regardless, the fear mongering was ridiculous.
The covid hysteria got me to stop watching the news entirely but I must admit, I probably spend too much time getting "news" from X and various substacks these days.
I've been to Ireland several times and always had a great time. I can totally relate to unplanned late drinking nights with new friends.
I wish I could have met Anne. I have had the great pleasure of visiting Ireland twice in the early 2000s. The country was prosperous by then, and it seemed that half the homes in western Ireland had added guest suites to take advantage of the tourist trade. What stood out most to me was the simple, quiet way the people lived, unhurried and friendly. One hostess bragged that although she had added a modern kitchen, she liked to serve her guests in the old kitchen, where she could have water to the boil on her old peat stove in ONLY 45 minutes. Oh, I miss that place. I'm sure it no longer exists, thanks to the Internet. But then, maybe I'll email my Irish friend in Limerick and ask her. A place unmolested by nonstop 'news' would be heavenly indeed.
I would very much like to know if The Holy Ground and boneyard are still there. And if Anthony is still alive. I can give you his last name if you email me at forecheck32 at gmail.
Totally agree with your comment about Ted Turner. He should be vilified for creating 24-hour “news”. Not that it wasn’t always government propaganda, but now it’s just an endless stream of “content”, completely devoid of any kind of investigation or truth.
Mark Oshinskie— You've given me a lot to meditate on here.
I can say this much: one of the best things I ever did for myself was to quit watching CNN. I DO NOT WATCH IT. Soon thereafter I got rid of the TV.
May Ted Turner rest in peace. He was a wild guy. No one's perfect. I never met him. I knew some people who went to college with him, they always had a lot to say, as I recall, mainly in line with having been scandalized by his antics. TT didn't wear socks! OMG I guess that was shocking back in the 1950s. Funny but that's what I think of when I think of TT, no socks.
A billion dollars to the UN. Ha! The daffy stuff some people do with their money, whether they have only a little or heaps upon heaps upon heaps, never ceases to amaze me. We live in such an interesting world, no? Your evocation of rural Ireland is haunting.
I don't know much about TT. I don't mean to condemn him across the board. But those who hailed him as the father of 24 hour news shouldn't have. That was a very pernicious thing.
Now that we live closer to Gettysburg where re-enactors still abound, what I remember about Ted Turner is the production of the 1993 film Gettysburg through his company, Turner Pictures. While Moctesuma Esparza and Robert Katz were the primary producers, Turner provided the crucial financing and personal backing that allowed the project to move forward after other studios turned it down.
Ted Turner was a Civil War buff, like my Uncle Wallace, who took all five of us on a tour of the battlefield when I was 9 years old. I named my firstborn after Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.
People in Gettysburg still talk about Ted Turner playing Confederate Colonel Waller T. Patton, ancestor to WWII General George S Patton Jr. Turner appears in a cameo during Pickett's Charge, on the third day of the battle. His character is killed advancing on the Union position.
My wife and I also did our honeymoon bicycling in the British Isles in 1980. Went into Northern Ireland through the border town of Newry on Orange Day with no clue what that was. There's a story
As an adult, the only occasions on which I have watched "the News" were the Chernobyl incident and 9/11, both acts generated by fraud and mendacity. I knew Covid was a deliberate act of the same ilk and never gave it the time of day.
Me too, Gwyneth. I spent about zero seconds worrying that a new, spontaneously-occurring coronavirus was going to wipe out large swaths of the planet. By March 2020, I already knew that I shouldn't "trust the experts" ... nor the MSM.
This was another thought-provoking piece of journalism/commentary. For example, your point that Ted Turner did a terrible thing giving the world “24-hour, non-stop news” is an original and provocative observation.
Ted Turner also famously gave the U.N. a billion-dollar financial gift, which is another example of how obtuse this maverick and allegedly sage entrepreneur must have really been.
This global bureaucracy surely squandered every one of these dollars or did no good with the programs this money funded. These programs almost certainly made the world a worse place to live. (Did anyone in the UN question the Scamdemic?)
Also, as far as I can tell, the UN hasn’t prevented any global wars. The programs and agendas of this “democracy”-enhancing debating forum are themselves, all scams. (The UN wants far more mRNA vaccinations and, I think, created another Globalist Bureacracy, the WHO).
Still, Ted Turner was celebrated far and wide for supporting such an awful, unnecessary organization - which is something real journalism could prove IF authentic and important journalism was ever practiced or allowed.
I also like your point that almost all news reports are simplistic and easy to produce - just cover a press conference or a “White House” statement - throw in a 6-second sound bite - and there’s your story.
As you note, real and important journalism takes time-consuming work and would focus on important changes or significant trends.
In the macro picture, the world’s real rulers want greater CONTROL and, to achieve this objective, need to control the legacy or corporate news organizations which, in turn, manipulate the thinking of the mass public by the superficial stories they produce - and, more importantly, all the stories they will never run.
Basically, they produce the Fear Narratives that allow our real leaders to control the world - an end-result Ted Turner clearly embraced.
Thanks, Bill, especially for being an independent journalist willing to dig and to write--very well--about topics the MSM won't touch.
I didn't know that Turner had funded the UN. Any nation that supported the Covid freakout made billions of people poorer. Many of these people went hungry.
There's a reason that independent journalists like myself are unemployable in corporate newsrooms.
So sad Mark , didn’t know that.
The book, The Covid Consensus addresses this.
Some others have also observed this. If one travels abroad, one deals with many people just getting by and needing income from tourists and trade.
Nice piece, Mark. I have avoided news programming for decades, although it was a daily routine for my aging parents. They had to watch the execrable David Muir every evening; even now, my mother routinely tunes in at her assisted living facility to hear the latest depressing "news". We are all better off if we ignore their non-stop bleating and instead focus on our own interests, friends, and family.
"But to me, the hanta focus feels more like an attempt to reinforce the narrative that lethal viruses are always lurking and thus, to retroactively justify the Covid response. "
And that's why we have the phonies congressman Massie and Rand Paul bringing up the lab leak nonsense.
It only justifies the fear and the lab leak story was purposely seeded as a false alternative.
We know that before the clot shots the years of life lost due to "COVID" was close to zero, meaning there was nothing new.
After the shots, years of life lost increased as younger people died. They blamed it on COVID which is the typical sham... Like when someone dies from chemo, they blame cancer... Etc
I agree that the focus on lab leak is misplaced. Whatever Covid was, or wasn't, the reaction--not the virus--was the problem.
I do appreciate Massie for opposing the CARES Act.
I know this from my "early spread" research. Even if there was a lab leak in Wuhan in December of November 2019, any people who got "sick" from any novel virus were NOT the "Case Zeroes" in the world.
The virus had galloped around the world several times by early November 2019. Where were the "Covid deaths" from this contagious virus?
Officials knew this virus had been "spreading" and, more importantly, they knew it was not a "deadly virus." Thus, there was no need for lockdowns or a rushed, experimental mRNA "vaccine" to save lives. Early spread shows almost nobody was at risk of dying from this virus.
(I wish Rand Paul, or anyone "who matters," would read some of my "early spread" stories and offer his comments on my conclusions.)
Early spread is a major idea, ignored by the media.
If they did, even belatedly, "confirm" this, it would show the entire Covid Panic Narrative was bogus. It would show they were accomplices in a plot that created "crimes against humanity."
Clearly bogus from Day 1.
Excellent writing, as usual. I was raised with watching the local news on at 6:00pm and the national news on at 6:30pm. But now, for reasons you discussed, I rarely if ever watch the national news or even read a newspaper. It is a shame that the corporate media doesn’t do more in depth reporting but if big pharma is paying your bills do you really want to broadcast any negative news about them.
All the incentives align to spike real news. The hypocrisy/virtue-signalling of "truth-seeking" journalists irks me to no end.
It's irksome!
Thought provoking writing.
Thanks Mark.
Thanks, HPP. I was drunk when I wrote it.
Not really.
Thirty nine years later you got a good story out of your Ireland Pub Crawl though. Even tipsy yourself, your photographic memory allows you to remember quotes from your drinking buddy.
It was a different kind of night. One I've not repeated.
Though a few years later, four friends and I drank a beer at every of the 14 bars on the main street in my town, Kearny, NJ. Difference was that in Kearny you could get "short beers," 7 ounces instead of pints.
Big difference.
And the story was more about Anne and the news.
I stayed in the west of Ireland in 1995, on the local news they discussed "the hedgerow policy" (honest!) and there was going to be a town hall meeting about it and also, a lady had left her medications on the bus and it was handed in - could she collect it from the police station in Dingle please...
Regarding our captured and/or obtuse "journalists," they KNOW all the stories they are supposed to put into heavy circulation. Perhaps, more importantly, they also KNOW all the stories they are NOT supposed to cover (or dismiss as dis-information from science-denying kooks).
For example, journalists (and everyone "who matters) know all about the phenomena of the white, fibrous embalmers clots ... and won't ever cover this. They also must know that "early spread" happened.
... Which was the theme I tried to develop in one of my recent Substack commentaries.
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/they-know
As a young woman-50 years ago-I read a story about how the government spent its research money. When I saw how much was being paid to a group studying homosexuality in seagulls, I knew that honest scientific research was dead. It had become a way to make money without actually looking for value or benefit. I have ignored almost everything coming from the scientific community since
The research industry exists for its own benefit. It keeps colleges solvent. And churns out biased junk.
Much of this "scientific research" produces toxic results. For example, in my state, UAB was a lead investigator in the trials to make remdesivir the approved treatment for people with severe Covid. This "research" - funded by tens of millions in government-provided grants - killed probably tens of thousands of people ... and is still killing people today.
"Run-death-is-near." An appropriate renaming that we should not forget.
"...the hanta focus feels more like an attempt to reinforce the narrative that lethal viruses are always lurking and thus, to retroactively justify the Covid response."
I think you may be right about this. Fear is a powerful tool (as evidenced by the covid years) and reinforcing this fear will help the powers that be in the future when this tool is needed from the tool kit. I'm still of the opinion that covid was nothing new or unique but rather, rebranded flu + other respiratory illnesses. Regardless, the fear mongering was ridiculous.
The covid hysteria got me to stop watching the news entirely but I must admit, I probably spend too much time getting "news" from X and various substacks these days.
I've been to Ireland several times and always had a great time. I can totally relate to unplanned late drinking nights with new friends.
Yeah, the hanta focus is another attempt to cover for the Scam..
Even on the Net, I scan the headlines and only rarely read the stories. And then, only from those whom I trust to challenge the mainstream narrative.
I guess the Irish like to take the Yanks under their drinking wing.
Speaking of Ireland, just last month they released their 1926 Census to the public: https://nationalarchives.ie/collections/search-the-1926-census/
You can search for relatives that were alive 100 years ago.
Here in Appalachia we say H'ain't-a-virus.
I wish I could have met Anne. I have had the great pleasure of visiting Ireland twice in the early 2000s. The country was prosperous by then, and it seemed that half the homes in western Ireland had added guest suites to take advantage of the tourist trade. What stood out most to me was the simple, quiet way the people lived, unhurried and friendly. One hostess bragged that although she had added a modern kitchen, she liked to serve her guests in the old kitchen, where she could have water to the boil on her old peat stove in ONLY 45 minutes. Oh, I miss that place. I'm sure it no longer exists, thanks to the Internet. But then, maybe I'll email my Irish friend in Limerick and ask her. A place unmolested by nonstop 'news' would be heavenly indeed.
I would very much like to know if The Holy Ground and boneyard are still there. And if Anthony is still alive. I can give you his last name if you email me at forecheck32 at gmail.
"Nor was Covid nearly as bad as Covid."
Word!
I completely enjoy everything you write! Thank you!
Thanks, Mic.
It's good to get some positive feedback, as with your comment and the Like button. I work hard on these.
Totally agree with your comment about Ted Turner. He should be vilified for creating 24-hour “news”. Not that it wasn’t always government propaganda, but now it’s just an endless stream of “content”, completely devoid of any kind of investigation or truth.
Mark Oshinskie— You've given me a lot to meditate on here.
I can say this much: one of the best things I ever did for myself was to quit watching CNN. I DO NOT WATCH IT. Soon thereafter I got rid of the TV.
May Ted Turner rest in peace. He was a wild guy. No one's perfect. I never met him. I knew some people who went to college with him, they always had a lot to say, as I recall, mainly in line with having been scandalized by his antics. TT didn't wear socks! OMG I guess that was shocking back in the 1950s. Funny but that's what I think of when I think of TT, no socks.
A billion dollars to the UN. Ha! The daffy stuff some people do with their money, whether they have only a little or heaps upon heaps upon heaps, never ceases to amaze me. We live in such an interesting world, no? Your evocation of rural Ireland is haunting.
I don't know much about TT. I don't mean to condemn him across the board. But those who hailed him as the father of 24 hour news shouldn't have. That was a very pernicious thing.
Yes
Now that we live closer to Gettysburg where re-enactors still abound, what I remember about Ted Turner is the production of the 1993 film Gettysburg through his company, Turner Pictures. While Moctesuma Esparza and Robert Katz were the primary producers, Turner provided the crucial financing and personal backing that allowed the project to move forward after other studios turned it down.
Ted Turner was a Civil War buff, like my Uncle Wallace, who took all five of us on a tour of the battlefield when I was 9 years old. I named my firstborn after Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.
People in Gettysburg still talk about Ted Turner playing Confederate Colonel Waller T. Patton, ancestor to WWII General George S Patton Jr. Turner appears in a cameo during Pickett's Charge, on the third day of the battle. His character is killed advancing on the Union position.
For sure, the MSM is the pits.
Well said.
FYI my paternal grandparents immigrated from County Mayo in the early 1900s. My husband and I honeymooned there in 1996.
We must discuss this when we meet.
My wife and I also did our honeymoon bicycling in the British Isles in 1980. Went into Northern Ireland through the border town of Newry on Orange Day with no clue what that was. There's a story
Absolutely