More on the Huffington Post and JFK

[Jan Klimkowski]

Jim - important articles. Thank you for writing them and for pointing out clear and significant errors - both factual and lack of due diligence - to the likes of the Huffington Post.

Your analysis contains much truth. As an additional and complementary perspective, I would suggest that we are also talking here about a lack of journalistic standards and of covert editorializing.

I have a couple of decades of insider MSM experience - as a science, history, business and current affairs documentary maker for the likes of the BBC, Discovery and National Geographic. NatGeo even has a "fact checking unit", known colloquially as "the Gestapo", who pore over every word and comma of the final scripts of documentaries.

Once, when finishing a Seconds From Disaster drama-doc about a four-storey hotel collapsing into a ground floor bank in Singapore, I recall "the Gestapo" informing me that the date on which the incident occurred was a Sunday, therefore the bank could not have been open, and several scenes in the film (eg customers and staff being hit by falling debris) could not have occurred.

Since I had personally interviewed two highly dignified Singaporean bank staff who had spent days trapped in the basement rubble, spoken with family members, interviewed emergency service personnel who had rescued them, seen original documents praising the bravery of named individuals, and even obtained archive film of the two being rescued, it was clear to me that the NatGeo "Gestapo" was barking up a very strange tree. However, it was not until I was able to produce a historic calendar showing that the date in question was not in fact a Sunday that the "Gestapo" backed down and allowed the flim to continue.

I tell this story because it highlights the fundamental myopia of MSM organisations, and the process and techniques they use to ensure "factual accuracy". In principle, a 12-year-old can look at a calendar and identify the day of the week a certain date falls on. So junior and inexperienced staff are employed as "fact checkers" to ensure a basic level of factual accuracy is delivered. However, it is not so easy to determine which of several conflicting accounts of a historical event is accurate.

So, an MSM "fact checker" is quite likely to turn to a work by such as Edward Epstein and regard it as "accurate" and "objective". If the "fact checker" is sufficiently diligent to discover that Epstein's reliability has been challenged, they are likely to ignore "leftist", "rightist", or "conspiratorial" critiques of his work, and rely instead on his MSM credentials.

In the case of the Huffington Post, they should have higher stands, and should have been aware of, for instance, the critique of Epstein's work by Cleveland Cram. Once they had read Cram's reservations, this should have led to serious consideration before taking Epstein's piece as gospel and printing it. In reality, as you discovered, Huffington Post editorial staff were not even aware of Cram's criticisms until you brought them to their attention.

At the broader level, most major "editorial judgements" are not made by "fact checkers". They are made by those who commission, or agree to publish, the project.

So, for instance, I spent a decade trying to get a film about Jonestown commissioned. My judgement about the true nature of Jonestown shares substantial common ground with the excellent work undertaken by John Judge and Jim Hougan. It transpired that no MSM commissioner would touch my Jonestown project. However, during the same timeframe, several documentaries were commissioned by the BBC, Discovery and NatGeo which were in substantial accord with the official narrative (cover up) of cult crazies drinking the charismatic preacher's Kool Aid.

There are, occasionally, commissioners at MSM organisations who are willing to allow projects to be published "under the radar". For instance, the Allan Francovich Gladio trilogy was made in the BBC Timewatch strand, but the documentaries were not seen by management until broadcast because they were commissioned out of BBC Wales. When top BBC management, (the ones who put Christmas trees on the HR files of potential security risks), watched the documentaries they were apoplectic. I know this to be true because I witnessed some of the beetroot-faced fury first hand.

Ultimately, the true nature of a media organisation can be judged with a high degree of reliability by its editorial approach to "controversial" subjects. An obvious example are MSM series on "conspiracies": they give the broadcaster a ratings boost by covering subject matter which will attract high audiences, but are hardly ever genuine journalistic investigations into their subject matter.

Instead the films are commissioned and framed as "conspiracy theories". If any evidence which genuinely challenges the official narrative makes it through to the final cut, and survives with its credibility intact, then nine times out of ten this is due to a persistent and determined director who managed to face down his, or her, commissioner.

I respect and salute you for bringing the Huffington Post to task. Unfortunately, the problems are systemic and persistent.