Bad Alternatives

Apparently they now constitute the 'Alternative Media'.  At least that's what that bunch of conspiracy theory crackpots I frequently parody here and on The Sleaze have now taken to calling their rickety collection of blogs and social media pages.  Alternative to what, one is inclined to ask.  Their self-aggrandisement seems to derive from the idea that they are telling the stories the 'real' media - which is full of lies and half-truths and controlled by evil cartels - won't print, because they don't want us to know the 'truth'.  Whilst I'd agree that much of the mainstream media is biased and agenda driven, slanting its reporting to suit the interests of a relatively small clique of owners and their friends, they do at least maintain some semblance of journalistic standards and it is possible to get some kind of recourse against them through the legal system, (although, I'll grant you, this can be time-consuming and expensive).  By contrast, this 'Alternative Media' are a bunch of loons and crackpots, (a lot of them like to describe themselves as 'freelance journalists', despite having no journalistic training and exhibiting no concept of how to critically evaluate evidence or analyse data in their 'work'), against whom we have very little recourse when they make outlandish allegations based on rumours, innuendo and discredited 'facts'. 

They are also just as agenda-driven and biased as the mainstream media they hate so much.  As I've previously noted here, a closer examination of their sites usually reveals that, whatever conspiracy they are ostensibly dedicated to exposing, in reality they always come back to the same tired old anti-Semitism and tales of Jewish conspiracies peddled by the Nazis.  Usually with a big dose of homophobia (another Nazi favourite) thrown in for good measure.  But to get back to the point, the reason, of course, that the mainstream media won't report their 'truths' is because they are simply lies with no factual basis.  Even the likes of the Daily Mail make out sure that there is some factual basis for their scare stories about immigrants, benefit claimants and natural disasters, no matter how tiny it might be.  Most of their readers realise this - very few people actually believe everything they read in the papers or see on TV.  Yet the 'Alternative Media' clearly think that people actually are stupid enough to believe what they read.  Stupid enough, in fact, to believe their concoction of warmed over half-truths, outright lies, urban myths, Nazi propaganda and poorly fabricated 'evidence'.  Not so 'alternative' after all...