{"id":61632,"date":"2017-01-03T07:44:05","date_gmt":"2017-01-03T13:44:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=61632"},"modified":"2017-01-03T08:57:53","modified_gmt":"2017-01-03T14:57:53","slug":"layers-and-layers-of-gatekeepers-part-mmmlxviii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=61632","title":{"rendered":"Layers And Layers Of Gatekeepers, Part MMMLXVIII"},"content":{"rendered":"

SCENE: \u00a0Mitch BERG is leaving a downtown Saint Paul bar after happy hour with friends. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

As he fumbles for his keys by his car, MyLyssa SILBERMAN, reporter for National Public Radio\u2019s Saint Paul bureau, steps out of an organic tax accountant office. \u00a0Dressed in a hemp power skirt, her brunette-but-slightly-prematurely-gray hair cut into the style known as \u201cELCA Hair\u201d, she wrinkles her nose on encountering BERG.<\/em><\/p>\n

SILBERMAN: \u00a0Er, hello, Merg.<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0MyLyssa. \u00a0A pleasure (He finds his car key<\/em>)<\/p>\n

SILBERMAN: \u00a0You and your show and blog are “fake news”<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Huh. \u00a0You don’t say. \u00a0Why’s that?<\/p>\n

SILBERMAN: \u00a0You don’t have a staff of fact-checkers.<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0.Like the Washington Post.<\/p>\n

SILBERMAN: \u00a0Exactly. \u00a0The Washington Post has layers and layers of gatekeepers and factcheckers, all trained at Ivy League journalism schools to the highest standard of the journalistic craft.<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0The WaPo ran a story last week about Russian hackers trying to bring down the Vermont power grid. \u00a0Until it turned out it wasn’t; just some malware on a laptop that wasn’t connected to any grid other than an AC plug. \u00a0Then they revised the story, and tried to re-focus it under the radar while going “um, nothing to see here” about their earlier claim<\/a> that Russians \u00a0were trying to bring down the US power supply.<\/p>\n

SILBERMAN: \u00a0Right. \u00a0The fact-checking worked.<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0The “fact-checking” was entirely external to the Washington Post. \u00a0They were “fact-checked” by their audience and the rest of the media. \u00a0No different than my blog.<\/p>\n

SILBERMAN: \u00a0No, Merg. \u00a0That’s false. \u00a0And I’ll tell you why.<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0OK. \u00a0You do that.<\/p>\n

SILBERMAN: \u00a0The person who pushed “publish” on the online revision?<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Yes…?<\/p>\n

SILBERMAN: \u00a0And the person who started the printing presses?<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Right? \u00a0Yes?<\/p>\n

SILBERMAN: \u00a0They were Washington Post employees. \u00a0Without them, the correction would have never gotten out.<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Huh .<\/p>\n

SILBERMAN: \u00a0Also, you are a white male. \u00a0(Looks at bare wrist<\/em>) \u00a0Oh, look at the time. \u00a0(Steps back into accountants office<\/em>).<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0(Rolls eyes, climbs into car<\/em>)<\/p>\n

And SCENE.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCENE: \u00a0Mitch BERG is leaving a downtown Saint Paul bar after happy hour with friends. \u00a0 As he fumbles for his keys by his car, MyLyssa SILBERMAN, reporter for National Public Radio\u2019s Saint Paul bureau, steps out of an organic tax accountant office. \u00a0Dressed in a hemp power skirt, her brunette-but-slightly-prematurely-gray hair cut into the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[236],"class_list":["post-61632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-narrative-for-sale","tag-dramatization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61632"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61636,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61632\/revisions\/61636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}