On Saturday morning, ABC News reported that Jeffrey Epstein—the financier recently charged with trafficking underage victims for sex—had killed himself in his jail cell. Other outlets were quick to follow up. So were conspiracists. Baseless theories flooded the internet from every conceivable direction. On Twitter, #ClintonBodyCount and #TrumpBodyCount both trended. (Epstein was once friendly with Bill Clinton and Donald Trump; the idea is that one or the other had Epstein silenced before he could implicate them in his crimes.) A Trump-appointed housing official, a Trump-friendly Fox Business host, the former Democratic senator for Missouri, and the band that released “Pumped Up Kicks” all got in on the action. Predictably, so did the president of the United States. On Saturday evening, Trump retweeted a message baselessly linking the Clintons to Epstein’s death. The Trump era has been marked by the proliferation of wild conspiracies—Seth Rich, Pizzagate, QAnon, the list goes on. The Epstein case has the potential, going forward, to top them all. “Conspiracy peddlers are going to use Epstein’s death to rally their political bases, smear their enemies, peddle their products and their podcasts, do everything possible except turn their attention to the victims,” Anna Merlan, who recently wrote a book about conspiracy theories, tweeted. “This is a windfall for them. It’s fucking Christmas.” ICYMI: Our Times public editor on the readers versus the masthead Epstein trutherism... Continue reading at 'Columbia Journalism Review'
[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2019-08-12 11:54:50 UTC ]
Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Wed, 02/03/2011 - 08:44 HMV Group has "substantially" backed a social networking site called aNobii, which aims to help readers find buy and share books. The website, www.anobii.com, has existed since 2006 but was bought recently by internet... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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