"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean-neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master-that's all."
- Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
Is this what online journalism looks like in the era of Russiagate fever?
A fake writer (read
Alice Donovan) catfishes CounterPunch and a dozen other online websites. A handful of her articles are published over a two-year period. The FBI is tracking her and believes this writer, whoever is behind the moniker, has some ties to Russia. What kind of ties and how deep do they go? We aren't sure.
No evidence is presented, perhaps because there isn't much, or perhaps because the NSA and the FBI are also spying on actual journalists and editors right along with the alleged imposters. The
Washington Post calls for a quote on the FBI's allegation and
runs an article a month later on Kremlin operatives "burning across the internet".
More panic ensues.
But only one troll was named in the
Washington Post piece, Alice Donovan - our suspected interloper. Prior to the
Post's article, we found out Donovan likely was not who she claimed to be and was a plagiarist to boot. We apologized for our screw-up and issued a lengthy
investigation into the whole Donovan ordeal and the challenges of vetting writers in the fast-paced world of cyber-journalism. The story ends there, or does it?
For the record, what you are about to read isn't typical fare here at CounterPunch. We aren't in the business of investigating the legitimacy of other independent media outlets, their editors, their contributors or even their motives. In the muddy trenches of online journalism, we often find sympathy and camaraderie with others trudging the same difficult terrain. We strongly believe in the tenets of a free and unfettered press. We'd much rather save our energy to cover the issues we face day in and day out;
environmental degradation, corporate and political corruption, war, abuses of power and all those brave souls fighting back. Even so, for better or worse, we are still journalists, and when a story begins to reveal itself, we have no choice but to dig deeper and follow the trail where it leads us.
Comment: See also: Iran's real crime in the eyes of the West is that it does not bow to the US Empire