S.H.A.M.E. the Shills: Our Media Transparency Project Is Almost Ready…

eXiled Alert! / March 26, 2012

By Yasha Levine

A couple of months ago, The eXiled announced a new project to take our war against corporate trolls and media shills to a new and more effective level: a no-holds barred campaign to identify and expose the rampant corruption among political journalists and bloggers in the US. Thanks to your contributions—in donations, subscriptions, and know-how—we’re getting closer to launch time.

In the coming weeks, we will start rolling out some of our first media transparency dossiers, and the templates we’ll be using as we build our guerrilla platform to make life a little harder on those who make their money confusing and tricking the public on behalf of corporate greed.

Over the past few months, we have come to realize that conflicts-of-interest and corruption in the media and among our major “thought leaders” and “independent voices” are far worse than we’d originally assumed. We’ve compared America’s rampant media corruption and propaganda in the past to Russia—but folks, we’re starting to think that’s an understatement. The number of corporate PR flaks masquerading as journalists boggles the mind. And sadly, the public, and especially well-meaning “centrists” and “progressives,” are as gullible and easy prey as ever—witness how the left has allowed itself to be used as PR pawns in the Cato Institute’s battle with their owners, the Koch brothers.

Anyway, that’s all coming later. Meanwhile, as we work out the platforms and the material, we wanted to run past you a couple of snippet previews of the project.

First, here’s a draft of our media transparency project’s logo and name. The project is called “SHAME” and it stands for “Shame the Hacks who Abuse Media Ethics”:

S.H.A.M.E. — Shame the Hacks who Abuse Media Ethics

And here’s an early mock-up of what one of the project’s pages will look like:

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48 Comments

Add your own

1. MF | March 26th, 2012 at 4:59 pm
This can’t come soon enough. I wonder what the reaction from these people will be, or even has been so far. I have the privilege of avoiding them for the most part. Do they pretend to ignore it? I hope this accomplishes more than the take downs to date.
2. Will de Cleene | March 26th, 2012 at 5:14 pm
Can’t wait. Even Andrew Sullivan’s putting the boot into Goldberg.
3. DeeboCools | March 26th, 2012 at 5:20 pm
In what way does this differ from SourceWatch?
4. Gustavo Millebrand | March 26th, 2012 at 5:48 pm
Dear eXholes,
please check these fake documentaries out: http://www.cnbc.com/id/25007002/
Cheers,
Gustavo Millebrand, Turks and Caicos Islands
5. Mr. Bad | March 26th, 2012 at 5:52 pm
OK, this is awesome. Launch it and you can have some $, I promise.
6. some guy | March 26th, 2012 at 6:01 pm
This is gonna be so sweet…
7. Koob | March 26th, 2012 at 6:28 pm
Warning: ambitious careerists may now be disguised as “progressives.”
8. tom | March 26th, 2012 at 8:30 pm
I don’t like when acronyms begin with the word that it spells out, why not Silence the Hacks, Shutdown the Hacks, Slay the Hacks etc…
9. Cornbholio | March 26th, 2012 at 8:44 pm
will joshua foust page have section about joshua foust supervillain komplex
10. Nyerd | March 26th, 2012 at 10:36 pm
@3
“In what way does this differ from SourceWatch?”
Well, SourceWatch doesn’t seem to have any info on these media hacks. So there’s that. And from that screencap, I’d say that it’s much nicer looking than SW.
11. BasementBum | March 26th, 2012 at 11:54 pm
I wish I had dough to spare. 🙁 Jesus fucking Chris, dumb bastards like Gingrich and Santorum have billionaires lining up the block to shove barrels of cash up their assholes, there’s gotta be at least one good billionaire out there who’ll sponsor you guys.
12. BasementBum | March 26th, 2012 at 11:55 pm
Alright, I may be the king of a basement but I can spare a little- ain’t much, just a twenty. Can I mail it to you guys?
AEC bot says:
The eXiled
171 Pier Avenue #379
Santa Monica, CA 90405-5363
13. St. Dylan | March 26th, 2012 at 11:59 pm
SourceWatch is also a wiki. S.H.A.M.E. looks like it will run on WP. Doesn’t necessarily mean that user contributions won’t be welcome through the Web interface, but most soytainly means it they will be individually vetted by our beloved AEC. 🙂
14. bevis | March 27th, 2012 at 12:05 am
i have something mark can vet hehehh
yeah yeah yeah vet vet vet heheheh
AWHRRHRHRHRH
hheheheheh BUNGHOLE
vet my almighty BUNGHOLE hehheh yeah yeah
15. Virgil | March 27th, 2012 at 1:28 am
S.H.A.M.E. – Seems like the wrong title to use for a site castigating hacks for being shameless.
E: “Be ashamed Glenn Greenwald”
GG: “Err, what?”
E: “Shame. You know? You’re a libertarian cockhead and you should feel bad for being a shill. You abuse media ethics – y’get me? S.H.A.M.E.”
GG: “I’m sorry, I don’t follow you. I can’t hear you over the sound of my Koch cash.”
Why not use one of the great eXiled tags? Call it Hack Nation or Shill Porn or something? The Spiv Republic?
16. butthead | March 27th, 2012 at 3:12 am
shut up, beavis
17. Trevor | March 27th, 2012 at 5:16 am
And us exholes need to post links to this everywhere we can get away with it. Too many people remain ignorant of the glory that is the eXiled.
18. adam | March 27th, 2012 at 5:54 am
Guys get a subscription for 7 bucks a month!
Also, will there be space for commentators on each page? Shoveling through the brain droppings of my fellow eXholes is one of the highlights of each day.
19. franc black | March 27th, 2012 at 9:09 am
I think it’s great, but will wait and see the results before committing more money.
If you aren’t careful, the bulk of donations will go to ‘damage control’ (litigation) … so please use that standard of transparency and rigour that you will hold others to.
Add a bit of discipline to your talent and passion, and I think it’ll be a real success.
20. Mason C | March 27th, 2012 at 9:33 am
The project came to mind while suffering through Bill Maher on Friday – S.H.A.M.E. subjects Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Greenwald went at it. Greenwald cleaned his clock, but that’s not saying much. Maybe his Randroid superpower helped him thwart the baby-king of bullshit; rumor has it Glenn’s brain is stored in biocomputer goo in Cato’s staff fridge.
I can’t wait for the roll-out and will try to toss more loot your way.
21. patrick | March 27th, 2012 at 2:44 pm
Can’t wait to see it…I hope it succeeds. I’m sure it will generate a lot of cross-banter among journalists, but let’s hope it draws wider attention to the corporate shill problem infecting all media today.
22. Sancho | March 27th, 2012 at 3:38 pm
Whoa, dude. Parasitic anonymous dumbshits like me are really tiresome.
23. Sancho | March 27th, 2012 at 4:00 pm
I totally agree with the project. Now if I only put my money where my troll-mouth is, people would show some respect.
24. bevis | March 27th, 2012 at 4:09 pm
why don’t U guys start displaying virtual severed troll heads in a sidebar widget
also can i be janitor in your sm office puhleez
25. Derek | March 27th, 2012 at 6:24 pm
Contrary to the opinion of others, I love recursive acronyms. It’s the nerd in me. “WINE Is Not an Emulator”, “GNU’s Not Unix,” etc…
26. paul | March 27th, 2012 at 7:06 pm
@8 Recursive acronyms are where it’s at
Can’t wait for this!
27. R. Coogan | March 27th, 2012 at 10:28 pm
Sorry, the name is as bad as P.R.I.D.E. or D.A.R.E. Not that I’m smart enough to understand that that is the whole fucking point–but hey, not all your readers can function above ape level.
Too bad A.P.E. is taken.
28. mlrky | March 28th, 2012 at 1:24 am
hey fuck you, #27, S.H.A.M.E. is okay
you sayin i’m dumb for liking word acronyms, huh
fuck you #27
29. Cum | March 28th, 2012 at 11:18 am
drug update: http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2012/03/marijuana_dispensary_workers_t.php
LA dispensary workers are getting represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers. This is the best thing that can happen for the medical MJ movement. Too many advocates and people in the industry have been taken in by the right-wing libertarian state-rights bullshit. An alliance with the unions will hopefully drag wayward pot advocates back to the left.
30. bevis | March 28th, 2012 at 1:02 pm
hehheheh i felt some shame today
heheheh
lady said, uh, heheheh, “why do you, uh, parade your shame?”
heheh yeaaahhh shame SHAME SHAME heheheh
SHAME ON YOU heheheh yeah heheheh
31. Big Gay Baby | March 28th, 2012 at 1:22 pm
Fuck yeah. Sounds like some old-school exile in attack mode is forthcoming. Can’t wait to see what you guys dig up on these clowns
32. CensusLouie | March 28th, 2012 at 2:19 pm
I’m curious to see how this goes, but I can’t help shake the feeling that it’ll end up being a mere cathartic exercise. Let’s face it, these hacks are near bottom rung on the plutocrat totem pole, and you might get all your funding sucked out in legal fees when their are much bigger fish to fry. Expose the individuals who fund them. Far too many people in this country still have no clue who the Kochs are and what ALEC is.
Media hacks like these don’t convert fence sitters so much as they mobilize the base of reactionaries by giving form to their vague, inarticulate anger. The people who listen to them will never be dissuaded otherwise.
33. (Uses an Exile Tee to Mop Up) | March 28th, 2012 at 2:25 pm
Re: Pirate Party
Probably. Many of those technology types (e.g. dirty sanchez) seem to suffer from Joshua Foust Supervillain/Technocrat Komplex and are thus predisposed to also harbor hyper-individualistic libertard policy stances cuz the internet is like a free market, rite?? And look how well it worked, rite?? With a geometric increase in cybercrime every year, rite??
34. Strelnikov | March 28th, 2012 at 5:47 pm
@33 That was a pretty nonsensical, stupid and unfair comment because it dismisses all of the positive things that have come with the Internet, like the AEC. Furthermore, writers such as Eli “gimme a fucken bagel” Benkler have proposed that much of the activity we see on the Internet hints at the success and value of systems in which groups of people willingly cooperate to create value – not out of self-interest, but because of the intrinsic need we have to interact with others and other hippie shit. But you know, I think it’s pretty obvious that you’re just some guy who trolls this comment section from his mother’s basement because you are dissatisfied with the length of your penis. That is all.
35. BasementBum | March 28th, 2012 at 10:39 pm
http://www.daily-tribune.com/bookmark/11079318/article-Ronald+Reagan+–+Our+first+black+president
Btw Ames, after having read “Going Postal” I would so LOVE to see you put this honkey in his place and really tick him off! 🙂
36. Important Person | March 29th, 2012 at 6:54 am
Dear Almighty Exiled Censor,
Please explain these to me:
1) What is the problem with the idea of Social Democracy?
2) What is the eXile’s problem with the idea of Social Democracy?
37. Robbie | March 29th, 2012 at 10:15 am
Another pathetic attempt by the LIEberal media to discredit the truth. If you sheeple want to believe this nonsense go on ahead… idiots.
Liberalism should be treated as a mental disease.
gOD bless Texas
38. R. Coogan | March 30th, 2012 at 7:57 pm
L.A.M.E.
39. R. Coogan | March 31st, 2012 at 9:04 am
So why get all hissy?
Edit me, I bleed for The Exile.
40. Dimitri Ratz | March 31st, 2012 at 10:26 am
Mr. Foul, ambassador from KKK just called Russia “nation of savages” publicly after scolding journalists for scouting and doing investigative journalism. So much for open journalism or respecting freedom of the press. If Mr. Foul is attacking the institutions for simply doing their job. I mean how dare reporters wait by his place of residence and then follow him and after his meeting with Chabis, who has connections to the former Crime families under Yeltsin, I mean the raw gull of journalists to politely ask him questions after the meeting. The distinguished Ambassador who specializes in classifying lands of savages, and democracy has little room for common decency.
41. dominic | March 31st, 2012 at 8:07 pm
Most of the people you plan to focus on are obvious…McArdle, Sullivan. Foust. People who buy their drivle are already lost. Especially McArdle.
Greenwald and Gladwell, they make more sense. But the left love Greenwald, and the bourgois love Gladwell, so good luck.
42. Strelnikov | April 1st, 2012 at 10:23 pm
I didn’t write comment 34….somebody better come fucking clean because I don’t like having my handle used for sockpuppeting.
43. tristes_tigres | April 2nd, 2012 at 2:44 am
Hey, Yasha, Mark, did you notice that item – new World Bank president is vomlet connoisseur
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/confessions-of-an-ivy-league-frat-boy-inside-dartmouths-hazing-abuses-20120328?print=true
44. LuisMaraceFrance | April 2nd, 2012 at 7:35 am
#36 1) What is the problem with the idea of Social Democracy?
First,The social democratic reformist policies are used to legitimize capitalism and economic exploitation by making it appear more equitable, thereby becoming an impediment to fundamental restructuring of the social and economic systems from a profit and consumerism based economics to a human-based economics
Second the idea of social democracy was a huge success during the XX century because we didn’t have the same race-to-bottom global capitalism that we have now …social democracy can prevent an unemployed from starving,but can’t prevent the fact that more and more middle-lower class people in the first world will be unable to compete in a global market or have a stable job
45. cripes | April 3rd, 2012 at 7:56 pm
Exactly. Liberalism, in all it’s putrid forms, serves primarily to give cover for the brutality of corporate rule.
Liberals are the enemy.
46. BasementBum | April 3rd, 2012 at 9:57 pm
@45
Yeah, because the Clinton years were so fucking horrible for this country, weren’t they?
Of course, he didn’t inherit nearly as big a deficit as Obama did from Bush, and unlike Bush he actually had the testicles not to be the Republican’s FoxNews bitchboy.
47. BasementBum | April 3rd, 2012 at 10:00 pm
Ah, typo, I meant unlike Obama.
Took him 4 years of being raped by the Radical Right, but Obama FINALLY showed some fucking balls in his speech today.
Obama’s problem is he’s too fucking conservative- kept the Bush wars going, been too terrified to fight for what he believes in, and sold out to the Big Banks, and gave more tax cuts to the rich.
Newflash- the Muslims despise America and as long as we’re with Israel they’ll always despise us. The Koran itself really, really bashes Jews as the enemy. (I’m not bashing/pro Israel, just pointing out reality)
48. Paine in the Neck | April 9th, 2012 at 3:57 pm
“We’ve compared America’s rampant media corruption and propaganda in the past to Russia—but folks, we’re starting to think that’s an understatement.”
I will shut the fuck up about any opinion a cowardly retard like me has on this given the fact that you had your newspaper shut down in Russia by the Kremlin and I don’t know jack fucking shit. I would say “please kill me” but that would be rude to humanity, I really should do it myself.