When he runs out of conspiracy theories, Trump just makes up more
For an old man with small hands and orange hair, Donald Trump sure has a big imagination.
He is the unquestioned king of conspiracy in this year’s or any year’s presidential election. Let’s recap all the bat-guano-crazy stuff this looney tune claims to believe.
Most recently he told the press that Hillary Clinton helped knock off her friend, former White House aide Vince Foster. You may recall that Foster committed suicide back in 1993 shortly after his pal Bill became president.
And lest we forget, it wasn’t that long ago Trump was insisting that President Obama wasn’t legally the president because he wasn’t actually born in the United States. And just in case you JFK conspiracy freaks feel left out, don’t. Trump came up with a brand new one by insinuating that the father of his political rival Ted Cruz was involved in assassinating Kennedy. He also claims to have witnessed thousands of Muslims celebrating in the streets of New Jersey as the World Trade Center buildings came tumbling down.
Wow, he’s not only repeating racist conspiracy theories, he’s making them up as he goes. Good on you, Donald, you pea-brained racist prick.
What’s next for Mr. Imagination? Maybe Black Lives Matter was behind the Oklahoma City bombing or perhaps Martin Luther King Jr. staged his own death with the help of a cell of Latino gang members who stopped rapein’ and drug smugglin’ just long enough to pull the trigger?
Stay tuned, America, and remember: the whole world is watching and listening to your Republican nominee for president. Bet that makes you feel real proud about now.
Reality hits the digital news world
We don’t like to see any journalist get axed, but it’s hard not to smile as all those digital profits start choking on their own predictions. You know, all those academics and CEOs who told us that massive numbers of unique visitors and page-views were the answer to paying for expensive news content. Oops, maybe a business model would have been a better idea.
Rafat Ali, founder of paidContent, knows what we’re talking about. In April he blogged that this year would be the year that digital media would be “exposed as a false proxy to actually building a real business.”
Looks like he was spot on.
Vice News, who does fabulous work by the way, just announced layoffs, and it is only the latest to do so. The digital International Business Times also made staffing cuts recently. And let’s not forget BuzzFeed had to pull out the ax and whack jobs just like Mashable also did along with a whole host of other digital newsrooms.
So where’s that Jeff Jarvis guy now? Probably pulling consulting dollars from some failing, venture-funded, digital news organization. I always picture that guy as the lead lemming standing at the edge of the cliff waving on all his trusting followers.
Side note: The cover of Editor and Publisher this month touts a story claiming that print publications are becoming a hot commodity as digital fatigue sets in around the world.
Thanks to the digital gurus, and you know who you are, many excellent news organizations wasted 15 years doing lousy, shallow news reporting with click-bait headlines aimed at driving meaningless online metrics, only to find themselves bankrupt. And that is the real story behind how a Donald Trump-like candidate can actually make their way into the White House.
