This Week in Misinformation: Ray E., Russell B., Tim B.
21 September 2023
Keeping up on misinformation is basically the best thing you can do for your brain. So glad you’re here!
Give this newsletter a share, won’t you? Posting a snippet to social can be a good taste for people in your network, or sending this email directly also tends to work well. 🙂
Reliability scores for media outlets cited in the summary are in parentheses for each, courtesy of the terrific folks at Ad Fontes Media.
Now, on to our top stories.
Well, it happened. January 6th main character Ray Epps has been charged with a crime.
It’s just a misdemeanor (PBS, 45.14). Some people who were complaining last week that he hadn’t been charged--he was a fed plant agent provocateur, something something--have pivoted to complaining he got off easy.
Republicans in the House of Representatives happened to have Attorney General Merrick Garland in for a hearing just after the Epps news broke (New York Times, 42.00), and took the opportunity to grill Merrick about Epps’s sweetheart plea deal and whether the AG knew how many federal informants were among the mob on the day of the attack.
Entertainer Russell Brand is getting “canceled” after accusations he raped and assaulted women were brought.
Yes, that Russell Brand (BBC, 45.11). Funny guy; not-so-funny sexual assault allegations (BBC).
Brand had a good career going in Hollywood, but recently he has built himself a tidy, profitable following on YouTube (New York Times) and other video platforms. His specialty has been in playing to the conspiratorially minded (BBC). Rumble, on the other hand, has declined to demonetize Brand and his 1.4 million-follower daily show despite a request from a Member of Parliament to consider the harm of keeping him up (BBC). All told, the episode is an insightful look into the dark economics of the world of conspiracy theory-themed entertainment (Wired, 44.42).
Oh, and because of course they are, Elon Musk Andrew Tate, Tucker Carlson are on Brand’s side in all this (NY Post, 33.44).
People had a hard time believing that Tim Ballard’s church disavowed him, but that’s what happened.
It isn’t every day the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints rebukes… anyone… publicly, but it does happen on occasion (Salt Lake Tribune, 46.41). Theories swirled that maybe the church had not vetted the statement it gave to VICE (38.88)--responding to a request for comment about investigations into Ballard’s conduct, especially the part about a senior feeling betrayed by Ballard--but none other than the governor of Utah personally confirmed everything was done by the book (Salt Lake Tribune).
After a bit more digging, VICE learned that Ballard, who is the real-life inspiration for the main character in the film Sound of Freedom, had departed Operation Underground Railroad under the cloud of a sexual misconduct investigation (VICE). The anti-trafficking organization spent years downplaying the seriousness of the probe (Fox 13, 44.56).
Ballard says the allegations are baseless (KSL, 45.19), and furthermore he might run for Mitt Romney's Senate seat (Deseret News, 43.99).
All kinds of good stuff in the double grab bag: NASA introduces a new U.F.O. research director; scientists say the alien corpses displayed in Mexican Congress are, of course, fake; a whistleblower alleges CIA analysts were bribed into changing their assessment on COVID origins; Elon’s Twitter is terrible on climate information, while Exxon is playing the long game to play down climate change; possibly related: many thousands of scientists are leaving Twitter; China sows disinformation about Hawaii fires using new techniques; Trump lies in "Meet the Press" interview; Project Veritas meets its end; there is a Lauren Boebert entrapment conspiracy theory; Rudy Giuliani ignores a judge's order in election worker defamation case; and an armed man who showed up at an RFK Jr rally is a QAnon adherent!
All that, and a lot more, below. This is This Week in Misinformation.
-- Kevin