Thread by @SethAbramson

This is the top breaking news story on CNN.

All of the information in this article was contained in my September 2019 New York Times-bestselling book Proof of Conspiracy (Macmillan).

Every piece of evidence listed here was in that fully sourced book. cnn.com/2021/02/26/pol…

(PS) It's a weird day for anyone who read Proof of Conspiracy. Many Americans are learning about CSMARC for the first time today—even as readers of Proof of Conspiracy read a chapter with that title in Summer '19. If media thought this was important, it should've covered it then.

(PS2) Media should never ask why it is losing popularity when it has spent the last four years attacking a person who wrote about today's breaking news a year and a half ago. The question media *should* be asking is, why did we put our hatred of this guy over doing our damn jobs?

(PS3) Our system of information transfer in the United States is broken. Those who participate in it fulltime have been given every opportunity to participate in its repair—and have refused to do so for reasons they can't defend. Independent journalists will have to lead the way.

(PS4) I am now—and was in 2019—a curatorial journalist, not a reporter. If Proof of Conspiracy got a story a year and a half before CNN, it's because I curated the work of hundreds of great reporters. So the error here is that media didn't have a protocol to access that content.

(PS5) Ironically, some of the reporting I used in 2019 was from CNN. So a secondary problem here is that major media doesn't have a means to manage "legacy" content in such a way as to ensure it informs all future reporting. I discuss that key issue here: sethabramson.substack.com/p/memory-and-m…

(PS6) There are also profit motives here that are problematic. Even those at CNN who know today's breaking news isn't actually breaking news must frame it as breaking news because readers are more likely to *read* breaking news. But in doing so, CNN risks alienating its viewers.

(PS7) Consumers don't like being lied to; they tend to abandon media outlets that lie to them. So CNN should've reported that the feds today confirmed what they *already knew* when Trump was president in 2019. The story might've gotten fewer reads—but would've lost fewer readers.

(PS8) Unfortunately, most media critics won't make observations like these—because they're afraid of being iced out of major media and big publishing. The result is we have media critics who won't criticize media because they're *in* media. That's why media's in a vicious circle.

(PS9) But it goes beyond that. News consumers have been conditioned to immediately perceive nonstandard opinions as unreliable. So major media and major-media critics *in* media have successfully convinced news consumers to fear those who accurately critique media.

So messed up.

(PS10) None of this takes into account the natural inclination towards self-preservation between those in similar lanes. I may have a different prescription than fellow journalism professor @jayrosen_nyu for what ails media, but I never tried to take him down. He did that to me.

(PS11) There are many independent journalists on Twitter who do work similar to what I do. I do not attack them because I do not seek to be in competition with them. Some of them *routinely* tell their followers not to follow me. This ecosystem of desperation is also damaging us.

(PS12) All I can urge people to do is to urge the news sources you rely upon to do better. Don't abandon them; militate for their improvement. But also try to check them when they respond to criticism not by evolving but by trying to brutally destroy those who've criticized them.

(NOTE) I know I myself have a heck of a lot of improving to do. I always tell my journalism and professional writing students that researching, writing, and communicating well is a lifelong learning process. I don't say any of the things I say from a false sense of infallibility.

(NOTE2) This thread was a response to the dishonest headline at the CNN website itself: "Saudi Crown Prince Approved Deadly Operation." That headline is dishonest because it is *not* news. The only news today is that the government issued a report confirming what we already knew.

(NOTE3) That CNN knows the difference between a dishonest headline and an accurate one is proven by the fact that in certain places it correctly highlighted the fact of today's report as news—not the report's content. It didn't do that on its site because it would've lost clicks.

(NOTE4) Understand that this doesn't just matter because of the inside baseball of Big Media and Big Publishing. It matters because the content of Proof of Conspiracy and the reports the book relied upon should have been a big part of the 2020 campaign. Instead, Trump got a pass.

(NOTE5) I also blame myself. If I had done more to make friends, network, please people, and play ball in the media ecosystem, Proof of Conspiracy would have been properly covered. Unfortunately, I have the sometimes cantankerous personality I do—and haven't been able to quit it.

(CONCLUSION) I guess at this point I can only promise you all that you'll always get hard work, transparency and sincerity from me—not just when I do work I'm proud of but when I fall short of the standard I aim for. I hope major media will redouble its efforts in this vein, too.