Apparently @20committee—who formerly had some sort of role in the intel community I gather he was fired from—has trouble with online research. His understanding is I have no credentials to be analyzing a criminal investigation and prosecution. Let me help: sethabramson.net/bio
2/ I'm not saying John Schindler is a fraud; his peers in intel would have to decide that. I'm saying that when you choose to run a private Twitter feed for 1,500 Patreon subscribers rather than an open feed with a donation button people can use or ignore, your motives are clear.
3/ I'm also not saying one should expect a man with a background in intelligence to be able to use Google and click on the first non-Twitter link it returns for the phrase "Seth Abramson." The internet has changed a lot since Schindler worked in intel—and Google can be confusing.
4/ What I will say—as someone who teaches journalism—is that John must stop titling his New York Observer pieces with sensational claims that he only ever gets to in the fifteenth paragraph (and then in a way that appears so thinly sourced as to make it clear why he buried them).
5/ Lest anyone think I'm just snarking here: I *agree* with those who say we have to be careful with our news sources in the Trump era. I *agree* no news sources are 100% infallible. *Everyone* should be reading a wide range of news sources and looking critically at *everything*.
PS/ John came after me because I said I "struggle to gauge his credibility." I wrote that because you don't put your (headlined) lead in the fifteenth paragraph of an article—which John always does—if your sourcing is strong and you're willing to be accountable for what you say.
