This is a tale of two groups – those who value truth and facts as they defend the institution of marriage, and those who merrily push falsehoods, lies and deception as they promote their radical agenda to destroy marriage. And as is so often the case, it is a David vs Goliath struggle.
In this case we have one or two folks daring to discover the truth and speak the truth vs all the money and manpower of the mainstream media and the organised left. Just one man seeking truth can help topple the lies of many, and in this case I am proud to say I know well the individuals involved in this case of truth telling vs entrenched falsehoods.
And this is a story that keeps on giving – every day new revelations emerge about just how immoral, deceptive and careless with the truth the secular left and its media allies are. And all because one brave soul first decided not to buy the propaganda of the MSM, but do a little bit of digging for himself.
My main hero in this story is Melbourne man Alister Cameron. Nearly a week ago he posted something quite important in the social media, and his story has just mushroomed from there. This is what he first wrote, little knowing that this story would explode in the days following:
The fake news story of the week. I just have to get this off my chest…
News broke on Monday that wicked anti-same sex marriage posters had been distributed around Melbourne. It began with a single tweet posting a single photo of a single poster. With a little bit of Internet sleuthing, I and others found that the artwork was created in March by a white supremacist in Florida and posted to an obscure online forum.
Further Twitter sleuthing on my part revealed, as best my investigations could tell, that ONE SINGLE POSTER only ever was posted. Read that again: one single poster on an obscure laneway wall in Melbourne’s CBD. Just one.
Now, this didn’t stop press, radio and mainstream media talking of a campaign of hatred by the “No” side – of posters all over the city and beyond; it didn’t stop LGBTQ advocates declaring that this was endemic of the evils and the spirit of the No campaign; and it didn’t stop the ABC, for example, accepting this without challenge. It also hasn’t stopped many Christian commentators using this and similar fake news to launch various critiques of the church. Which appears to be a favoured profession for them.
Here is yet another example of fake news perpetuating where a combination of dreadfully lazy journalism mixes with a desperate (malevolent) desire by various groups to find any supporting evidence for their claims, both of whom, in this era of the 24 hour news cycle, can get away with, or justify, no source verification at all.
I’m not joking: I’m about 50/50 that some troll/activist for the Yes side put up that poster, knowing that this would be enough to trigger all that has followed. Sometimes the best way to work out who did something is to ask who benefits most. And clearly, activists for the Yes side have been able to run with this fake news story spectacularly well, have been able to manipulate the media brilliantly, whereas I can’t see any benefit to the No campaign and I therefore wonder…
Incidently this is not a commentary on the modus operandi of the average bloke in the street, for or against same-sex marriage. This is about how the most mobilised activists operate. And how the mainstream media collaborates in perpetuating fake news. I’ve really struggled these last couple of days with my emotions, watching how the truth just didn’t matter here. I suppose I should know better.
Finally, there will be no post-mortem here. There will be no calling to account for perpetuating this fake news. Both the mainstream media and activists got what they wanted and there will be no accountability for lies. And tomorrow or the day after, some new fake news story will be concocted, it will again be manipulated, most people will fall for it, and the cycle will continue.
And the kicker? It works. This sort of stuff does move the dial of public opinion. Slowly but surely.
Dirty tricks done dirt cheap.
This was a great little bit of detective work, and it was great to see folks taking the initiative here. Instead of buying the MSM line, Al and some others did a bit of sniffing around. Now it was great to get this story out, but of course since we are complaining about the MSM and its one-sided agendas and its war on truth, how could this story really get out there to more people?
Thankfully there are a few heroic journalists out there who do not bow down to the MSM and the radical left agenda. They prefer to think independently, follow the facts where they may lead, and share truth even when it is very unpopular to do so.
Thus Andrew Bolt of the Herald Sun picked up on Al’s story and gave it a push. He began his first piece on this as follows:
Was this a false-flag stunt by same-sex marriage activists? The media and politicians have raged over a nasty “Stop the Fags” poster found in Melbourne’s Heffernan Lane, using it to demonise supporters of traditional marriage and accuse the Turnbull Government’s plebiscite of unleashing “hate”.
But something doesn’t fit. First, this poster was simply a copy of one put out in the US. Two: why was only one poster put up? Wouldn’t extremists opposed to same-sex marriage plaster this poster everywhere if they really wanted to get out the message? I know, activists and journalists have falsely suggested the posters were everywhere.
He exposed all the lamestream media outlets that ran with these falsehoods, and then quotes Al in his piece. But the story did not end there. Another sleuth, Philip Rayment, alerted Bolt to the fake news that Ch. 10 was putting out on this.
So in his next major piece on this story Bolt revealed in more detail how Ch. 10 actually brazenly lied about this story in its coverage, actually creating a completely false image to mislead its viewers:
Last week, a same-sex marriage supporter claimed he’d found a single nasty “Stop the Fags” poster in an alley in Melbourne’s Chinatown. Activists and the media were ecstatic. Finally they could prove their opponents were just as nasty.
But the frenzied untruths that followed — with photographic evidence even faked by Channel 10 — only confirm the gay-marriage lobby and their media mates are the real hatemongers. In fact, the only thing that could lose them the postal vote is their bullying — the lies, abuse, threats, violence and misuse of power that’s marked their “yes” campaign.
I suspect the activists knew that already. That’s why they reacted so eagerly when supporter Dan Leach-McGill tweeted a picture of a poster he said had been put up in Heffernan Lane. This was a godsend for their cause. At last, these bullies could play the victim.
The poster was indeed harsh, showing a sad child menaced by two adults holding rainbow-coloured belts. “Stop the Fags”, it shouted, repeating survey data claiming children of same-sex parents were more likely to suffer depression.
Leach-McGill added in anger: “Spotted in Melbourne — Heffernan Lane. How is this for a unity moment?”
His tweet went viral last Monday, and not just with gay outlets or on social media. The ABC, Fairfax, Junkee, Huffington Post and FM radio stations all went crazy. Media outlets like Channel 9 and news.com.au agreed there were more such posters around Melbourne. As the Australian Women’s Weekly put it: “Melbourne streets plastered with disgustingly homophobic posters ahead of plebiscite.”
But Channel 10 had a problem: it could not find even one. That should have been a big warning, but the station still claimed there were posters all around the city, and to demonstrate, it showed a picture of a bus stop with a huge advertising billboard featuring the “Stop the Fags” poster.
But it was a con. Without telling its audience, it had taken a stock image from Getty of a bus stop overseas and superimposed a “Stop the Fags” poster on to its advertising panel, as if it were part of a big-budget campaign.
There you have it folks: our MSM in action. They can take a bow as they imitate the best of the Nazi propogandists, or Stalin’s indoctrination experts. Just lie through your teeth as you pretend you are reporting the news. Ch. 10 needs to issue a formal apology and vow to never again resort to such deliberate lies and deception.
But no, they refuse to do so. Sure, they sort of admitted to bending the truth a bit, but they refused to apologise and admit their deception has been found out. The story has now reached the Australian newspaper:
Network Ten has admitted to digitally doctoring footage for a news item on the alleged spitefulness of the same sex marriage debate, digitally superimposing a homophobic image sourced online onto a stock image of a random bus stop.
A poster with the phrase “Stop the Fags”, allegedly spotted in Melbourne’s Heffernan Lane earlier this month, was seized upon by marriage equality supporters as evidence that those opposed to changing the Marriage Act were willing to resort to hateful lies and scaremongering to win the debate.
Originally uploaded on Twitter on August 19 by a childcare worker Dan Leach-McGill, the image of the poster soon went viral, sparking extensive news coverage and commentary on both social media as well as in the mainstream press. Even Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition leader Bill Shorten weighed in, condemning the image and its message.
Yet when a Channel Ten news crew visited the alleged site on August 22, there was no sign of the offending poster. And with a member of a global online forum for fascists claiming credit for the artwork, which has allegedly appeared on flyers across the US in recent months, and Mr Leach-McGill conceding that he had not personally viewed it, doubts have emerged over its existence.
“The poster in question had been taken down when our film crew visited the laneway in question so we were forced to source a copy online,” a spokesman for the network said yesterday. “Unfortunately, an oversight in briefing our graphics department interstate may have created a false impression about its size and location.
But get a load of this pathetic and despicable response from Ten: “This was not a deliberate attempt to mislead our audience, but a creative error which we regret.” Good grief – “creative error”?! Yeah right, more like creative lying you mean. These folks are simply beyond the pale.
They all should be sacked. But this will not be happening any time soon. The MSM is so far in the stranglehold of the radical secular left that it will not easily give up its monopoly power readily and start running with truth. It will keep pushing any falsehoods that will help promote the leftist agenda.
But at the same time that Ch. 10 was being caught out for its flagrant lies and deception, on another one of its programs it was still peddling these porkies. The ACL’s Lyle Shelton was grilled by Waleed Aly about this episode on The Project, and Aly was still pushing the line that conservative Christians were behind these posters. Lyle stood strong, but Aly continued to push what we now know to be real falsehoods.
Such is the MSM. But such is the power of one or two solitary individuals who are concerned about the truth, willing to do a bit of digging for the truth, and are then willing to face the firestorm when they share that truth. Well done especially Alister for breaking this story. You and the others are real champions. We need many more brave troopers like you.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/did-samesex-marriage-extremists-suck-in-the-media-with-a-fake-poster/news-story/2b272081b62773583edd8a9b5563aee0?nk=489dfdf0bcff6e7ce74c2731a61cecfc-1503624270
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/andrew-bolt/andrew-bolt-frenzied-untruths-the-poster-child-for-australias-ugly-gaymarriage-campaign/news-story/3e0fc9433aab47915edaa212ef7570ac
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/same-sex-marriage-network-ten-admits-doctoring-controversial-footage/news-story/e52caab7918d8d1fc944fd97739476fc
https://www.facebook.com/ACLobby/videos/1623166334424124/?hc_location=ufi
[2010 words]