Hi, Chris, you are, in fact, in a position to judge which to believe based on your decades of Usenet and general Internet experience. Some red flags on this piece: -- The title: "Guest opinion column." As soon as you read an opinion piece purporting to deliver news (especially an 11th hour twist), run, run, run away. Opinion pieces can be informative, but they're not subject to any fact checking (and, often, any decent editing). -- Dog-whistle prose: "With the help of celebrities and professional activists," "Were the full story to be heard, much, if not all, of that sympathy would vanish," "The contrast between the protesters’ claims and the facts on record is stunning," "Typical of the misinformation spread during the protests is a comment made by Jesse Jackson"-- these are all content-free appeals to titillation; they're clickbait designed to appeal to our love of the surprise reveal, without actually leading to any actual reveal. -- Facts without context: "the company is paying to relocate the tribe’s water intake to a new spot 70 miles from the location of the contested pipeline crossing." On the face of it, that sounds eminently reasonable, but wait, is that actually something the tribe was protesting over? Is the new spot a better source of water? Or are they moving the intake to Flint, MI? (I'm being silly on purpose; that would be much farther than 70 miles, of course.) We don't know, because the author hasn't provided any background for what the protesters are protesting or how the Corps may or may not have answered their concerns. -- Cui bono? Who is Shawn McCoy of InsideSources.com? Does he have a vested interest? "Shawn is the Publisher of InsideSources. Previously, he served as Iowa Communications Director for the Romney Campaign and has advised other campaigns nationwide. Shawn has an MBA, concentrated in econometrics and statistics, from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and he completed his undergraduate work at the University of Notre Dame. He has a dog named Milton, after his favorite economist." It's not impossible to be a dyed-in-the-wool Miltonian economist who served an arguably important local position in Romney's campaign AND be a disinterested investigative reporter on an ongoing event that seems to have polarized the left and right, but is it likely?
I'd suggest that what you've got here is a piece that, at best, should serve as a jumping off point to do much more exhaustive research into the protests and what's actually going on. But as to whether this piece is to be believed on its face, I'd say the signs point to no.
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Date: 2016-11-29 05:18 pm (UTC)-- The title: "Guest opinion column." As soon as you read an opinion piece purporting to deliver news (especially an 11th hour twist), run, run, run away. Opinion pieces can be informative, but they're not subject to any fact checking (and, often, any decent editing).
-- Dog-whistle prose: "With the help of celebrities and professional activists," "Were the full story to be heard, much, if not all, of that sympathy would vanish," "The contrast between the protesters’ claims and the facts on record is stunning," "Typical of the misinformation spread during the protests is a comment made by Jesse Jackson"-- these are all content-free appeals to titillation; they're clickbait designed to appeal to our love of the surprise reveal, without actually leading to any actual reveal.
-- Facts without context: "the company is paying to relocate the tribe’s water intake to a new spot 70 miles from the location of the contested pipeline crossing." On the face of it, that sounds eminently reasonable, but wait, is that actually something the tribe was protesting over? Is the new spot a better source of water? Or are they moving the intake to Flint, MI? (I'm being silly on purpose; that would be much farther than 70 miles, of course.) We don't know, because the author hasn't provided any background for what the protesters are protesting or how the Corps may or may not have answered their concerns.
-- Cui bono? Who is Shawn McCoy of InsideSources.com? Does he have a vested interest? "Shawn is the Publisher of InsideSources. Previously, he served as Iowa Communications Director for the Romney Campaign and has advised other campaigns nationwide. Shawn has an MBA, concentrated in econometrics and statistics, from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and he completed his undergraduate work at the University of Notre Dame. He has a dog named Milton, after his favorite economist." It's not impossible to be a dyed-in-the-wool Miltonian economist who served an arguably important local position in Romney's campaign AND be a disinterested investigative reporter on an ongoing event that seems to have polarized the left and right, but is it likely?
I'd suggest that what you've got here is a piece that, at best, should serve as a jumping off point to do much more exhaustive research into the protests and what's actually going on. But as to whether this piece is to be believed on its face, I'd say the signs point to no.