I originally got the idea for this site after collecting information, pictures, articles, memes etc to show how the media (and just how it’s possible in general) uses subtle tricks to manipulate everything from videos, articles, photos, stories and, of course, people. I’ve loved reading and learning from when I was very young and I’ve always understood the power of language and words to get across meaning in effective ways. But it took me a long time to realise that that power can easily be used against people as well as for them.
Eric Partridge writes in “Usage and Abusage” “The more a person studies the subtle meaning of common words, the more he will be convinced of the dangerous nature of the tools he has to use in all communications and arguments; the more careful should he therefore be in his use of words, and the more critical he will be of propagandist writings.” I spent a few years collecting information to try and explain this to others, but with the rampant online censorship
I found this quite difficult. Eventually, I started to realise I needed a better way to do this, so I decided I’d get someone to make me a website that I would write my own articles for. But I didn’t think this would be enough. Too often legacy media sources mislead, or outright lie to us on publicly shown broadcasts, only to put a half-baked correction somewhere that is almost impossible to find on their website, and only if enough people complain, and even then, they take their time about doing it.
I had an idea from Rotten Tomatoes, and rating systems in general that it would help if I could come up with a special rating system for ‘journalist’ and organisations that constantly promote debunked stories. But it wasn’t going to be a star based, or percentage rating, but a cumulative rating system. The higher the number, the more debunked stories the person/organisation has produced, and therefore the less reliable they are for honest news.
