{"id":342479,"date":"2018-01-05T14:15:44","date_gmt":"2018-01-05T13:15:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/ghosts-in-the-propaganda-machine\/"},"modified":"2018-01-05T14:15:44","modified_gmt":"2018-01-05T13:15:44","slug":"ghosts-in-the-propaganda-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/ghosts-in-the-propaganda-machine\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghosts in the Propaganda Machine"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"<\/p>\n

S. Mangal\u2019s social media profile and author photo.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Is this what online journalism looks like in the era of Russiagate fever?\u00a0A fake writer (read Alice Donovan<\/a>) catfishes CounterPunch and a dozen other online websites. A handful of her articles are published over a two-year period. The FBI is tracking her and believes this writer, whoever is behind the moniker, has some ties to Russia. What kind of ties and how deep do they go? We aren\u2019t sure. No evidence is presented, perhaps because there isn\u2019t much, or perhaps because the NSA and the FBI are also spying on actual journalists and editors right along with the alleged imposters. The Washington Post<\/em> calls for a quote on the FBI\u2019s allegation and runs an article<\/a> a month later on Kremlin operatives \u201cburning across the internet\u201d.<\/p>\n

More panic ensues.<\/p>\n

But only one troll was named in the Washington Post<\/em> piece, Alice Donovan \u2014 our suspected interloper. Prior to the Post<\/em>\u2019s article, we found out Donovan likely was not who she claimed to be and was a plagiarist to boot. We apologized for our screw-up and issued a lengthy investigation into the whole Donovan ordeal<\/a>\u00a0and the challenges of vetting writers in the fast-paced world of cyber-journalism. The story ends there, or does it?<\/p>\n

For the record, what you are about to read isn\u2019t typical fare here at CounterPunch. We aren\u2019t in the business of investigating the legitimacy of other independent media outlets, their editors, their contributors or even their motives. In…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

S. Mangal\u2019s social media profile and author photo. Is this what online journalism looks like in the era of Russiagate fever?\u00a0A fake writer (read Alice Donovan) catfishes CounterPunch and a dozen other online websites. A handful of her articles are published over a two-year period. The FBI is tracking her and believes this writer, whoever […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-342479","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}