Roasting the Press Episode 23 for Sunday, April 21th, 2024
Social Media “Influencers” Paid to Support Government Policies, Talking about Vaxx Side Effects + Interesting Documentaries, Emotional Responses and Informed Discussions
Tonight’s new media personalities include Freedom Forum editor Chuck Black, independent media commentator Marie Anne and and Mongo Minds Productions owner Richard Gagnon.
Social Media “Influencers” Paid to Support Government Policies
Canadian social media influencers are taking money from Canada’s Federal government to promote Canadian government policy.
The April 16th, 2024 Canadian Press post, “Liberal government turning to influencers to get its message to younger Canadians,” notes several “social media influencers,” who were invited to last week’s federal budget lockup, where they got early access to Ottawa’s new spending blueprint:
It’s an invitation typically reserved for experts, stakeholders and mainstream media (looking for a leg up on their coverage).
But the federal Liberals are embracing influencers as they seek to win back disillusioned millennials, gen-Z voters and others who consume information through social media.
As outlined in the story, the “social media influencers” invited to the budget lockup include Dennis Mathu and Stephanie Gordon, who host the “Steph and Den” YouTube channel and the “Money Convo’s with Steph and Den” podcast.
According to the Canadian Press post:
Steph & Den has a target audience of 18- to 34-year-olds and 750,000 followers across multiple platforms. That includes TikTok, a popular video app that has been banned on federal government devices under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over privacy and cybersecurity concerns.
To be fair, its not likely that Steph and Den’s content is going to disagree with or upend any liberal party platforms, no matter what the Canadian Press article might think about TikTok.
As outlined in the December 16th, 2022 Business Insider post, “A couple in their 20s quit their 'Big 4' accounting jobs and now earn up to $19,000 a month creating online content. They explain how they turned a side hustle into a lucrative business that is helping them achieve financial freedom,” Steph and Den started out as corporate accountants for PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte before going independent in 2021.
Here’s a sample of their content, from the February 14th, 2024 Steph & Den on YouTube post, “4 Things I’m Buying In 2024 - I’m Saving Money To Buy THIS.”
The increased utilization of social media influencers by legacy and government players to promote legacy views has been an open secret in knowledgeable circles for the last few years.
Less well known is how much money is being spent on new media outlets to promote the views of the elites.
For example, the March 31st, 2022 CTV News post, “Feds spent more than $600K hiring influencers in 2021,” noted that:
In 2021 the Canadian government turned to social media influencers to promote federal initiatives on multiple occasions, from the COVID-19 vaccine rollout to Winterlude ‘staycations,’ spending more than $600,000 in the process, according to a CTV News analysis.
Seeking out influencers—social media users often with large followings who often use their platforms to make money by promoting products or events—to amplify government messages is a relatively new strategy being deployed by administrations across the world, and Canada is no exception.
The CTV post noted that, “more than a dozen federal departments and agencies employed influencers to help get their messages out in the last year.”
The bulk of the influencers funding, which amounted to more than $130,600, was for an “influencer campaign in support of the COVID-19 vaccination marketing and advertising campaign.”
Government money spent on social media influencers have been growing ever since.
This trend isn’t unique to Canada, as noted in the February 18th, 2023 NICKY MGTV post, “Military "InFlUeNcEr” Gets MASSIVE HATE Using Government Money For Instagram Followers and Money?!”
Talking about Vaxx Side Effects.
Our second story tonight is an oldie but a goodie, and the repercussions continue in both the US and Canada, down to the present.
It begins with the January 4th, 2024 Fox News 35 post from Florida, “Surgeon General calls for halt to COVID-19 vaccine.”
It’s worth noting that, while the report doesn’t say anything new that hasn’t been noted in new media outlets for at least the last two years and tends to focus on press releases from acknowledged experts, it does present a viewpoint contrary to the government and media “consensus” on this topic.
It’s a reminder that sometimes even the experts can disagree.
In this case, the Fox post focused on Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo’s December 6th, 2023 letter to US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Dr. Robert M. Califf and Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Mandy Cohen regarding questions pertaining to the safety assessments of recent Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 mRNA vaccines.
The letter is essentially one acknowledged government authority sending a public press release to other acknowledged government authorities, so legacy media outlets are allowed to report, comment and discuss it.
To be fair to the legacy, a great many legacy science outlets almost immediately jumped on the bandwagon to debunk the Florida Attorney General’s claims.
Skeptical responses included the January 5th, 2024 MedPage Today post, “Paul Offit Debunks Florida Surgeon General's Anti-Vax Warning,” the January 3rd, 2024 Washington Post response, “Florida surgeon general calls for halt on mRNA covid vaccines, citing debunked claim,” and even the January 4th, 2024 Scientific American post, “No, COVID mRNA Vaccines Won’t Damage Your DNA.”
In Canada, unlike the US, stories like this are mostly ignored by legacy outlets.
An example would be the the April 17th, 2024 Canadian Independent post, “The Liberal government’s 2024 federal budget includes another $36 million over the next two fiscal years for the Vaccine Injury Support Program.”
In essence, even Canada’s Federal government doesn’t believe its own propaganda on the safety and effectiveness of the mRMA shots. They’ve set aside money because they expect to be sued by the disgruntled vaccine injured.
Maybe FOX News is just following the conventional wisdom on this matter.
Interesting Documentaries, Emotional Responses and Informed Discussions
Our final piece tonight is a discussion focused around specific examples of mediocre propaganda, good propaganda and exceptionally bad propaganda.
We also explore how to differentiate between these different propaganda types and how tools used to evoke delta brain waves are utilized by propagandists to bypass critical thinking.
Our specific examples include:
The April 9th, 2023 Kostas Lazanas on YouTube post, “Covid-19 Documentary | The Truth Behind The Truth,” is generally considered to be “mediocre propaganda” for a variety of reasons but mostly because it focuses on creating an emotional response in the viewer.
The March 10th, 2021 Dane Wigington on YouTube post, “The Dimming, Full Length Climate Engineering Documentary from Geoengineering Watch,” generally considered to be well structured, encouraging delta waves in viewers with music but also providing evidence, document and expert testimony to engage a viewers rational thought processes.
The August 26th, 2016 CBC News post, “Why a Harvard scientist is pretty confident chemtrails don't exist,” which is exceptionally bad propaganda, if only because David Keith, the Harvard University climate expert interviewed by CBC publicly admits on his academic website that geoengineering (the official government name for “chemtrails”) is real and he make money off his research on the topic.
It’s also worth noting that getting to the truth of any specific topic is not an easy thing to do.
We can agree over whether specific propaganda is good or bad while still disagreeing over the conclusions drawn.
“Roasting the Press,” is an open forum with new media journalists critiquing and sometimes complaining about our well funded competitors, the stories they create and the techniques they use.
For more information on the show, or to become a guest host, please send an email to chuck.black@protonmail.com.
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