It's good that you're honest about this. The difference between an honest reporter and a conspiracy theorists is that the conspiracy theorist never admits when they're wrong.
Let's now realize that "Trump is dead" fantasies are a distraction from the real work of dismantling MAGA.
This is an interesting issue. In general, I don’t think of Mike as a journalist, but the “Trump is dead” post was a rare example of Mike indulging in the practice of journalism. Sources mislead journalists all the time, and unfortunately, misled journalists do not often out their misleaders (though they should). In this case, I think it will be extremely dangerous to out the misleader(s). The proper course of action would have been to not publish what you did — nobody reads NFTC for news scoops — it’s just not NFTC’s role in the world.
You might have been misled, but you also adopted someone else's professed certain knowledge as your own. You then reacted to good-faith, epistemically required doubt with apparent annoyance. This was irresponsible and disrespectful to your engaged readers, and it destroyed some of the hard-earned trust and credibility you have built with them. This was a disaster.
You *allowed* yourself to be misled. In the end, you made the choice to valorize an argument from authority rather than insist on an argument from evidence.
Why would someone(s) you would trust with your life deliberately mislead you? I’m not implying that you are not stating the truth, I am asking why that person(s) would do such a thing, in such a situation?
Trump is still mia for close to 8 days. That’s a fact that needs to be explained as well. The Friday night health checkup report near midnight just engendered further questions from medical doctors. That’s a fact too.
Something is rotten in Hamlet’s Denmark. As someone else said here, the pattern is off.
We need to see him in public, not a pre-recorded discussion, not social media posts, not recorded phone calls.
Mike, I am dropping this comment on this piece because of its recency, which I hope provides a better chance for you to see it, but it’s about your previous piece on your mental health. Which was, I am sorry to say, a word salad of breathtaking dissembling, and, well, just plain horse manure. As a retired business and tech journalist, I have followed you since your seminal work after the election about how Trump and the tech elite formed one of the most dangerous mutual assistance pacts in modern history. Your Sovereign Individual piece was a tour de force of connecting the dots that no one else is doing to any meaningful degree. Especially In those cases, I know enough to know how right you’ve been, and you have the credibility to lay it all out because you’ve been there, and you undoubtedly talk to others who still are.
And then the Trump death notice, an area in which you have no credentials, and which would be the biggest story of the century. You spent much of your mental health piece trying to explain your process, and a bunch of other mumbo jumbo about the distinctions your readers need to understand. And then this:
“The disagreement between me and those readers is not a disagreement about my mental state. It is a disagreement about whether a writer is ever entitled to publish a claim whose foundation he cannot fully disclose, and how to weigh his certainty against the reader’s right to inspect the floor under it. That is a real disagreement and we will resolve it on Friday, or whenever the underlying question resolves, not by my reassuring you about my sleep schedule.”
No sir. This is a disagreement about whether a responsible writer drops a bomb like you did without spending a helluva lot of time checking to determine if it’s true. It’s a disagreement about whether a writer should ask himself whether such a massive conspiracy could possibly be maintained in today’s political and media environment. It’s not a disagreement about you revealing a source, but whether you must demonstrate that there is a preponderance of evidence to corroborate the story.
What your paragraph does is come perilously close to the “there-no-such-thing-as-truth” argument. And the result is that I now begin to question everything else that you write.
I sincerely hope, Mike, that you will do the right thing in your next piece. Eat your three full meals of crow, and get on with the business of educating us the way you have been. That’s what will make a difference, and what we so badly need.
You did your best with it. And Trump is the walking dead anyway, feasting on human souls one after another. No information coming out of this administration can be trusted. Your sources might have been within the blast radius.
Frankly, I want to read whatever Mike Brock writes and thinks... with all due respoect, I'm not sure I want to be the one defining another writer's "role".
It appears your source finds you overly credulous and decided to play a prank with the most obviously false claim he could think of to see if you would run with it
I mean, when you consider how many half-corpses are walking around in Congress, and the fact that this 'administration' gaslights constantly, it's not crazy to think he could have been dead and no one was admitting it. This timeline is just that bizarre.
It's good that you're honest about this. The difference between an honest reporter and a conspiracy theorists is that the conspiracy theorist never admits when they're wrong.
Let's now realize that "Trump is dead" fantasies are a distraction from the real work of dismantling MAGA.
I sure hope your sources will face consequences, such as being revealed.
This is an interesting issue. In general, I don’t think of Mike as a journalist, but the “Trump is dead” post was a rare example of Mike indulging in the practice of journalism. Sources mislead journalists all the time, and unfortunately, misled journalists do not often out their misleaders (though they should). In this case, I think it will be extremely dangerous to out the misleader(s). The proper course of action would have been to not publish what you did — nobody reads NFTC for news scoops — it’s just not NFTC’s role in the world.
It will be interesting to see your explanation. Your credibility and reputation are at stake here.
More credible to report what people are telling you, rather than stating emphatically something as fact. Hopefully a useful lesson.
Sure sounds like you succumbed to motivated reasoning. There's a lesson here.
No. I was misled.
You might have been misled, but you also adopted someone else's professed certain knowledge as your own. You then reacted to good-faith, epistemically required doubt with apparent annoyance. This was irresponsible and disrespectful to your engaged readers, and it destroyed some of the hard-earned trust and credibility you have built with them. This was a disaster.
Appeal to motive and strawman.
You *allowed* yourself to be misled. In the end, you made the choice to valorize an argument from authority rather than insist on an argument from evidence.
He says, as he makes a strawman.
Why would someone(s) you would trust with your life deliberately mislead you? I’m not implying that you are not stating the truth, I am asking why that person(s) would do such a thing, in such a situation?
Trump is still mia for close to 8 days. That’s a fact that needs to be explained as well. The Friday night health checkup report near midnight just engendered further questions from medical doctors. That’s a fact too.
Something is rotten in Hamlet’s Denmark. As someone else said here, the pattern is off.
We need to see him in public, not a pre-recorded discussion, not social media posts, not recorded phone calls.
Mike, I am dropping this comment on this piece because of its recency, which I hope provides a better chance for you to see it, but it’s about your previous piece on your mental health. Which was, I am sorry to say, a word salad of breathtaking dissembling, and, well, just plain horse manure. As a retired business and tech journalist, I have followed you since your seminal work after the election about how Trump and the tech elite formed one of the most dangerous mutual assistance pacts in modern history. Your Sovereign Individual piece was a tour de force of connecting the dots that no one else is doing to any meaningful degree. Especially In those cases, I know enough to know how right you’ve been, and you have the credibility to lay it all out because you’ve been there, and you undoubtedly talk to others who still are.
And then the Trump death notice, an area in which you have no credentials, and which would be the biggest story of the century. You spent much of your mental health piece trying to explain your process, and a bunch of other mumbo jumbo about the distinctions your readers need to understand. And then this:
“The disagreement between me and those readers is not a disagreement about my mental state. It is a disagreement about whether a writer is ever entitled to publish a claim whose foundation he cannot fully disclose, and how to weigh his certainty against the reader’s right to inspect the floor under it. That is a real disagreement and we will resolve it on Friday, or whenever the underlying question resolves, not by my reassuring you about my sleep schedule.”
No sir. This is a disagreement about whether a responsible writer drops a bomb like you did without spending a helluva lot of time checking to determine if it’s true. It’s a disagreement about whether a writer should ask himself whether such a massive conspiracy could possibly be maintained in today’s political and media environment. It’s not a disagreement about you revealing a source, but whether you must demonstrate that there is a preponderance of evidence to corroborate the story.
What your paragraph does is come perilously close to the “there-no-such-thing-as-truth” argument. And the result is that I now begin to question everything else that you write.
I sincerely hope, Mike, that you will do the right thing in your next piece. Eat your three full meals of crow, and get on with the business of educating us the way you have been. That’s what will make a difference, and what we so badly need.
Your humint sucks. I followed up on this rumor. You wasted my time. I pay to read you and expect more rigor moving forward.
You did your best with it. And Trump is the walking dead anyway, feasting on human souls one after another. No information coming out of this administration can be trusted. Your sources might have been within the blast radius.
Frankly, I want to read whatever Mike Brock writes and thinks... with all due respoect, I'm not sure I want to be the one defining another writer's "role".
It appears your source finds you overly credulous and decided to play a prank with the most obviously false claim he could think of to see if you would run with it
This assumes a lot. We have no idea what happened.
Thanks for the update. The only thing I'm sure of is that a quite sophisticated attempt was made to discredit you. Look forward to the unpacking.
You see this White House thing?
Define “alive”.
He seems to still have most motor function so long as he is sitting down, but that might be it.
I mean, when you consider how many half-corpses are walking around in Congress, and the fact that this 'administration' gaslights constantly, it's not crazy to think he could have been dead and no one was admitting it. This timeline is just that bizarre.
Damn. I was hoping you were right.
That said, he’s old and not in tip top shape mentally or physically so the chances of him dying in office seem pretty high.
Yikes dude. Hope you take some time to reflect on how you’re going to respond to this. You’re a good guy and I like your work but this was a big oops.
Yes, as everyone who commented on your ‘Trump is dead' post realized immediately.