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A Well-Known Expert On Student Loans Is Not Real (chronicle.com)
mi shares a report from The Chronicle of Higher Education: Drew Cloud is everywhere. The self-described journalist who specializes in student-loan debt has been quoted in major news outlets, including The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and CNBC, and is a fixture in the smaller, specialized blogosphere of student debt. But he's a fiction, and "his" site -- an invention of a student-loan refinancing company.
"Drew Cloud is a pseudonym that a diverse group of authors at Student Loan Report, LLC use to share experiences and information related to the challenges college students face with funding their education," wrote Nate Matherson, CEO of LendEDU (the company that owns Cloud's website, The Student Loan Report). Before that admission, however, Cloud had corresponded at length with many journalists, pitching them stories and offering email interviews, many of which were published. When The Chronicle attempted to contact him through the address last week, Cloud said he was traveling and had limited access to his account. He didn't respond to additional inquiries. And on Monday, as The Chronicle continued to seek comment, Cloud suddenly evaporated. His once-prominent placement on The Student Loan Report had been removed. His bylines were replaced with "SLR Editor." Matherson confirmed on Tuesday that Cloud was an invention. Pressed on whether he regretted deceiving news organizations with a fake source, Matherson said Cloud "was created as a way to connect with our readers (ex. people struggling to repay student debt) and give us the technical ability to post content to the Wordpress website."
"Drew Cloud is a pseudonym that a diverse group of authors at Student Loan Report, LLC use to share experiences and information related to the challenges college students face with funding their education," wrote Nate Matherson, CEO of LendEDU (the company that owns Cloud's website, The Student Loan Report). Before that admission, however, Cloud had corresponded at length with many journalists, pitching them stories and offering email interviews, many of which were published. When The Chronicle attempted to contact him through the address last week, Cloud said he was traveling and had limited access to his account. He didn't respond to additional inquiries. And on Monday, as The Chronicle continued to seek comment, Cloud suddenly evaporated. His once-prominent placement on The Student Loan Report had been removed. His bylines were replaced with "SLR Editor." Matherson confirmed on Tuesday that Cloud was an invention. Pressed on whether he regretted deceiving news organizations with a fake source, Matherson said Cloud "was created as a way to connect with our readers (ex. people struggling to repay student debt) and give us the technical ability to post content to the Wordpress website."
The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and by NBC.
So major fake news sites quoted this fake journalist without even verifying he was real? No surprise
Sara Lee is an actual person. A business was named after her, it then became the name of their better selling products, finally they changed the name of the company to her.
Here are some pictures of her https://www.gettyimages.com/ph...
hear me out on this one. Yes, the media leans left on social issues (gay rights and abortion mostly). But for anything that really matters (e.g. economics) they're entirely pro corporate. Hell, it's come out that MSNBC, the supposed bastion of the left wing, actively blocked coverage of Bernie Sanders in favor of his pro-corporate rival Hillary. Also, there's every indication we bombed an anti-venom factory in Syria but not a single major news source covered that.
These days in America if you want any news that isn't pro corp you need to go on Youtube. Bernie's got a channel along with the Young Turks & Secular Talk who are more or less arms of the Democratic Party's left wing (aka the "Justice Democrats" as they're called). But what's funny is you can't shake that "Left Wing Media bias" moniker even though it's objectively not true on economics.
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Fake people leads to fake news.
The problem is when people don't know anymore what to trust even in well-known media.
Even 4chan seems trustworty these days, at least you are mentally prepared for traps when accessing that site.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Nicolas Bourbaki asks me to tell you that he is not impressed.
Really, how does it matter? What matters is how true and relevant what they wrote is. Knowing who they are may shed some light about that, especially when financial gain is involved, but it is only a proxy.
For the "Washington Post" , CNBC, "The Boston Globe" and others to run stories based on this fictional person passing propaganda, is telling.
The media today, does little if any due diligence or fact checking. When FakeNews get thrown around, it is also because of lazy and incompetent "journalist" who will take any source, to allow them to write a story fast and cheap.