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Dear Readership,
Many of you have brought to our attention a pattern among our editors and reporters of obfuscating, withholding, downplaying, anesthetizing, and otherwise obstructing a clear picture of wrongdoing that would be of significant interest to the welfare of the public.
We want to clear the air and get back to our primary mission of… well, keeping our outlet profitable.
Last week, after a prominent politician claimed that puppies are carrying CIA-planted tracking chips that record our personal conversations and, thus, must all be euthanized, it was probably misguided of us to frame this public figure as simply “canine averse”.
We regret considering in good faith the unexpected benefits of such a proposal. Some of our best friends are dogs, but we worried that being publicly opposed to the mass murder of puppies might make us look biased and unprofessional.
On the heels of that was a story we published about a group that wants to ban Android users from the public square. While a few of you did respond approvingly, we recognize it was arguably inappropriate to “shoot the shit” about possible roundup strategies.
From our end, it was all intended in good fun, although we acknowledge that this extremist group was not joking, expressed in a quote we printed from that group’s leader: “Seriously, we’re not joking about this. Eliminate all Android users.”
We should have pushed back instead of responding with nervous laughter and collegial banter.
Our editorial page recently published an op-ed entitled “I Am Rooting for Climate Change to Kill All of You”, written by a tech billionaire who is venturing into the Grief Economy with a new project that would monetize our stolen personal data into post-mortem avatars for the Metaverse.
To be honest, despite the unbridled bloodlust of this capitalist monster, something about the idea sounded really damn cool. Also: he owns this outlet.
A few months ago, we attracted heavy criticism for an admittedly soft profile of a cult leader who claims the Moon is made entirely of congealed queso and Armageddon will see all of us turned into nachos for aliens.
Unfortunately, we treated this belief system as equally valid to any other, which meant failing to ask important follow-up questions like “are you certain you’re not a dipshit” and “have you considered switching away from a less paranoid strain”.
We’ve been dropping the ball a lot when it comes to news about Space.
About a year ago, a team of star reporters at this outlet discovered, via top sources in the government, that an asteroid with a size approximately equivalent to the Austin-Round Rock metropolitan area is on a precise trajectory to destroy everything we know and love.
We admit this certainly qualifies as critical news, but we felt—and we still feel—there were no ethical boundaries breached by waiting to inform the public until it could be effectively utilized for our reporters’ book PR campaign, which, as you probably know, began in earnest last month.
(“Holy Shit, This is How It Ends” was released to rave reviews from many of our reporters’ colleagues and debuted at #1 in the “Dystopian Non-Fiction” category on Amazon.)
So many of you have written to us with anger and disgust over the alleged devolution of our journalistic integrity, and although we respectfully disagree with the tenor of such an accusation, we would like to offer a silver lining:
It could be much worse.
Imagine a world—for the sake of argument—in which these stories were about the vicious and violent targeting of a particular group of human beings based on race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or some other characteristic that would be vulnerable to disinformation weaponized about their humanity.
Or what if they were about the actions of a growing extremist movement hellbent on destroying our last vestiges of supposed representative democracy and replacing it with—gosh, I don’t know, just spitballing—a white supremacist worldview that masquerades as a religion that’s protected by theocratic fascists posing as credible judicial authorities?
Sounds terrifying! Someone call Stephen King and pitch that for his next horror tome.
Anyway, we appreciate the feedback, and we look forward to your future concerns and inquiries, at least for this remaining month of our collective existence.
Sincerely,
Prestige National News Outlet
Hi, I’m Charlotte Clymer, and this is Charlotte’s Web Thoughts, my Substack. It’s completely free to access and read, but it’s also how my bills! So, please do kindly consider upgrading to a paid subscription: just $7/month or save money with the $70/annual sub. You can also go way above and beyond by becoming a Lifetime Member at $210.
News Outlet Responds to Fair Criticism