'Catching snowflakes in a blizzard' - My Latest Hot Type column for Byline Times
In this weekend's Hot Type column in the Byline Times, I compile the most important reporting from my series of interviews with American Overthrow author Keir Giles
***Quick calendar note: Our next members’ meeting is Tuesday, 11 am Pacific, where I will introduce you to an Irish artist in our new Happy Hour series, The Crossroads, which focuses on the merger of politics and culture. Look for the invite early in week.***
I tried to do the impossible — summarize multiple interviews and a book review into one report for my Byline Times Hot Type column this weekend.
I knew I was disobeying one of the first of many golden rules I’d learned from a broadcast news veteran, who when mentoring me in the mid aughts would say: “Heidi, you can’t stuff 80 pounds of shit into a ten pound bag — you have to go with your best shit.”
Because the subject matter was author Keir Giles’ American Overthrow, I lost any ability to take a meat cleaver to my copy — as I tried stuffing as much into one report as possible, desperate for Byline Times global readership to learn as much as possible from Keir in one place.
Thankfully, I work with a brilliant editor at Byline Times, and she did a masterful job editing this weekend’s Hot Type column down to the essential elements. Have a read here:
I interview brilliant people for a living, and I work hard to bring you as much good information as possible.
I will keep mining these interviews with Keir, as I am always looking for a vaccine to the relentless disinformation flooding all democratic shores.
American Overthrow offers the most comprehensive reality check I have found to date, an inoculation of sorts to all the bad information and bad actors that flood our screens daily.
I ask you to mute the noise, and take a few minutes to read my column.
There’s one point I’d like to drive home today, and it’s why I used an alt-title for this summary of my Byline column:
In his book, Keir compares fact checking to “catching snowflakes in a blizzard,” because “the speed at which the lies come tumbling over each other leaves anybody trying to follow and disentangle them disoriented and unable to keep up.” I finally understand for the first time why autocrats lie so often and without shame.
It’s a demonstration of power.
I am so glad that passage made the final cut for this weekend’s column.
I have always said that lies are brittle things, and if we know that autocrats and their loyalists are lying to assert dominance over us, then rather than parroting and fact-checking the lies, we can instead focus on documenting and exposing their actions. Only then do people have any chance of seeing the totality of destruction and then perhaps with this knowledge, a greater willingness in far greater numbers would form to resist in meaningful ways.
Thank you as always for your support.
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More info about Bette Dangerous - This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter/producer, author, and veteran music and nightlife columnist. She is the cohost of RADICALIZED Truth Survives, an investigative show about disinformation and is part of the Byline Media team. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism.
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Begin each day with a grateful heart.
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