The Problem With Publicly Shaming Breitbart Advertisers is that Some Companies Don’t Realize They Are Breitbart Advertisers

There’s a movement right now where people are publicly shaming advertisers on Breitbart.com, the alt-right website. People are being urged to Tweet to businesses telling them to take down their advertising, unless they want to be associated with the website that once used the headline: “Gabby Giffords: The Gun Control Movement’s Human Shield.”

Here’s the problem: a lot of companies don’t know they are advertising there.

They advertise through Adwords, a Google platform. Like anything Google does, it is focused on the big reach. They want to find as many possible customers for your business as possible. So, they place ads everywhere. You want to advertise your national shoe company? It might wind up on Breitbart. You want to advertise your local lawn maintenance company? It might also wind up on Breitbart.

Adwords lets advertisers choose what websites they don’t want to appear on. However, it is a lot to ask of companies to scour the web and write down every site they disagree with.

Chances are, they just don’t realize their ads are there. So, don’t publicly shame them for something they had no idea about.

I went over to Breitbart when I heard about this public shaming movement. I wanted to see who was advertising there. So, to my surprise, there was a company I do a fair amount of business with. Its founder is of Middle Eastern descent, so I was a bit shocked to see that.

Instead of adding to the Twitstorm, I went to this company’s website and used “Contact Us” to send a quick e-mail letting them know where their ads were, and that it was probably an Adwords issue. I also warned them of the ill-informed backlash that some other companies are getting because of this. They responded in person within hours letting me know they wanted nothing to do with Breitbart and would inform their advertising director right away to fix this.

I understand the desire to fight inflammatory words with other inflammatory words, but in this case, you’d be hurting innocent advertisers in the crossfire. And besides, as the Red Dragon in Bone said, “Never play an ace if a 2 will do.”

Why Do People Trust News Less Than Politicians?

I’ve been a reporter for more than a dozen years now. I am OK with the fact that people don’t believe everything they read. But I don’t understand how people think politicians are more believable than the media that covers them.

Politicians lie. That’s all there is to it. Every single one of them. I don’t care how wonderful your candidate is, they are a liar. They have lots of reasons to get you to believe what they’re telling you. It all has to do with money and power. And occasionally mistresses. That’s really all they want.

This short satirical video explains it all.

And yet journalists are condemned as biased whenever they point out these shortcomings. In my admittedly short tenure, I have met some reporters who were biased against certain politicians. Some had a David complex, looking for a Goliath to slay. But most of the reporters I know don’t care who is in office as long as they give a good quote. They don’t have a horse in the race. If they are on anybody’s side at all, it’s the taxpayer.

Journalists make mistakes. I have made my share. But one mistake will make people condemn a news source, while politicians can make all the mistakes in the world and be untouchable. Maybe it’s because politicians have more charisma than most journalists. Maybe people just believe what they want to believe. No matter what, I’ll never understand why journalists are trusted less than the politicians they report on.

Bin Laden’s Death: Book and Movie Deal

Osama bin Laden’s Death-The Movie.

It should be interesting when the soldiers involved in the bin Laden raid start telling their stories. Unless they’re sworn to secrecy about the mission itself, it should make some interesting book and movie deals.

A lot of guys don’t want to talk about what happens in a war, until long after, if at all. But I figure there was a lot of fist bumping and slaps on the back after that one.

Bin Laden is practically a mythical figure. He was the great white whale for every soldier. After 9/11, everyone who lost someone wanted him dead. (Except for the most forgiving people.) When he was shot, it was probably pretty surreal. “My God, this chapter’s over.”

But what of the inner turmoil of these soldiers? President Obama said that AFTER a firefight, bin Laden was killed. Shot in the head. Executed on the spot. Not exactly taken to court like Saddam Hussein.

Yes, this is what the soldiers were told to do, but it doesn’t make it easy. They are trained to shoot when someone has a gun. In bin Laden’s case, his mouth is more dangerous than any gun. But still, they don’t teach execution at a military academy.

Who pulled the trigger? Was it based on rank? Was it a soldier who lost a loved one? What were the last words bin Laden heard?

People have said just because you cut off the head, the snake’s not going to die. But, if the U.S. troops can find bin Laden – albeit after 10 years – then they can find any lieutenant who rises to power.

I’m also a little jealous of the reporters who got to break the news…

Disclaimer/background: I’m a traditionalist. I don’t think people should break rules of storytelling unless there’s a good reason. I write comic books, short fiction and children’s books. Just to put my comments in perspective, these are my interests and favorites: My favorite superhero is Spider-Man, and I also like Justice League and Batman. My favorite comic writers lately have been Kurt Busiek, Peter David, and Geoff Johns. I am a huge Transformers fan. In children’s books, I go either simple or meta: either really simple stories or books about stories. In movies and books, I am more impressed with something small that makes me feel something rather than something I’m told is a “must-read” or a must-see.”

I make silly videos and post them here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/verylittleknowledge

The Death of (Enter media type here)

It seems everyone is all too complacent to beat the drum of a form of media dying. But I march to a different drummer.

I’ve come from newspapers, which people say are dying. Then I saw this:

http://www.comixology.com/articles/412/-Ten-Things-to-Know-About-the-Future-of-Comics

This article says monthly comics are dead, turning over to online and graphic novels.

This is something I said about newspapers and I’ll say it again for comic books: They didn’t stop making books when movies were invented. They didn’t stop making movies when TV was invented. They didn’t stop making TV shows when the Internet was invented. All of these things have existed simultaneously. You just have to be smarter about your project, and you have to work harder, and your expectations can’t be as high.

When articles say that not as many people are buying movie tickets anymore, they’re comparing billions of dollars in sales. They’re still doing OK. Just not as many people are getting rich. Or, they’re merely getting rich, and not filthy rich.

You have to be smarter. You have to work harder. And the chances of being wildly successful are slimmer. But people think that if you have to be smart and industrious in order to get a small benefit, that it’s just not worth it.

I have to thank those people. Leave the business now. I don’t need the competition.

Content vs. Articles

I’m been hunting for a lot of freelance work on Guru and Freelancer and the same situation keeps popping up. Someone wants me to write a 400 word article for a dollar.

How can this be an informative article and not a mishmash of probably inaccurate statements pulled off the Internet? How much work are you going to do for a dollar?

We all know that the net is the last place to look for real information, but this is just making the problem worse. All these companies are just throwing garbage into the world’s mental stream, and some of that is going to wash ashore.

It’s really dumbing down the world. (“Dumbing” got picked up by my spell check, by the way.)

I can’t work on these projects. I care too much about what I write to have it be wrong or careless.

“Content” has a negative connotation to me. It is a very bland term, and it makes me think of something put up on a web site to fill white space.

When an employer is posting a job to write “articles,” they don’t want well-researched, well-thought-out articles. They want SEO-driven drivel.

There have also been a lot of jobs for hiring people to write blogs and comment in chat rooms extolling the virtues of a specific product. So, keep in mind these things the next time you go looking up information or advice online: it’s probably just an ad.