Connecticut Elementary School Massacre

[compared2what?]

So stop wilfully spreading disinformation, c2w, and stop trolling the thread.

Please see above my previous post.*** I was conscientiously addressing the very point you raise even as you posted. Don't mention it.

Also, please stop insulting me for no reason. And you have no reason to think I was spreading disinformation or trolling.

I was being snarky, though. I apologize.

My opinions and the qualifications I put on them are worth as much as anyone's

Demonstrably not, in this particular thread. You are stating untruths, which are worthless. And you're doing it wilfully, knowingly and at interminable length here, which is why it pisses me off so.

Please. You started out pissed off.

I haven't fucking stated one untruth, let alone multiple untruths. And you're in no goddamn position to throw stones on that score. You've been just as inaccurate. And one thousand times snarkier. Lay off.

About the length. Detailed knowledge just takes up more space than non-. Fact of life. Can't be helped.
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***Stupid page breaks.

[justdrew]

AP will happily charge the shit out of you to "use" that picture. Since I don't have an account at their site, I can't tell how much they want. Basic cost only covers 'for editorial use' any other use would require additional clearances to be secured.

I don't think they have any copyright on the picture. I hope no one pays them for it. Their source information says only "file photo from police, provided by NBC" - so I guess someone would have to check with the police to find where they got it from.

[compared2what?]

Three examples of untruths spread by anonymous "law enforcement officials" and/or the corporate media:

1.Adam Lanza had an altercation with four people at the school one day before killing three of them.

While both incorrect and untrue, there's not one iota of evidence that it was spread by law enforcement, thus stated. The Sun made an egregiously stupid error.

Untrue. Here's the evidence:



Count how often he cites "state" and "federal" "law enforcement officials" as his source.

I can't. There's nothing there to play, on my end. What is it?

One minute's googling would have found that for you. Don't mention it.

I'm not the one who represented serial lying as an established fact without establishing it as one. So I won't.

[barracuda]

Here's the video Mac was trying to post, good ol' Pete Williams:



______________________________________________________________


Why were so many, so wrong about shooter's mother being teacher?

While it was a relatively minor error in a string of inaccuracies about the Newtown shootings, the Nancy-Lanza-was-a-teacher story is an important tale in its own right.

As the story made the rounds, TV commentators speculated that Adam Lanza acted out of rage toward his mother and had transferred his murderous impulses toward the innocent lives under her care. “When you think about the details of the crime, he began by shooting his mother in the face, taking her weapon and then destroying everything precious to her, her colleagues and her children, and then killing himself,” Charles Krauthammer, a syndicated columnist with The Washington Post, said on Fox News.

The error appears to have originated Friday with a carefully hedged Associated Press report about the shootings just after noon, about three hours after the first reports of shots being fired at the school.

“At least one parent said Lanza’s mother was a substitute teacher at the school,” the wire service said. “But her name did not appear on a staff list. And the official said investigators were unable to establish any connection so far between her and the school.”

The story began to spread. Just after 2 p.m., CBS reported that Lanza’s mother was a teacher and that many of the victims were her students. CNN reporter Susan Candiotti identified her as a teacher, but she said she wasn’t certain where Lanza had died. The Washington Post and The New York Times also reported that she was a teacher.

An hour later, AP “confirmed” its earlier story. It cited “a law enforcement official” in Washington who said that the suspect was Ryan Lanza, that his younger brother was being held for questioning as “a possible second shooter” and that their mother taught at the school.

Although the misidentification of the suspect was corrected within an hour, the teacher angle wasn’t knocked down for almost 11 hours after it was first reported. At 11:16 p.m., AP moved an update, saying no connection had been found. Nevertheless, CNN and other news outlets continued to report the story as fact until early Saturday.

An AP spokesman, Paul Colford, said the news service got bad information from sources “we had no reason to disbelieve.” He added, “We were confident in our sources, and our sources were wrong.”

[compared2what?]

Thanks, b.

Three examples of untruths spread by anonymous "law enforcement officials" and/or the corporate media:

1.Adam Lanza had an altercation with four people at the school one day before killing three of them.

While both incorrect and untrue, there's not one iota of evidence that it was spread by law enforcement, thus stated. The Sun made an egregiously stupid error.

Untrue. Here's the evidence:




Count how often he cites "state" and "federal" "law enforcement officials" as his source.

By my count, that would be none if it has to be those.

But at or near the outset, he clearly sources everything he's saying by identifying it as what they've been told by "a couple of officials." And that's it.

There's also one (1) mention of "federal investigators -- or rather federal and state investigators" having plans to interview the lone party to the purported altercation not killed in the shooting. But the sourcing for that is still the couple of officials.

FWIW, although they weren't on the list, "the police there in Connecticut" additionally score one (1) mention, in connection with an entirely different potential motive having to do with something at the house that could be used "to paint a complete picture as to why." But the sourcing for that at least seemed to me to be still the couple of officials. But I'll check and correct if necessary.

As things stand, though, he cites one (1) source ("a couple of officials") once.
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Are you sure you're serious about that report being evidence of serial lying and disinformation by law enforcement?

[compared2what?]

I'm sorry about the length. But it takes more space to examine whether something is disinformation than it does to call it that. Again, fact of life. Can't be helped.

ON EDIT: Yes, it can. I deleted most of it. But you can have it back on request if you wish.

[Project Willow]

What a sickening performance, really. Stop trolling. If you have anything genuine or remotely useful to contribute, do so. But spare us all this embarrassing and shamelessly dishonest crap.

So stop wilfully spreading disinformation, c2w, and stop trolling the thread.

You are stating untruths, which are worthless. And you're doing it wilfully, knowingly and at interminable length here, which is why it pisses me off so.

You know what pisses me off? What an asshole you've been since you dropped into this thread, or absolute arse if you prefer, so much so I'm fighting really hard here to resist telling you to fuck off.

Just because you have a difference of opinion doesn't render those with whom you disagree trolls or any of the other nasty names or motives you've applied to them.

Stop it.

[compared2what?]

Anonymous sourcing, cont'd:

In the context of that report, what "a couple of officials" very probably means is:

Starting right after whenever the Today show decided to do a segment on motive the day before, a few overworked staffers called around ceaselessly until one official gave up the altercation story and another the paints-a-complete-picture story, which added up to the grand sum total of "a couple" by Pete Williams's count of officials.

He doesn't really know what he's talking about, though. He just kind of knows what he's saying. Crisis actor, basically.

[compared2what?]

The rumor that I've heard is actually that it was spread by law enforcement. But I don't think that was intentionally disinformational.

Dude. Everything was disinformational. That was the whole goddamn point all along -- if you're running with the "theories". It is what it is and it happened. The rest they can fuck around with for the rest of all of our lives because they are authority. And authority means what the word authority means.

Sorry, didn't see this earlier.

I was making a joke at Mac's expense about whether law enforcement or other authorities had said that at all, let alone as part of a disinformation campaign. That was all.
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I agree that everything is disinformational. But to me that's never the whole point all along. It's more like the premise that precedes point A, whatever it is. Nobody can fuck with any part of my reality beyond a certain point. In time, space or on any other continuum. Up to that point, who knows? I try to put up a fight.

Authority is a word that has more than one meaning.

[compared2what?]

I somehow missed the second time Mac called me worthless.

Oh, well. I'm tired of this shit anyway. Here's what I deleted from that other post about the Today.video:

____________________________________

Are you sure you're serious about that report being evidence of serial lying and disinformation by law enforcement?

Because if you are, I'll concede that you're now bordering on one iota's worth for the whole hypothesis. But not by a whole lot more than you were without the video. And there's still not nearly as much as that for the reported altercation being an installment in the series.

For one thing, the entire report is hedged round and punctuated with repeated reminders of the incompleteness and unreliability of what's being said. It's prefaced by "this might turn out to be an important piece of information about the potential motive here." And bookended by a similarly phrased statement indicating this-isn't-for-definite-sure. For example.

Then, during the big disinformational finish, Williams responds to a question from Matt and the merry Today show crew in Newtown about whether the altercation was significant enough for authorities to have been alerted to it by saying that's a good question but "way ahead of my information I have, so no, I don't know the answer." For another.

But wait. There's more. At some point in there, wrt the potential motive at the house, he also says something to the effect of "We don't yet know what that is and I suspect that they don't have all the pieces in place yet."

_________________-

That's really not my idea of what law enforcement systematically spreading disinformation about motive looks like. Or is.

Further: In conjunction with the written version I already went over, I'd say that it was infinitely more likely tht Williams made an on-air error by naming Lanza as the person who got in an altercation with four people at the school at the 13th than it was that someone in law enforcement told someone at NBC/Today that lie once and then corrected it.
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Still yet further, in the interests of future space-saving:

If all the evidence for the serial lying and disinformation-spreading is going to turn out to originate as wrong information reported during the first 24 to 48 hours of coverage, with a high concentration originating in the first 24, don't bother. The known level of error here is par for the course for almost all breaking-news coverage of equivalently chaotic-to-handle mass-death events. Whether accidental, criminal or natural in cause. And no matter where the press is getting its info.

It would almost require a special explanation if the media got everything right under those circumstances. I'd say that was one of the most immediately apparent problematic aspects of the 9/11 media coverage after the first couple hours of that day, in fact. There weren't really enough off-message errors for it to be fully credible that it was actually breaking news to everybody. I felt.

[lupercal]

^ c2w, I will give you credit for your heroic efforts to chalk up the baloney blitz to incompetence, coincidence, and a big misunderstanding, but I think we both know at this late stage in the information era that it wasn't. Would CT police continue to cooperate with MSNBC if those kinds of whoppers were really mistakes? No, they would not. And if their grasp of the situation was really as tenuous as all that, they wouldn't be putting out these kinds of notices 48 hours after the event:

Additionally, “anyone who harasses or threatens the victims, victims’ families or witnesses of these horrific crimes, or who, in any manner interferes with the ongoing state or federal investigations will be referred for state and/or federal prosecution to the fullest extent permitted by law. Harassment not only includes in-person contact, but also contact via the internet, social media, and telephone.” Social media includes, but is not limited to, Facebook, Blogs, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, and MySpace. Harassment or interfering includes, but is not limited to, making claims of your involvement in the crime or making claims that hinder the advancement of the investigation.

That's from a Dec. 16 public relations notice posted by barracuda in the datadump thread. CT police appear to have no interest in finding out if anyone possesses additional information that might be useful to their investigation, which they appear to have no interest in actually conducting.

[compared2what?]

^ c2w, I will give you credit for your heroic efforts to chalk up the baloney blitz to incompetence, coincidence, and a big misunderstanding, but I think we both know at this late stage in the information era that it wasn't. Would CT police continue to cooperate with MSNBC if those kinds of whoppers were really mistakes? No, they would not.

You're very funny.

And if their grasp of the situation was really as tenuous as all that, they wouldn't be putting out these kinds of notices 48 hours after the event:

Dude. They weren't. You can't believe what the media say. And the less specific it is, the less you can believe it. If they don't say that the info came from a notice someone put out....Wait. What are you even talking about?

Law enforcement did not send out press releases with details of the investigation in them in the first 24 hours or ever. Period. That's even less likely than the notion that Pete Williams talked to a couple of them.

Additionally, “anyone who harasses or threatens the victims, victims’ families or witnesses of these horrific crimes, or who, in any manner interferes with the ongoing state or federal investigations will be referred for state and/or federal prosecution to the fullest extent permitted by law. Harassment not only includes in-person contact, but also contact via the internet, social media, and telephone.” Social media includes, but is not limited to, Facebook, Blogs, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, and MySpace. Harassment or interfering includes, but is not limited to, making claims of your involvement in the crime or making claims that hinder the advancement of the investigation.

That's from a Dec. 16 public relations notice posted by barracuda in the datadump thread. CT police appear to have no interest in finding out if anyone possesses additional information that might be useful to their investigation, which they appear to have no interest in actually conducting.

Lupercal. Why on god's green earth would it advance rather than impede police work on a criminal investigation if the victims, their families and/or witnesses to the crime were being harassed?

[compared2what?]

^ c2w, I will give you credit for your heroic efforts to chalk up the baloney blitz to incompetence, coincidence, and a big misunderstanding,

^^Hugely understates my estimation of the problem, btw.

It's worse than you think.

[barracuda]

He's talking about this.

That's from a Dec. 16 public relations notice posted by barracuda in the datadump thread. CT police appear to have no interest in finding out if anyone possesses additional information that might be useful to their investigation, which they appear to have no interest in actually conducting.

You can only make that statement, lupercal, by ignoring the history of this incident pretty much entirely. From the very beginning of this case, individuals central to it were harassed on social media, the first notable example being Ryan Lanza.



Since then the incidents of harassment in connection with this case which are known to us have been relegated to persons outside the scope of that CSPD notice, notably Chris Rodia and Gene Rosen, who unfortunately for them are exposed to being bothered by people with ideas very much like your own. And public statements about the inauthenticity of Robbie Parker are almost surely to blame for the extremely limited public appearances of other parents in the case. At least in part. Because there's grief to account for as well, naturally.

I don't see anything whatsoever about that notice to preclude or dissuade anyone with information about the case from approaching police with that information. Unless perhaps your information has to do with miscolored eye pixels or Alaskan license plates. But what do I know? Maybe they'd like to know about those too. I guess you'll just have to ask 'em. Or Alaskan, whichever.

[compared2what?]

He's talking about this.

That's from a Dec. 16 public relations notice posted by barracuda in the datadump thread. CT police appear to have no interest in finding out if anyone possesses additional information that might be useful to their investigation, which they appear to have no interest in actually conducting.

???

...

No. How do you figure? He would then effectively be saying:

If the police didn't have a tight and controlling grasp on the situation, they wouldn't be sending out notices advising people not to harass witnesses.

...

Sorry, but no. Can't be. I think you're wrong about that.
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You're totally right that the notice is about Ryan Lanza, though. That's really the one true and unmistakable big fat giant anomaly of the case. And the coverage. Not because they wouldn't usually name a suspect they thought was dead under those circumstances, but because they'd usually be right.

Anyway. That was too much of an enormous fuck-up for them to avoid paying a fairly hefty price for, ultimately. .And if they didn't know that perfectly well, they wouldn't be putting out those kinds of notices 48 hours after the event. They've got HUGE liiability issues wrt Ryan Lanza as it stands. They can't afford not to make a show of protecting and serving him.

Is that the threat that Tracy's been carrying on about? I guess it must be. Well. He can relax then. There's no sign that they give two hoots what people say while discussing the crime/investigation online. They're just trying to limit their liability. And that's mostly a pro forma thing, at the end of the day.

However. Just to be on the safe side:

Do not harass anyone, everybody!