^{A sincere thank you to VOAT, imperfect as it is, for allowing the truth to be printed. We are drowning in a sea of well-funded fake news outlets and you seem our only hope for combating them. Because children are suffering as we speak, we will NOT allow the pedo-protecting NYT and their buddies at WaPo and Snopes to get away with blatant lies. Not without us screaming in protest from our little corner here on the web.}

Today I went looking for an old article of mine by searching "Voat, New York Times" in Google. The results were numerous and caused me to write yet another post based on them. (Old article: The Biggest Pizzagate FAKE NEWS being promulgated by alt media; fake definition of "pizzagate" originated with the New York Times' Cecilia Kang)

From The New York Times & Snopes: Was Pizzagate Debunked? -November 26, 2016 (emphases mine):

In the wake of the scandal known as Pizzagate, several major publications have released articles debunking the phenomenon, including The New York Times and Snopes.

The New York Times article’s headline originally included the phrase “Fact Check,” a detail which has now been altered in their online editions. This may be because editors realized that someone might notice the article didn’t actually bother to check any of the claims being made. Their headline now reads without the “Fact Check” preface, simply saying “Fake News Onslaught Targets Pizzeria as Nest of Child Trafficking.”

The implication, of course, is that any online coverage or investigation of the claims involved automatically qualifies as “fake news,” a meme that I believe has been weaponized in order to associate reporting that counters mainstream narratives with faux-reporting and tinfoil hattery, creating cognitive dissonance in readers who are exposed to ideas that run against the established orthodoxy. By looping in news that is actually fake with news that merely runs outside the mainstream, a “guilt by association” response forms in news consumer’s minds when faced with articles on certain topics, effectively banishing them from qualifying for further examination without the burden of having to present logical counter-arguments or genuine rebuttals.

So if it doesn’t check facts, what is the content of the New York Times piece? It primarily discusses the (indeed very unfortunate) threats and abuse that have been lobbed at James Alefantis, owner of Comet Ping Pong, since Pizzagate took off. It references claims that the research never made (such as that Hillary Clinton is personally “kidnapping, molesting and trafficking children in the restaurant’s back rooms”), without actually addressing any of the actual research.

It was the NYT that started the fake news, and all other media outlets followed suit, with Wikipedia proudly referencing them and Snopes in their "encyclopedic" article claiming PizzaGate is "a debunked conspiracy theory".

It turns out the CEO of the NYT (Mark Thompson) was employed by the BBC when they were covering up Jimmy Saville's grotesque crimes, and continued the same pro-pedophilia theme for the Times, visually detailed here: https://aceloewgold.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/nyt-ceo.jpg?w=640

Next there is WaPo:

A Washington Post piece, though less egregiously lazy than the New York Times one, carries similar endemic issues, with claims stating that Comet Ping Pong “was the secret headquarters of a child sex-trafficking ring run by Hillary Clinton and members of her inner circle.” This is not a claim that the researchers have made. We’re left with several “fact check” type articles with basic factual issues, that do very little fact checking, all referencing each other as evidence that the claims have been debunked.source

Then we find that Snopes' debunking article was based on a falsehood, and was written by a blogger with a questionable past (See also: EXCLUSIVE: Facebook 'fact checker' who will arbitrate on 'fake news' is accused of defrauding website to pay for prostitutes - and its staff includes an escort-porn star and 'Vice Vixen domme'':

The author of the Snopes piece is someone named Kim LaCapria. Her bio lists her as a “Content manager and longtime Snopes.com message board participant.” A content manager is someone who works either creating, curating, and/or directing the development of articles, listicles, media galleries, or other content for websites.

One might wonder how, exactly, this background qualifies her to definitively rule the Pizzagate claims as “False” with a capital F — a claim that not even Aceloewgold.com‘s own summary makes. At this stage, as an opinion blog populated with opinion articles, this writer’s claim is merely that more research and digging seem geniunely warranted. Such a definitive answer at this point does not seem particularly journalistic, and suggests a rush to conclusions to prove it false–which is exactly what Snopes et. al are accusing the researchers of doing: seeking information to confirm their own pre-existing conclusion.

A cursory examination reveals that LaCapria’s piece contains basic factual errors. She writes about images from James Alefantis’ personal Instagram page, confirmed by Alefantis himself to be from a genuine account, as coming only from third parties. She writes:

“…the photographs that the Instagram account purportedly hosted were instead, apparently, taken from the pages of various people who “liked” the restaurant’s page on Facebook:”source

The idea that none of the photos actually came from Alefantis' own Instagram flies in the face of the police report, and James'' own admission that the photos were his.

The author concludes:

Ask yourself: are claims and research actually being checked, or are articles simply leading readers toward a pre-set conclusion with Straw Man fallacies, regurgitation of memes like “fake news” to create an instant negative association, active avoidance of concrete rebuttals, emotionalized assumptions, and other manipulative techniques?

Don’t let the declaration of something as “fake news” replace your own ability to think and research independently, or you’ll ironically fall victim to the same tricks that actual fake news achieves: a rush to conclusions during which you have surrendered your own critical thinking to someone else. Look at the actual claims, spend some actual time researching, and then when you make your decision — whatever it may be, right or wrong — it will at least be an informed one.

Regardless of who tries to debunk the claims, it appears that the researchers have no plans of stopping their work, and that debunking-type articles only serve to increase interest in the topic of Pizzagate. Whether or not anything legally actionable is ever discovered, only time will tell.source

Something to keep in mind:

New York Times Scrubs Its Website of Massive Norway Pedophile Bust

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

― George Orwell, 1984

Related: Times Herald-Record editor 'Fake News' lecture, caught contradicting his own claim?