The Conspirasphere

I have read with increasing concern Noel Rooney’s column The Conspirasphere over the last year or so. I felt it lacked intellectual rigour with many statements of opinion treated as fact, and a readiness to write off commentators that are clearly inspiring dangerous actions as simple harmless kooks. (His comments on Q-Anon were tortured in trying to dilute the views and separate the strands, where the entire issue with it is that it is now a confused, cross-fertilising movement, that is growing in rich soil in many countries.) In all, his columns’ tenor increasingly see them aligned with a particular right-wing viewpoint in society.

The column on Covid conspiracies [ FT415:24] pushed it all over the line (cumulatively, not because of the topic itself) as it was so obviously riddled with partial reporting, under-reporting, and (as political commentators put it) ‘bad takes’.

To describe the well reported criticism at a committee hearing by Dr Anthony Fauci of Senator Rand Paul as “an ongoing spat” or “continue[d] hissing and spitting at each other and muttering conspiracist accusations” is the worst sort of ‘two-sidesism’ reporting. A 4’50” section can be easily viewed from NBC news at . Fauci calmly describes phone calls and other threats to his home. He says that he thinks that Sen Paul’s repeated comments against him “kindles the crazies out there” and he refers to harassment of his family and children. Fauci posits that Paul’s personal attacks on his service seem politically motivated, citing a page from Paul’s website where the banner “Fire Dr Fauci” is on a page soliciting donations to the senator. Throughout Fauci’s comments the senator retorts, loudly and talking over the scientist, with a few views about the excesses of lockdown, and then a preposterous comment that Fauci was the “lead architect” of all of the US’s response (to which Fauci responds that “everything I say has been in support of the CDC (Center for Disease Control) guidelines” on mask-wearing, hand-washing and vaccination).

Given that the principal issue in the US has been the conflict between the views of the federal government and those of certain state governments, Paul’s comments and deliveries certainly come close to “hissing”, “spitting” and “muttering conspiracist accusations”. (Why is Paul so annoyed with Fauci? Perhaps because in his own state of Kentucky, the Democratic Governor followed the guidance that Fauci encourages, and did not follow the libertarian playbook of banning masks and denigrating vaccines.)

Rooney’s report of the exchange does, however, remind me of what I heard a political commentator say: that the tendency of modern journalists is to describe everything as a two-sided spat. If Candidate A made an unfounded accusation that Candidate B was a child-molesting fraudster, and Candidate B retorted that Candidate A’s comments were a nasty lie, the next day’s report would merely say: “Candidate A and B exchanged bad-tempered barbs in last night’s debate”.

Rooney says Marjorie Taylor Greene was being banned from Twitter for expressing “opinions about Covid that are not exactly mainstream”. Presumably in comparison to her previous social media comments such as on Jewish space lasers causing wildfires (I am still awaiting mine to be delivered, so cannot comment on their fire-raising efficacy), Rooney opines that “spouting conspiracy theory has become less of a crime than contesting quasi-medical orthodoxy”. His citation is BBC News’ online report that Greene’s ban came after a tweet about “extremely high amounts of Covid vaccine deaths” in the US, and a previous “fourth strike in August after she falsely posted that coronavirus vaccines were ‘failing’ and called on regulators not to approve new shots”. What is “quasi-medical” about the view that there are no “extremely high amounts” of deaths caused by the vaccine or that the vaccines were “failing”?

Should Greene have been banned earlier for “spouting conspiracy theory”? That is a different debate for another day, but Rooney’s attempts to promote a theory that “contesting quasi-medical orthodoxy” is the new thought crime is based on thin evidence.

I agree with Rooney entirely when he says that “seeing the demons is, of course, a core tenet of some schools of thought in the C-sphere” [ FT415:24]. I write this email a few days after Burns’ Night so the phrase that comes to mind is: “O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us; To see oursels as ithers see us!” Rooney’s articles see demons in all places which stand agin the C-sphere (such as those of us who are willing to believe “quasi-medical orthodoxy”). In the C-sphere, where the demons inspire people to arm themselves and drive to Washington DC, invade pizza parlours, campaign outside vaccination centres, and send death threats to scientists, Rooney appears to see only “wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie[s]” and that we mainstreamers are over-reacting.

To recap, lack of citation, misreporting, over-stating, and a two-sidesism that constantly seems to favour a positive view of the conspiracist and besmirch those seeking to counter them. Is this good writing? Is it fortean? It certainly gets me going and I do not want to see it stricken from the pages, but it is op-ed and polemic and not a good fit to be in the “Strange Days” section of Fortean Times. You provide it with an air of objectivity which it does not deserve. Put it somewhere near the back, perhaps with that great parodist of belief, Hunt Emerson.

Joel Conn

Glasgow

Noel Rooney responds:

I welcome constructive criticism of the column; anything that helps me make it better is positive. I would be astounded if all readers found my approach satisfactory, given the breadth of the fortean church. In this case, I felt that some of the criticism lay in differences of opinion, and perhaps some misconceptions. I don’t think conspiracy theorists are ‘harmless kooks’, any more than I think they are a deadly threat to democracy. My politics (though I am oldfashioned enough to think they are my private preserve) are a comfortable country mile from the right.

I’m not entirely convinced Googling someone’s reported speech or opinion is strictly fact checking, though I cheerfully concede that my opinion of Google and Wikipedia (neither of which I use) may not be the majority view. If I have committed errors of fact, I am happy to have them pointed out and I will endeavour to correct them.