We don’t often make pleas for donations on the Daily Sceptic, but I wanted to tell you about some exciting plans we’ve got for the site and to ask readers to dip into their pockets to help us make this a reality.
Donations from readers are more or less our only source of revenue. Thanks to being black-listed by Google Ads and the unwelcome attention we get from companies like NewsGuard, which rank news publishing sites according to how ‘safe’ they are for companies to advertise on, the Daily Sceptic struggles to attract any advertising. (UnHerd has a similar problem, as reported by Freddie Sayers in today’s Times.) This is a prime example of the censorship-industrial complex at work, as described by Lee Fang in a recent article in the New York Post. In that article, Fang documented my unsuccessful attempt to get NewsGuard to upgrade its ranking of the Daily Sceptic last year in the hope of attracting some advertising:
NewsGuard’s core business is a misinformation metre, in which websites are rated on a scale of 0 to 100 on a variety of factors, including headline choice and whether a site publishes “false or egregiously misleading content”.
Such an endeavour might appear as an objective public service, but the devil is in the details.
Editors who have engaged with NewsGuard have found that the company has made bizarre demands that unfairly tarnish an entire site as untrustworthy for straying from the official narrative.
The Daily Sceptic, a libertarian-leaning British site, is one such example. In a series of emails over the last two years, editor Toby Young reached out to NewsGuard, hoping to improve the Daily Sceptic’s 74.5 rating.
NewsGuard took issue with the website’s criticism of lockdowns – it called them “unnecessary, ineffective and harmful” – and cited academic literature on the topic.
Young went so far as to add postscripts to his articles, relaying the issues raised by the fact-checkers and providing additional information.
For his good-faith interactions, Young was rewarded with a downgrade. NewsGuard updated his rating to 37.5 on its scale.
NewsGuard wanted nothing other than a retraction of the articles it objected to, despite the fact that further research has documented the harmful effects of lockdowns.
We’ve suffered from similar efforts to shadowban our content on social media. Facebook frequently restricts the content we post, claiming, falsely, that it is “false or misleading” and redirecting readers to ‘fact-checking’ sites that in reality are fountains of Covid and climate-related misinformation, often funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation or some other front for billionaire activists.
While legacy media have been haemorrhaging eyeballs due to a collapse in trust, the Daily Sceptic is now averaging 1.5 million page views per month – higher than the New Statesman, Novara Media and the Morning Star combined. Given that it’s produced on a shoestring from my garden shed, that’s pretty remarkable and shows just how much appetite there is for journalism that seeks to publish the truth about issues like climate change, rather than just regurgitate regime propaganda.
So, if you value what we do, please think about making a donation. We’re only able to continue producing such high-quality journalism because Will Jones, Richard Eldred, Chris Morrison, Ian Rons, Noah Carl, J. Sorel, Robert Kogon, Ben Pile and Steven Tucker – all of whom are paid to either work on the site or produce regular content – devote so much time to it. And we can’t continue doing that without the generous support of our readers. Remember, you only have to donate £5 a month to be able to comment (or £50 to comment for a year). A big thank you to all those people who’ve donated recently, particularly those who’ve set up recurring monthly donations – and a thank you to those people who regularly post below the line. It’s hugely appreciated.
We don’t just want to stand still, but move the site forward, increasing the range and depth of our offering, reaching new readers and audiences. Our objective is for the Daily Sceptic to establish itself as the main source of sceptical analysis of the key social and economic policies of the day, particularly those which claim to be based on ‘the science’, such as Net Zero. We want to increase the space devoted to climate contrarianism, with a view to becoming the U.K.’s number one source of sceptical climate coverage. With the near-term prospect of the U.K. electing a Labour Government with an even more authoritarian disposition than the current Conservative administration, the tide of poorly thought through, draconian legislation – as well as the capture of Britain’s leading companies and organisations by ‘woke’ ideologues – looks likely to rise. We therefore want to grow our team to help cement our position at the forefront of the anti-authoritarian alt-media.
We’ve already started to make this happen, with the addition of veteran climate journalist Ben Pile to the Daily Sceptic stable. Our next step is to launch the Weekly Round-Up – a new weekly, one-hour podcast, both audio and video, featuring Toby Young, Will Jones, Chris Morrison and other regular contributors, all anchored by a brand new host discussing the top stories of the week. In addition, we want to introduce some premium content for paying subscribers, while making sure 95% of our content is still available for free, and set up a community forum on Discord, where those paying £5 a month or more can talk to us and each other. To achieve all this, we need to expand our team a little further.
We’re hiring!
We’re currently looking for a new Associate Editor to take the lead in running and hosting the new Weekly Round-Up podcast, as well as writing for the site and moderating the new Discord community. It’s a part-time role, with one to two days on the podcast and one to two days on writing and other duties each week. Here are the details:
Job Description
- Writing two or three pieces a week
- Preparing for and hosting the Weekly Round-Up, a new Daily Sceptic podcast (audio and video), interviewing regular guests and contributors
- Curating and moderating a new Discord forum for premium subscribers
Skills and qualifications:
- Some journalistic experience
- Good conversationalist
- Particular interest in our main subject areas, e.g. climate alarmism, radical progressive ideology and liberal authoritarianism in general
- Master of the English language, e.g. can write and speak well
- Scientifically literate (nice to have, not essential)
- Familiar with WordPress and Discord (not essential for a quick learner)
Time Commitment:
- 0.5 FTE
- Could go to full time
Pay
- £35,000 – £37,000 (pro rated) plus pension contribution
Reporting to:
- The Editor-in-Chief
If you’re interested in applying or finding out more, please email us here using the subject line “Associate Editor”.
And do please forward this post to anyone you think might be interested. And if you enjoy reading the Daily Sceptic and would like to see us reach an even bigger audience, please donate here.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
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As Sir Desmond Swayne MP puts it in a recent blog post
“…the BBC (in reality a partisan campaigning organisation)…”
https://www.desmondswaynemp.com/ds-blog/concrete-though-tempted-to-profanity-britain-isnt-finished/
One would have to possess a heart of stone not to laugh.
I’ll only laugh if the BBC admits she lied, apologises for having a liar as a disinformation reporter and sacks her, or I see a flying pig.
Honestly, hasn’t she got a face you would just love to slap?
(A wet slap at that!)
“A brilliant reporter” what smug twat she is!
a BRILLIANT LIAR more like!
Oh what a terrible shame. I thought she was such an open-minded, honest and even-handed person, not someone who is simply reverting to type…./sarc.
Miss Information Mariana Spring falls
“Everything else on my CV is entirely true.” Unless it isn’t. Oh how I laughed. She will however escape punishment or any kind of sanction.
The bottom line wth this Spring creature is that she is a liar. We know that, she knows that and we can always call on this fact when the stupid, evil woman needs taking down a peg.
Those eyebrows look like ‘deliberate disinformation’ to me.
If you’re going to put yourself in this sort of position, you have to be whiter than white. Since no one can be that perfect, there shouldn’t be a BBC Verify. The very idea that a state broadcaster funded by compulsion is now dictating what is and isn’t reality is utterly terrifying. The only conclusion is that the people are consciously malevolent or so stupid that they’ve no idea just what sort of slope they’re sliding down.
Can someone tell me what big news story this person has ever reported on?…..What exactly are her supposed reporting credentials?….…
Before last year I had never heard of her…and the only thing I know about her now is that she seems to be another useless, likely overpaid BBC numpty….with a non-job, paid for at our expense….
….the idea that we, the public, should pay for these people to tell us what we can and cannot see…..or read..or hear…and that somehow they have the magical power of being the only ones capable of being the arbitrators of the truth is beyond ridiculous…
Who the hell do they think they are?… especially air-headed twenty something’s who know way less than me….just bugger off, no thank you….I’m not buying the crap you are selling….
We know civilisation is in terminal decline, but If this is the epitome of what we now call an investigative reporter..God help us…..
https://nypost.com/2022/11/01/marianna-spring-tries-to-understand-us-politics-by-creating-fake-americans/
PS…a round of applause for all you smug buggers who don’t pay a licence fee!!! LOL!
“What exactly are her supposed reporting credentials?….…”
Apparently she once bumped in to Sarah Rainsford. Err, that’s it.
Who is Sarah Rainsford?
She is, apparently, a leg-end in her own lunchtime.
And a bell-end the rest of the time.
As Vanessa Beeley said of Spring on U.K. Column “she’s a piece of work”.
There’s an article in Spiked on this issue. For a while it seems to find it slightly amusing although by the end it does admit that the BBC’s reach makes it a bit more important.
Well I don’t find it remotely amusing. The woman is a proven liar and yet she is telling millions of people that others who have the temerity to question events are the ones lying.
She should be sacked and never work in the media again but we know that’s not the way the MSM work.
Leave her in place – if she does the equivalent damage to the BBC licence fee payers that Mulvaney did to Bud Lite sales all well and good.
Those doctors and scientists who have stood up to all the covid nonsense have told the truth despite the detriment to their careers
Marianna Spring has lied to further her career, both on her CV and in her reporting.
What a contrast between these heroes and the despicable low-life Spring.
Perhaps the most significant thing about Marianna Spring is that she’s the best the BBC could get to run its Orwellian offshoot. She’s a nobody, who looks about 12 (age, not size!) whom no one had heard of before, who has no significant experience. You would have expected them to front this setup with a big name, but clearly no one experienced with any common sense would take on such a job.
She’s actually probably a nice girl who means well, but a lot of these people suckered by the progressivist left don’t understand just how totalitarian their world view is. In essence: ‘You should be nice to everyone. I’ll MAKE you be nice to everyone!’
That manjaw: this picture makes it look as though Marianna has a huge manjaw. I’m sure she hasn’t got a manjaw like this, so why publish a picture that makes it look as though she has actually got a huge manjaw?
It really is a low blow to try and pretend that she has got a huge manjaw and I think you should reconsider. Women have feelings too, Daily Sceptic.
Check her out on a picture search. That’s what she looks like when they aren’t doing carefully lit publicity pictures…
What she looks like is not particularly relevant. What she spouts is. She is a crook.
BTF that’s putting it mildly.
Hopefully more TV licence cancellations come of this.
The BBC lie by omission. During all the time since the Covid vaccines were first introduced in December 2020 – two years and nine months ago – the BBC have reported nothing negative about the Covid vaccines. Absolutely nothing – apart from the death of the BBC’s own presenter, Lisa Shaw, which the Coroner stated was due to the Covid vaccine, which the BBC could not avoid reporting, briefly.
The BBC have never allowed any expert critical of the vaccines to speak on the BBC. They never report what any critic of the vaccines say. That’s not honest reporting, that’s propaganda.
There was an interview with Dr Malhotra, but he did have to use subterfuge: –
https://twitter.com/DrAseemMalhotra/status/1613837487796850688?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1613837487796850688%7Ctwgr%5Ee29792375d4be71d6ecf52cfad4d8594860d5d06%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdeadline.com%2F2023%2F01%2Fbbc-interview-anti-vax-aseem-malhotra-praised-by-andrew-bridgen-1235220965%2F
Yes, the interview wasn’t about the vaccines, but he managed to get a sentence in about them when the interviewer wasn’t expecting it. And it was on a regional BBC channel, not any of the main channels.
By their silence, they have actually endorsed our scepticism about the new
wonder jabs being pushed on the population for a virus that 98% survive.
Jesus. That smile. The smile of the smug and the self-righteous.
What a dupe.
In the private sector, lying on your CV would be an instant P45.
Agreed
Marianna Spring identifies as a Brilliant Journalist but hasn’t actually made the transition yet.
The bigger question is why a 26 year old, with all of her life’s inexperience, could get the job in the first place. Like most of her ilk she knows the square root of sweet FA
Yes, you’d expect a big name BBC journalist to front such an organisation, not someone in her mid-20s with no life experience. Which means no big name journalist would take the job.
Who better to employ to broadcast lies than a liar.