LIFESTYLES OF THE HUMDRUM AND PATHETIC. That's what beggar media is. They stick their hand in your pocket and make you pay for their musings and mental masturbation while pretending that they're imparting information and -- most laughably -- news.
It's probably always been that way. Probably goes back to at least the pamphleteers of colonial America. Sure there was Thomas Paine -- always an exception to prove the rule. But the rest were probably as useless as what we have today.
They were useless during Vietnam. They begged for your money and they swore they were independent but they really weren't. Back then they were largely magazines -- plus KPFA, WBAI, KPFK and KPFT. And then, as time went on, cable access shows came along. They got away with their con jobs because people paid attention locally and would just walk away when they caught on.
Caught on? It wasn't independent media and people would realize it as they noticed that every program had the same guests and the same topics. Panhandle Media would insist that it was independent -- especially when begging you for your money -- but it wasn't. By the time PACIFICA RADIO and Amy Goodman and others were stealing your money by pretending to care about getting US troops out of Iraq?
It was a harder con job for them.
The person in, for example, Houston who might turn off KPFT having realized that it wasn't serving any real purpose could now, thanks to the internet, check out KPFA or (worse) WBAI. And then they'd quickly realize that the whole thing was a sham.
The grifters have now moved to YOUTUBE and ROKFIN and other video platforms. And it's even harder for them to pretend that they're unique and special snowflakes working so hard just for you.
You can go program to program and you'll see that the 'big' story is there on THE HILL, on BREAKING POINTS, on Jimmy Dore's show, of course on Little Jackie's Hinkle, on CONVO COUCH, on . . .
It's the same damn thing.
We got sick of it with KPFA. It's even worse with this crowd.
They're loud and pushy and they promote each other in the same sort of circle jerk that created the blog boyz of the '00s. What they don't promote are stories that actually matter because they can't do journalism. That would require actual work and a modicum of ethical behavior.
They have none.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the sewer that is 'public affairs' and welcome to the biggest toilet clog of them all Sabby Sabs. Sabrina Salvati is physically based in Boston but her ethereal presence can always be found under any street lamp in the shady side of town.
She is not a journalist. She is not a truthful person. She uses her so-called public affairs show to mainly promote her friends -- and by 'friends' we mean people who can help her. They're not interesting enough, these people, to be characters in a Jackie Collins novel but they could certainly populate Joyce Haber's THE USERS.
Because we are not Sabby, we tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. February 28, we noted (in "TV: Cringe-worthy TV") that her tactics while interviewing Nick Brana. She came off like an ass. Last week, she did part two by interviewing the so-called victim. Did she badger her and make her cry the way she did Nick?
No, because she has no ethics. As we noted of that February interview with Nick, maybe she was playing devil's advocate. We allowed that this might be her style.
But she's a fake ass and she proved it last week.
She brought on the woman and we didn't see tough questions.
We didn't see anything worth watching.
We're going to call the woman "X" throughout because she didn't want to be known. She insisted. She didn't want to be known. She was ''outed.''
So we'll just call her X and we'll also call her damn pathetic.
While X played pathetic, Sabby played corrupt.
Months ago, Sabby badgered Nick into crying.
Not so with X. With X it was "we're not going to show his face" -- Nick's -- in clips from his interview with Sabby because it was 'triggering.' Oh, poor baby, X can't handle even seeing his face. Let's get the vapors out for her.
Yes, Sabby cry-baby-proofed every element to make sure that X was treated as a truth teller. She even brought on Anthony Zenkus. Because Zenkus was going to offer an independent analysis as a trauma expert?
No.
An independent analysis would require that Professor Zenkus was independent. But he wasn't. He was friends with X and had conversations with her for months. That's right, boys an girls, he is not impartial.
So why was he on? To further cry-baby-proof the interview for X.
Barbara Walter sucking up to Barbra Streisand for the 1976 prime time special (Barbara interviews Barbra Streisand and Jon Peters in one lengthy segment and then President-elect Jimmy Carter) didn't compromise herself as much as Sabby did -- and that's really saying something. (Though Walters always lied that she didn't give Barbra editorial control, Barbra did in fact cut that interview the way she wanted it. The film was turned over to her and she was over the editing of it.)
Zenkus embarrassed himself. He started off talking about what trauma was and wasn't -- and it wasn't money or fear of money or -- Huh? Does he not know people in poverty? Then he wandered back around and wanted to tell you that fear of losing her job caused trauma for X. Oh, so it can be trauma?
He made no sense and we'll assume he was in difficult position -- maybe he realized ethics were being violated -- and was struggling on his own.
Sabby knew what she was doing.
She let X go on and on. An hour in, we're still not hearing rape accusations.
What did we hear? She and Nick Brana began a friendship on the phone when she was offered a job with the People's Party -- that's the organization that states they want to be a third party and currently has some effort to draft Jimmy Dore into being their presidential candidate.
She was hired. She and Nick continued to talk on the phone. They may have been masturbating at this point, she wasn't clear on that. But at some point she went to his city and attended his birthday party which was just her and him. And a physical relationship began. And then, over time, he would want to talk to her on the phone for long hours.
This is the assault, please note, he would call her and she'd be on the phone for hours when she just wanted to go to sleep.
Poor X. If only Alexander Graham Bell, when he'd invented the phone, had invented a way to end calls when you were ready to go. What's that? He did invent that? Well tell X, please.
Sabby certainly didn't tell her.
Sabby promoted this idiot airhead as a reliable victim who was wronged, so wronged.
No, she wasn't.
If anyone was wronged, it was her 12-year-old daughter who really shouldn't have to be telling Mommy to break up with Nick.
X is the most pathetic piece of trash in the world. You don't pull your child into your relationships.
You're the adult, grow the hell up.
After X went on and on, that's all she had. She finally -- thanks to a 12-year-old -- has the will to tell Nick that it's over and she just wants to be friends. But he still calls her.
Did he?
It's hard to believe anyone could be as pathetic as X is.
Let's say he did? Maybe next time learn that no is no.
We're not talking to Nick right now, we're talking to X.
If you say "no" over and over to someone who's pursuing you and, every time you say "no," you eventually say "yes," you are sending mixed signals.
If you want to just be friends, you don't move beyond that. If you do, that's on you.
After they broke up, he would call her sometimes and ask her if she'd get on camera and finger herself again like she used to for him.
X, we never need to know that or about the phone sex you would have.
We didn't need to know.
But you did put it out there.
So here's reality, you had a consensual relationship with Nick.
That's all you had.
X wants you to know she was sexually harassed. We don't think a court would see it that way.
In her job, she reported to the board. Nick sits on the board. He is not the entire board.
She chose to enter into a relationship with him that included physical sex and included phone sex and digital sex and sex, sex, sex.
Then she decided she wanted out of it.
That's where it was. Quit pretending you were raped -- as some of your 'helpers' have spread around -- and quit pretending you were used.
You look like a whore, X, you look like a whore.
You look like someone who didn't think you could get the job without sleeping with someone at the organization.
More to the point, you kept the affair secret.
At one point, X is whining to Sabby about how mean old Nick told her she let him down by not Tweeting more about his winning a certain post in the organization.
Simpering as usual, X says that she explained it wouldn't look right if she did more than one Tweet and Nick didn't understand this!!! It wouldn't look right because she was over -- cry, cry, sob -- election integrity!!!!
FRAUD.
That's all X is. No, it wouldn't have looked right. And, no, it was not right for her to be over election integrity and sleeping with one of the candidates. She owed it the People's Party and to every candidate in that election and everyone voting to have been honest about what was going on.
She didn't.
Fraud. That's what she is. She betrayed the trust put in her.
None of this makes Nick a saint. Nick also should have owned up to the relationship. The organization should have had workplace guidelines in place that insisted people come forward when they entered into sexual relationships with co-workers.
X never did that.
She's a pathetic cry baby. Is she telling the truth? She probably is. She probably is that pathetic. But she's not facing the truth.
Facing the truth requires her realizing she's as responsible as Nick. They both deceived the organization about their relationship. They both lied and hid it. And then when it fell apart -- as so many relationships do -- hurt feelings got amplified and nonsense like whispers of rape entered into the discussion.
You have to take responsibility for your own life -- you can't farm your own responsibility off to your 12-year-old child.
In the lead up to this interview and in the immediate time after some were screaming that the People's Party is defending Nick!!!!!
Yes, they are. This is an attack on the People's Party. She's not just attacking Nick, she's attacking the organization itself. So if the People's Party defends Nick, it's defending itself.
It would be better for both the organization and Nick to acknowledge that mistakes were made and announce a new policy was in place.
Sabby and Anthony both pimped the lie that X was outed and this was wrong and blah blah blah. She wasn't raped. And it was X talking to others that brought the issue up back in February in the first place. She wasn't silent. She was attacking Nick. Nick has the right to defend himself from attacks. He did not expose her.
This is nonsense -- the accuser gets to hide but lets throw the accused in front of everyone?
And Sabby Sabs is nonsense. She attacks Nick when interviewing him but she doesn't even question X. Not only that but she cry-baby-proofs the interview for X. That's not fair, that's not ethical. That's one-sided and outrageous and goes to the lack of any standard at all in the beggar media.
