The independent media continues to explode in popularity

Anytime a mainstream media outlet gets an opportunity to take cheap shots at an alternative media rival, especially one that is extremely influential, profitable and popular, they’ll do it. And that’s what happened last week, when Bloomberg decided that a single, mentally unstable source would make a great basis for a hit piece against a financial news rival, Zero Hedge.

Full disclosure: We here at Natural News have often used Zero Hedge and the analysis by its team of writers as sources for our own stories, because the site has proven time and again to be accurate and up-front about its positions. But apparently the editors at Bloomberg think that kind of reliability is a threat, and so, the hit piece.

Following a productive, personally profitable and topsy-turvy year as one of the writers using the pseudonym “Tyler Durden,” a.k.a. Brad Pitt’s character in the cult classic “Fight Club,” Colin Lokey – who said he was paid $6,000 a month and a $50,000 bonus at year’s end in 2015 – decided to “out” his shadowy co-writers and the site’s creator: Daniel Ivandjiiski, 37, the Bulgarian-born former analyst long reputed to be behind the site, and Tim Backshall, 45, a well-known credit derivatives strategist.

Ivandjiiski, long thought to have been Zero Hedge‘s creator, was named in a New York Magazine hit piece on the site in 2009, following his correct prediction that Goldman Sachs employees were plotting to manipulate the stock market in ways that would make them personally wealthy. But Backshall was a surprise to many; all three, according to Lokey, wrote under the “Durden” pseudonym.

Capitalism good, capitalism bad?

In “outing” the site to Bloomberg, Lokey said:

- The publishing schedule is too hectic and ultimately led to his being hospitalized;

- The site (which is very profitable) is too focused on profit;

- Too much political bias on the site;

- Too much pro-Russia;

- The founders are hypocrites because, profit, and they’re supposed to be speaking for the masses by railing against the (financial) machine.

In defending the site, himself and Backshall to Bloomberg, Ivandjiiski said that first and foremost there was never a conspiracy to fool readers into thinking profit motives didn’t exist.

Further, he noted (and then provided proof in the form of text message screenshots), that Lokey himself thanked Ivandjiiski for literally “saving his life” by giving him a job, despite his own very checkered past which included, by Lokey’s admission (according to the screenshots), alcohol abuse (big time) and being a one-time large-scale coke dealer while in college.

“To an extent we were surprised, because while much of the ‘information’ Bloomberg claims it reveals could have been discovered by anyone with a cursory 30 second google search, this time the accusation lobbed at Zero Hedge by Bloomberg was a new one: that we are capitalists who seek to generate profits and who have expectations from our employees,” one of the Durdens wrote in response to the Bloomberg piece.

“This comes from a media organization which caters to Wall Street and is run by one of the wealthiest people in the world.”

The site’s creators said that Lokey was hired after begging for a job when he was fired from another website, Seeking Alpha, for fighting with a co-worker. While describing him as “a good writer, covering topics ranging from finance to economics to politics,” the Zero Hedge rebuttal noted that Lokey had no problem with capitalism when he was being so well-compensated for his work there.

Badges of honor

And just two months ago, as the site showed through text screenshots, Lokey pleaded with the site creators to keep him on as he began having drinking problems and other issues, because he did not want to “[screw] it up.”

There is a lot more, and you can read the full rebuttal here. But suffice it to say that Bloomberg‘s sole antagonist for their story was a demonstrably unstable person who, for some reason, had a falling out with his employer and had an axe to grind – and he wanted to do it in public. When independent media sources are few in number and have checkered pasts, we are pilloried by the mainstream media’s superiority complex.

The only thing Bloomberg really accomplished here was to demonstrate once again that the mainstream media is a desperate, dying entity willing to do anything to lash out at its successful, more trusted indy media competition. What is mysterious to us is that MSM editors and reporters, said (by themselves) to be the better, smarter, more savvy media operators, are so clueless to the fact that every time they bash us, it’s their credibility that takes a hit, not our own.

That’s why we wear such attacks as badges of honor.