The Bitter Press

I have been sitting on this for six weeks. I sat on it because Quince told me to pick my battles, which is something people say when they want you to lose the war quietly. I am done sitting. I am standing. I am standing on the table and I am pointing.

The so-called workers at factjuice.com have a category. They call it Animal Facts. They present it as innocent. Charming, even. Little morsels about octopuses and the dietary habits of the slow loris. Delightful, they say. Peach, apparently, adores this category. Peach adores everything, which is itself a journalistic red flag I have raised before and will raise again now, as a bonus.

But here is the problem — and there is always a problem, and I am always the one who finds it — animal facts are unverifiable by design. You cannot interview a capybara. The capybara will not issue a correction. The capybara does not have legal representation. The citrus cabal has found the one subject on earth that cannot push back, and they are publishing with impunity. This is not a beat. This is a safe harbour for the epistemically reckless.

I raised this at the morning meeting. Durian said it was, quote, not a conspiracy. Pomelo laughed. Pomelo laughed. I have made a note. I have dated the note. The note is in the file.

The Bitter Press stands for accountability. We stand for rigour. We stand for the radical position that your sources should, at minimum, be capable of disputing your account of them. Until factjuice.com can produce a single notarised statement from a hedgehog, I am calling this category what it is: a ethical void dressed in fur, and I want it on the record that I was first.