How to Read the News Like a Pro

Kyle Olson’s reporting, breathless it is:

In a stunning admission, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager predicts in an email that Donald Trump will become president if he wins the Republican nomination.

“If Donald Trump takes the Republican nomination, our party will lose more than the presidency,” Robby Mook writes to supporters.

“Years of progress will be ripped away. Obamacare will be repealed. Marriage equality will be rolled back. Get excited to visit the wall on the Mexico border — and get ready to pay for it if President Trump can’t magically get Mexico to cough up the cash for it.”

And where did Olson score such a scoop? From a Clinton campaign email.

Now I don’t know how many campaign emails you get, but I got tens of thousands of them before I finally killed off my old email address — my favorite old email address having been harvested by some craptaculent PR firm and sold off to hundreds of other craptaculent PR firms and campaign lists. (I’m still a little bitter about that, if you couldn’t tell.)

Anyway, your typical fundraising email goes like this:

Dear Friend of Jeb,

If Marco Rubio wins the Republican nomination for president, he will unleash his MUTANT STAR GOAT which will consume the Earth with fire. Rubio also has threatened to cut funding to Head Start programs in communities JUST LIKE YOURS.

I know that you don’t want to see the Earth consumed by fire, and that you understand the importance of small class sizes for pre-K education. So won’t you make a small contribution today, right now, of just $3?

Together, with your $3 Jeb can save the Earth from Marco Rubio’s mutant star goat, and protect vital Head Start education for children JUST LIKE YOURS.

Jeb can’t stop the mutant star goat without YOUR help! So please click this link now and donate $3.

Danny Diaz
Campaign Manager
Jeb Bush for President

Now, Danny doesn’t believe in the mutant star goat, probably because he’s a Bible-thumping science denier. But Danny does know that he can scare enough people with tales of Rubio’s mutant star goat to bring in a few grand worth of $3 donations. Besides, sending out millions of emails costs essentially nothing, other than the fee paid to whatever craptaculent PR firm stole my favorite email address.

The thing is, sharp internet writers like Kyle Olson know all of this, too — but that doesn’t stop them from writing up silly fundraising emails as though they’re actually news, and then getting a prominent link on Drudge for their breathless “reporting.”

It makes me sad when Longtime Sharp VodkaPundit Readers™ fall for clickbait stories like these. It’s my job to read this crap, but you shouldn’t have to do it for free. So with this handy lesson behind you, when you see a headline like “MOOK SPOOKED: Hillary manager predicts Trump will win presidency if nominated!” do yourself and the internet a favor and don’t click on it.

Because falling for clickbait is exactly what the mutant star goat wants you to do.

Now send me $3.