Substack is becoming a side door into mainstream news

Why did Beltway reporters ignore the Parkinson's specialist at the White House? They thought they didn't need to cover that story

Wait. What!?! The Hindustan Times?

What is the biggest not-yet news story in the Disunited States of America doing on the YouTube channel of the Hindustan Times, in one of those quick-hit (maybe AI) aggregation videos that monetize bytes from a number of other publications into a one-click feature for smartphones in millions of pockets?

That’s an important question.

When I started Rational Sheep, I promised that this project would not be a journalism blog built on commentary about the news. I mean, I did that for 20 years and, at age 70, I wanted to switch directions (in a flashback to an earlier stage of my academic life) and focus on faith and family in the age of screen culture.

However, there are times when the technological revolution that is at the heart of that equation affects the whole world around us and, when that happens, I think that it’s OK to talk about it. And, besides, I am writing this on Substack — the software platform that is making it possible for a large minority of Americans to talk about subjects that the mainstream press is not willing to talk about. Yet.

So, what is Substack and what is it doing to mass media?

Start here: Look at one chunk of information at the top of a new piece at The Free Press website (on Substack, of course). The headline: “Why Did a Parkinson’s Doctor Repeatedly Visit the White House?”

On Saturday, the New York Post reported that a doctor at Walter Reed Medical Center with expertise in Parkinson’s visited the White House January 17, hosted by the president’s physician Kevin O’Connor. A second report, published by Alex Berenson on his Substack, Unreported Truths, revealed that the doctor visited the White House nine times between July 28, 2023, and March 28, 2024. (The logs run through March 31, 2024, and are available for anyone to access online.)

The doctor in question is Kevin R. Cannard, a neurologist and retired Army colonel. His physician profile page shows he is a neurologist and movement disorders specialist at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center who researches treatments for early phase Parkinson’s disease. Berenson notes that Walter Reed “provides medical care to senior federal officials.” 

If Cannard is treating Biden, then the president has some explaining to do.

Now, we know that the elite press is perfectly capable of ignoring the New York Post — if the gods of Big Tech want to ban some troubling information from the public square (other than the niche of conservative media).

But look at the material that I put in bold type: “A second report, published by Alex Berenson on his Substack, Unreported Truths, revealed that the doctor visited the White House nine times between July 28, 2023, and March 28, 2024.”

Nine times. 

How many times did this specialist, or others, meet with Joe Biden or his doctors at the president's home in Connecticut? Who knows? Are the visitor’s logs there, or the Secret Service records, public information? I do not know, but I would assume not.

But the White House logs are public. Why did the Barack Obama-Joe Biden team that surrounds America’s elderly president allow those meetings to take place at the White House? The answer would appear to be this: They knew that elite DC reporters were not going to cover that story. It was too important.

But, Substack.

Who is Alex Berenson? His X bio notes:

Alex Berenson is a former New York Times reporter and the author of 13 novels, three non-fiction books, and the Unreported Truths booklets. His newest book, PANDEMIA, on the coronavirus and our response to it, was published in November 2021.

Berenson is a FORMER New York Times reporter turned novelist.

Can he still report facts and put them in news features? It appears that he can do that. What is his motivation? This pinned headline at his Substack page would appear to offer an answer:

In 2021, they tried to destroy me for telling the truth

This isn't paranoia. Hard evidence shows the White House and media targeted my right to speak — and support my family. If not for all of you, they would have succeeded. Yeah, I'm still angry.

Yes, this is about the debates surrounding COVID-19 that reporters chose to ignore. After all, the name of this man’s Substack is Unreported Truths. I am old-school enough to say that what he actually means — at the very least — is “Uncovered Debates.”

Look at the themes in many of the tweets right here. To me, Berenson appears to be yet another of those old-school liberal journalists (take a bow, Bari Weiss and team) who discovered that it was no longer possible to cover hot stories that didn’t fit their newsrooms’ templates for acceptable reporting.

Let’s go back to the main Biden story on The Free Press site:

Neurologists, who generally wish to remain anonymous, have been watching, too.

One, an emeritus professor of neurology who has not treated the president, told The Free Press he believes Biden “has Parkinsonism, an umbrella term that refers to neurologic conditions that cause slowed movements, rigidity, and tremors. By observation, he has a masked face, reduced blinking, stiff and slow gait, hunched posture, low-volume voice, imbalance, freezing, mild cognitive disturbance, and difficulty turning.” 

Another neurologist, who wrote to Berenson after his story was published, echoed these findings: “All the disturbing symptoms we all see are called Parkinsonism. . . . In fact in medical school we watch videos of patients with Parkinsonism like Biden to illustrate to the students how this manifests.”

Is this a big story? Anyone who has watched a loved one struggle with Parkinson’s Disease (my own father, for example) knows what is ahead if this diagnosis is accurate. How long has Biden been on the drugs that, for a few years, can lessen the effects of Parkinson’s? That’s another important fact for this timeline.

This brings us to a New York Times story about the unreported story that never really says that the original story was, in fact, a real story, but suggests that some story out there might, just maybe, be a big news story: “As Biden Digs In, More Supporters Look to Push Him Out.”

The key: No mention of Parkinson’s Disease. No mention of dementia. This is all, you see, about politics and that is that. What readers get is this:

After watching Mr. Biden in private, in public and while traveling with him, the official said they no longer believed the president had what it took to campaign in a vigorous way and defeat Donald J. Trump. The official, who insisted on anonymity in order to continue serving, said Mr. Biden had steadily showed more signs of his age in recent months, including speaking more slowly, haltingly and quietly, as well as appearing more fatigued in private. …

For years, Democratic officials have largely limited their concerns about Mr. Biden’s age and abilities to quiet conversations, though many voters have loudly expressed their reservations about nominating someone who would be 86 by the end of a second term. But in the days since the first presidential debate in June and what some Democrats have described as the campaign’s weak attempt at damage control, the whispered anxieties are turning into a whirlwind of action, though where it will all lead is an open question.

The bottom line appears to be: You. Can’t. Handle. The. Truth.

Can the major newsrooms avoid this Free Press story? Maybe they can, if editors decide that their readers don't want them to go THERE yet.

Does that matter? I mean, this is only the biggest story in America, right now — if the mainstream picks it up. Yes, it still matters if editors @NPR and @NYTimes choose to ignore this. The elite-media high ground is -- at this point -- still the high ground.

Nevertheless, here is the journalism drama that we’re watching: The Substack platform is turning the decades-old blogging culture (at least, the part of the blogging world in which serious journalists, academics and think-tank pros, published information with URLs and quotable sources) into a doorway into the pages of the mainstream press.

At least, that’s possible when the Substack journalists in question have old-guard liberal credentials that make their reporting harder to ignore. Remember this headline from Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times legend Seymour Hersh? That would be: “How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline.”

But do the Beltway reporters, including those fading television news networks, have to pay attention?

Not really. At some point, a big story needs to reach ordinary people. That requires entering the bloodstream of mainstream entertainment.

Yes, this is my cynical view: Something isn't real until it hits the 5-star late-night comics. Here is the classic example: Jon Stewart on The Colbert Show, making it acceptable for in-the-know people to talk about the Wuhan Lab.

That's all for me, at this point. Again, why is this Rational Sheep territory?

I hope that’s obvious. It’s all about the world of digital screens and how the old-guard media leaders cannot control all of them, all the time, unless Big Tech leaders cooperate.

See why Elon Musk and X, and maybe his Starlink satellite network, are so important?

Hang in there, folks.