Disclaimer: The following article is an opinion piece written by Seraph IX Basarab, readers’ discretion is advised.
INN, the Imperium site, has recently published an article regarding this year’s Burn a Jita Event. The article opens with the following statement:
“The more informed of you will notice that the headline for this article is the one that other ‘news’ outlets were expecting to use. In reality, it was a very different series of events. Although given the past performance of these so-called neutral news sites, I am sure you can expect to see further articles in how much I am a liar or similar in the not too distant future…So it seems that the first casualty of this year’s Burn Jita would be the credibility of some.” ~ Moomin Amatin
For those that don’t know, Burn Jita is an event which pilots of the Imperium move numerous ships to suicide gank a variety of targets but usually aiming at larger hauling ships such as freighters. There’s no direct strategic or tactical goal of this, although the distraction can be a welcome change to the coalition’s membership. With the Imperium’s loss of the eight or so regions that make up the north, and their more recent debacle failing to support their Stainwagon allies, such distraction was certainly needed.
Personally, I’ve never witnessed the event myself. I’m rarely in Jita. Some may be surprised however that I support the event. It’s a great expression of player interaction and a sort of “push” against the expectations of safety that players have. I’ve always been a huge fan of that. I’d be for them expanding the Burn events to doing them several times a year. I’m sure that an article detailing the accomplishments of the event is certainly warranted here at EN24 or elsewhere. I think it’s awesome they pulled it off all things considering and major credit goes to the logistical team and directors that managed to herd that many cats for a singular purpose.
Going back to the opening statement that I quoted, it seems that that author was not interested in creating such an article. Instead, he opted for a weak attempt at attacking EN24’s credibility. What he is referring to is EN24’s recent article commenting on the supposed postponing of Burn Jita. Rather than the “in your face” article which Moomin is seemingly swinging at as a strawman, the piece itself was rather mild in tone and assertion. Based on the information everyone had, it seemed that a major theft from within would postpone or even cancel the planned Burn Jita event. To recap quite simply:
This attack is because entities such as EN24 and Crossing Zebras lay in stark contrast with INN which by all standards is “state media” of the Imperium as a propaganda mouth piece. So INN challenging anyone’s credibility is going to be discarded by any intelligent individual the same way one would discard a similar statement made by North Korean state media. If a president or prime minister leaked false information and a newspaper reports the information, that doesn’t mean the newspaper is bad. It means the person leaking was dishonest. This attack on EN24’s credibility is impotent projection and blatant hypocrisy. I took about five minutes and found much worse at INN.
The first two I made no issue of since in those cases deception was involved as in the Burn Jita situation. Imperium deceived people in regards to the event, and Co2 deceived people into thinking Gigx had been afk while manning the Keepstar. The last point involving me was simply dishonesty and an attempt to throw shade my way. Mistakes due to misinformation happen. Knowingly lying about what people have said or done as in the last case is another matter. In any case if you’re going to make such a big deal about EN24’s article on Burn Jita, perhaps they should cover their own tails a bit better. One could also reference how the same site (before being repackaged as INN) reported that Lowsec Voltron was firing bombs in lowsec.
Or how they argued that a certain titan pilot was a Black Legion spy and went on a crusade justifying the awoxing of one of their coalition member’s titans.
Or how the same site during the B-R battle would report only enemy losses and withholding details on their side.
Or how an NCdot diplomat by the name of Kimsemus was pushed to write an anti-NCdot article as part of his defection deal, after which he was unceremoniously booted a few months later.
Or how the site was used to promote a Kickstarter for a book costing $150,000 and not much of an explanation of where that money is going. (At least it motivated in large part LS Voltron and WWB. 10/10. Would remove again.)
Despite the facts established here, despite the argument being made, the criticism that will come back will have absolutely nothing to do with the content but instead will focus on me, just as we have seen in previous articles. I address content, facts, arguments…they instead avoid all that and target me specifically projecting their insecurities and labeling me obsessive. Their site was created (at least in part) with the stated purpose to “fight EN24.” They come to this site and insult writers rather than address the topic. You can’t call people obsessive when your side does all that. I made a whole discord channel (linked in the previous article) for them to come and discuss things maturely and none of them showed up. Instead, they’ll link the articles internally on their forums, jabber and alliance chat and work themselves into a circlejerk frenzy.
I could go on with many more examples, but I think I think I’ve made my point as I did with the last cadre of staff that they hell-purged from there: TMC/INN is a propaganda tool for Goonswarm and their coalition created to push their own narrative. In exchange for resources and a loyal audience which the coalition provides, you don’t get to comment on the credibility of other media sites without getting called out on it.
