>Jonathan Cook is a writer for the alt-right conspiracy rag
This is the new attack vector of the left: if you associate with, speak to, write about or interview anyone who has ever said anything "bad", you are "bad", forever, and that's it. The definition of ad homimen.
Newsflash for you: the old media models are dead. People publish things in all kinds of fora. This doesn't make you a stereotype or representation of the average bias of said publication. Do you actually rely on a site like MediaBiasFactCheck to determine the value of the content you read, rather than your own judgement?
In any case, an actual response to the idea of an ad hominem attack:
Reputation matters, so does context, and words do not stand alone. When taking in speech, it is important to understand the motives of the speaker, to be aware of their level of credibility. This isn't anything new or special, I learned it in high school history. People are biased, and you need to be aware of those biases when evaluating their speech.
Some examples: 1) If someone tells you, "Come in, I'd like to have you for dinner", there's a difference if that person is your father-in-law or Jeffrey Dahmer. 2) If someone tells you that some person X should be freed from charges, there's a difference if it's coming from that person's lawyer, or from the victim of the alleged crimes. 3) If you're about to cross a bridge, and one person says it's not safe to cross, and a second says it is, it makes a difference which one of the two is a structural engineer.
In the case of this particular article, I began to read it and came across several statements that were attempting to gloss over or ignore reported facts. At this point, I wanted to know if it was the result of sloppy reporting (maybe this was some personal rant), or perhaps part of a structured agenda, which is when I started to research the author. I found out that the author is a regular columnist for a company run by a known funder of racist hate groups that itself funds racist and hate speech, with poor journalistic practices.
I personally believe that we have a choice in how we earn a living (google death star contractors), but even if you don't, I think it's only fair to the reader to be aware of the writer's biases.
Concepts like reputation, trust, and credibility are as old as time, a concept which permeates all cultures... Just think of the idea of a court which cannot consider the reputation or credibility of different parties.
How does your perspective of left vs right work on this?
This is the new attack vector of the left: if you associate with, speak to, write about or interview anyone who has ever said anything "bad", you are "bad", forever, and that's it. The definition of ad homimen.
Newsflash for you: the old media models are dead. People publish things in all kinds of fora. This doesn't make you a stereotype or representation of the average bias of said publication. Do you actually rely on a site like MediaBiasFactCheck to determine the value of the content you read, rather than your own judgement?