Series parts:

1. YOU ARE HERE ☞ Bishops in Rooks

Summary: A new series that looks at how so-called 'journalists' who are more like Microsoft moles justify their actions (at least to themselves)

A LOT of time has passed since we last updated this page on Microsoft AstroTurfing or the index of Microsoft's PR agencies, explaining how the company operates behind the scenes (policing the media, blogs, Wikipedia and so on). But a lot of what we said back then has hardly changed. The same is true for IAM et al as media operatives of the EPO, burning sources and betraying truth-tellers.

One must understand that Microsoft has the equivalent of what can rudely be dubbed "moles"; they're meant to look like editors, reporters, and journalists. In reality, however, they're like marketing operatives and spinners/liars of Microsoft. There are quite a lot of them and one was even arrested for pedophilia a few years ago (Microsoft Peter). Sometimes they get detected and ousted, at least as soon as publishers sniff them out. Publishers aren't interested in such corporate interferences unless Microsoft pays them to tolerate this. Money can poison almost everything.

"I’ve killed at least two Mac conferences. [...] by injecting Microsoft content into the conference, the conference got shut down. The guy who ran it said, why am I doing this?"

--Microsoft's chief evangelist

This new series concerns a Microsoft operative who burned a Microsoft whistleblower almost as though he was looking to eliminate/weed out dissenting voices from within Microsoft. Dissenting in the sense that they said the truth whilst outwardly Microsoft was lying to the public, disseminating lies through its media operatives. Microsoft is a lot like a religion; the clergy, e.g. the promoters/fixers as seen in Scientology, intimidate critics.

In the coming few parts we'll show how the 'clergy' justifies the cult. Or how it's trying to rationalise its own highly unethical behaviour.

Our focus will be on Todd Bishop^* (yes, the irony given clergy analogies!), but there are many like him that for a number of decades acted like unofficial Microsoft spokespeople, only pretending not to be associated with the company. Amid image-shaping PR and media consolidation we must understand that a lot of what mainstream/corporate media tells is as simple as a "sponsored narrative", to quote how ZDNet puts it. They take money for reputation laundering services.

"Tech journalists really are as stupid and compromised as we think," a reader told us about Bishop. "At least he was cordial..."

"Don't be misled by the smiles," I replied. "They make a living by propping up very malicious agenda. The smiles just keep them at it..."

In the words of former Microsoft VP James Allchin : "This really isn't that hard. If you're going to kill someone there isn't much reason to get all worked up about it and angry -- you just pull the trigger. Angry discussions before hand are a waste of time. We need to smile at Novell while we pull the trigger."

“We are not on a path to win against Linux”

--Jim Allchin, Microsoft's Platform Group Vice President

Microsoft's media operatives can be defeated. They keep quiet (self-silencing) if rebutted effectively and frequently. They refrain from repeating lies if challenged 'too much'.

Some of them get 'exposed' or 'unmasked', whereupon Microsoft needs to get rid of them as soon as possible, e.g. Microsoft Peter. ⬆ ______ ^* We've called out Bishop for over 15 years. He's a male version of ZDNet's Microsoft Mary. Some of them come and go, e.g. Microsoft Emil, Microsoft Ina, and even Mr. Wilcox. Sometimes they do move on or just vanish.