One of the greatest inventions of the modern era has to be the "Community Notes" section of the social media platform "X."
No respecter of persons, parties, or power, the feature provides an opportunity for the sane masses to contradict blatant lies, calculated half-truths, or manipulative, dishonest posts with both evidence and context.
And on Friday afternoon, the "community" may have made its most devastatingly hilarious "note" in its history:
Daggum that's brutal.
Now, stop for a second and imagine how this would have worked in traditional media. Let's say that interview is recounted in the New York Times or Washington Post. Ms. Johnson's complaints would have been given an uncritical platform, without contradiction or context. No dissenting voices, no pushback, no questioning of her premise - just like CNN attempted to give her in the interview. Simple propaganda. Those who know better (or assume things aren't as she's portraying them) would have been left to futilely shout at their computer screens or newspapers in frustration, with no corrective recourse or satisfaction.
Given the ideological bias of the papers and their staff reporters, those jarring financial numbers disclosed in the community notes that revealed the jaw-dropping impact that Caitlyn Clark's visits had on Johnson's own team's pitiful attendance would not have been noted. Those facts inconvenience the narrative of the identitarian left, so the unspoken rule that the template is to remain unchallenged is obeyed.
Readers are not informed, they are manipulated. And even if other outlets push back on the omission to the point that the original publishing paper feels obligated to "clarify" their story, the correction is printed in a subsequent paper on the back page, thus fulfilling what satirist Jonathan Swift once observed (often attributed to Mark Twain):
A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still getting its boots strapped.
But now "Community Notes" changes the game. Now, wherever CNN's narrative-pushing, half-truth telling interview of Ms. Johnson goes, whether it's halfway around the world or all the way, the truth is tacked right there alongside it. Not only does that rightly inform people, it also exposes the dishonest brokers who peddle deceit for a living.
But speaking of the truth, let's push this a little farther and parse the statement Johnson made in this interview, as she argued that Caitlyn Clark shouldn't have been Time's "Athlete of the Year," but instead the entire WNBA been dubbed the, "League of the Year?"
We have so much talent out there that has been unrecognized, and I don't think we can pin it on just one player.
What exactly does Ms. Johnson mean by unrecognized talent? Is she blaming a lack of exposure for the league? No other professional sports organization has received a more generous portion of undeserved broadcast time than the WNBA. Imagine if the Arena Football League, for example, was the beneficiary of the same kind of television contracts and subsidized investment from, say, the NFL. I contend without much fear of contradiction they would be capable of at least turning a profit — something the WNBA still cannot do. The issue for the WNBA isn't that its "talent" has been unrecognized. The problem is an overall lack of "talent."
That may sound harsh or unfair, as clearly the players in the WNBA are more "talented" than other female basketball players whose careers ended after college. What I'm talking about is a standard of "watchable talent." Ms. Johnson contends that if the public were only exposed to the extraordinary skill of the league's players, we would all be dumbfounded, looking at each other and saying, "This is amazing! Why haven't we been entertaining ourselves by watching this?!" That is assuredly not the case.
While there are certainly some athletes who make impressive plays from time to time, the attention Caitlyn Clark drew to the league revealed a level of basketball that was far less entertaining than even high school boys basketball. The public was exposed to more air balls in one WNBA game than an entire NBA season, so this attempted narrative that a majority white population has now had their racist eyes opened by Clark to a treasure trove of black female superstardom is beyond absurd.
But it wasn't that long ago, that such a narrative would have been pushed unencumbered and unchallenged. Count me as one thankful that the "community" is now empowered to "note" the truth, shaming the media schoolmarms whose days of scolding and lecturing us with impunity have mercifully come to an end.
