In a few cases, news organizations have already added editor’s notes as threads were released — we should commend Mother Jones for addingsuch updates to many of their articles which referenced Hamilton — which gave cause for optimism. Maybe we could convince other reporters and editors to make the corrections ahead of time. How big of a job could that be?
Too big, as it turned out. Once humorously obsessive Matt Orfalea got going on the project, he quickly fell into a funk. He started just by looking just for video clips of broadcast or cable outlets referencing Hamilton 68, and immediately started racking up ridiculous numbers.
The first time he mentioned he was having a fit/time problem with the video, I was skeptical. Orf wasn’t counting print stories at first, and didn’t venture initially into other incidents beyond Ham68. It didn’t seem possible there could there be too many instances to compile on video. But there were. A large part of his logistical problem involved MSNBC, whose extravagant on-air warnings of Russian bots were fattening his compilation. “I thought, ‘If I could only do this without MSNBC, I could get this down to a manageable size,’” he said.
That led to an idea of making a separate video that only chronicled MSNBC making Hamilton-inspired references to Russian bots. “I was relieved,” he said. “I thought, ‘This way, I might be able to make a video about everyone else.’”