• As dissed on Fox NewS •
Shooting the Messenger
online reporting by INDependent journalist Dean Sterling Jones
“If you need someone to do great reporting about shady schemes, scams, digital media skullduggery, and disinfo, consider hiring Dean!”
— Craig Silverman, ProPublica reporter & author of Regret the Error —
“Boorish and offensive”
— Yevgeny Prigozhin, deceased Russian warlord —
Latest Posts
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Brian Wilson: Adult/Child
Read more: Brian Wilson: Adult/ChildIn tribute to Brian Wilson, who died today aged 82, here is my 2014 review of cult classic The Beach Boys Love You, via Robin Thicke’s Paula. THE ALBUM IS PAULA. Thrown together in the midst of divorce, it is by all rights a complete stinker and a total embarrassment. And not because its subject is…
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For Your Consideration: Did Annie Lennox Influence Jerskin Fendrix’s Score for Poor Things?
Read more: For Your Consideration: Did Annie Lennox Influence Jerskin Fendrix’s Score for Poor Things?LIKE DRACULA IN FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA’s 1992 FILM, who is haunted by his own shadow, Poor Things can’t seem to escape its gothic predecessor. Director Yorgos Lanthimos’ whimsical dark comedy won four Oscars in March, including awards for costume and production design, for its surreal reimagining of Victorian Europe–drawing heavily on Coppola’s old-Hollywood aesthetic. But attentive viewers…
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WordPress Rejects Inception-esque Russian Government Demand to Censor My Blog
Read more: WordPress Rejects Inception-esque Russian Government Demand to Censor My BlogIn case the hosting provider and (or) the Internet web-site owner fail to take these measures, the network address enabling to identify Internet web-sites containing the information prohibited for distribution in the Russian Federation will be decided to be entered into the Register and access will be limited.The information about entering the domain names, Internet…
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Prigozhin’s Propagandists Scurry After His Plane — and His African ThinkTank — Go Up in Flames
Read more: Prigozhin’s Propagandists Scurry After His Plane — and His African ThinkTank — Go Up in FlamesMaria Butina told me last year that she worked for the Foundation for the Protection of National Values, a thinktank that the U.S. government sanctioned for aiding Yevgeny Prigozhin’s global propaganda efforts. The website is now defunct, like him. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the notorious Russian leader of the invasion of Ukraine and the failed coup against…
Meet the Russians
“Great read on Alexander Ionov after his recent indictment”
— Clarissa Ward, CNN’s chief international correspondent —
“A great report”
— Rachel Maddow, The Rachel Maddow Show —
Recent Bylines
& Credits
About Me
Based in Northern Ireland, but work mainly in the U.S.
Bootstrapped a freelance journalism career by publishing original reporting via this blog. Former Rolling Stone/Daily Beast EIC Noah Shachtman gave me my break. I work in kitchens when not sleuthing online. Love Tom Verlaine and unusual-looking lamps.
My Work
Interested in propaganda and digital trickery.
I’ve been published by, among others, Forbes, The Guardian, BuzzFeed News, Foreign Policy, and The Daily Beast, garnering praise from the likes of CNN’s Clarissa Ward and ProPublica’s Craig Silverman. I use open-source tools to find stories such as my Snopes plagiarism exposé (click here to read).
Impact
A thorn in the side of all manner of shady characters.
My reporting has been cited by every major U.S. news outlet, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Fox News, which broadcast that I was “wasting all of [my] time“. Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin once tried to troll me and Indian police have accused me of trying to incite civil unrest.
Interviews & Selected
Media Mentions
Shooting the Messenger 