The Huffington Post and the "Baron de Rothschild"

The Baron's Profile. Impressed yet?

One of new media's leading lights fell face first into the concrete today, as the word emerged that the above-featured Stefan de Rothschild was not in fact a 17-year-old wunderkind blogger for the Huffington Post who also managed multiple charities and a bank.

He was a hoax.

Shocking, I know, but yes, there is no Stefan de Rothschild, as the websites of all the charities he claimed to manage turned out to be fairly obvious fronts and his life story to be literally incredible. Wikipedia had to delete several fake articles that the supposed Baron and "Stefan Roberts" kept putting up. This is mildly embarrassing, since HuffPo not only gave the little scammer a blog, but Arianna Huffington even featured a post about all the nonexistent money his fake charity had donated to suffering Haitians.

This could be used as an example of new media callowness, except that the Washington Post was had as well (though not quite as severely), and Wikipedia helped to out "Rothschild." Uncharted territory is as rich a ground for frauds as it does innovators.

At the same time, it does beg the question: even if "Stefan" had actually been an absurdly rich teenager with cushy spots on charity boards, why the fuck would he deserve such a major blog platform? Does this come along with estates and trust funds for the nobility these days?

Well, yes.

He got his spot because he's rich (or said he was). One of the nastier parts of the HuffPo's particular variety of activism is the assumption that being wealthy, famous and concerned about the fate of the world makes you an important voice, instead of just someone with a lot of money.

This is why the site lets people like Jim Carrey ramble about medicine as if they knew a damn thing, and part of the reason why ye whippersnapper Baron escaped notice.

This is also the point where I'll admit that I've cheered the Huffington Post before; they're on The Breaking Time's list of political primers and have had some journalistic coups. But some perspective is needed: less celebrities and more real talents would be a good place to start.

If they wish to continue along the aristocratic route however, I'd like to make my presence known, Ms. Huffington, and declare that I'm truly worthy of de Rothschild's spot. My own claims of nobility are much more prestigious — I'm a fucking Viscount! — and given a week I can have any number of websites set up testifying to my credentials.

If that doesn't do it, let me know how many millions fictional charities have to hand out before a voice matters. It'd be good to put a number on that.

Comments

[Shay]

Loltastic!