Webworm with David Farrier David Farrier

Webworm regular Hayden Donnell with an essay about the incompetent executive class.
Much has been written about the structural factors accelerating the media’s demise. Tech giants have hoovered up its ad revenue like the sandworms from Dune. Its audiences have migrated to TikTok, or worse, X, where they routinely mistake the deranged inner monologue of @MAGAJackie28743781 for objective journalism.
Less has been written about the incompetence of the media’s executives. Vice was home to some of the world’s most principled and talented journalists, but it was also run by cartoonish charlatans who blew half the op-ex on jobs for their friends, cocaine and general horndoggery.
Mostly though, media bosses have demonstrated more mundane strategic ineptitude.
Enjoy the episode, and see you in the comments over at https://www.webworm.co/p/buffoons


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Episode 14: In this episode, David Farrier reads some feedback from Webworm readers, before Hayden Donnell witnesses the "comeback" of Arise's John Cameron, as John attempts to speak in tongues. This is a look at how Pentecostal Christians tend to be a tight club - and how staging a comeback is part and parcel of anyone's fall.


This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.webworm.co/subscribe

Episode 13: "I talk to the guy behind Paul T Goldman, 2023's best documentary". David chats with Jason Woliner, creator and director of Peacock's PAUL T GOLDMAN. Visit www.webworm.co for more, and to join journalist David Farrier's Webworm community.


This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.webworm.co/subscribe

Episode 11: "The Life and Death of P22". A mountain lion walked the streets outside my house, and now it's dead. I'm curious what this fact says about us, and our relationship to nature. This includes an interview with journalist Rob Chaney, author of The Grizzly in the Driveway. For more details see https://www.webworm.co/p/episode11


This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.webworm.co/subscribe

Episode 8: Arise & Me: Not a Love Story. It’s been a while since we talked about Arise megachurch. I figured it was time for an update. I also became curious what Arise leaders, and the board, thought of me since I started writing about them in April of last year. I am not a mindreader, so I decided to do the next best thing: I made a Privacy Act request, asking for all Arise emails, texts and electronic correspondence mentioning “Webworm” or “David Farrier.” All Webworm and reporting about Arise can be found here: https://www.webworm.co/p/megachurch. Please sign up for the Webworm newsletter for my reporting direct to your inbox: https://www.webworm.co


This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.webworm.co/subscribe

Hi,
Hope the weekend went well. I had a blast reading your stories under my secret societies newsletter. Especially loved this from Steff:
“In university I won a ‘Freemason’s Scholarship’, which is hilarious because I had to go to an interview with 10 masons — and I’d just seen the movie From Hell, and all I wanted to talk about was conspiracy theories.
I won, and I got invited to attend a dinner at their Auckland lodge with my mum and my best friend. So we go off to find the bathroom, and she goes “look at this” and pulls me behind a curtain and through a door and into their secret meeting chamber.
And it looks like a movie set! I just couldn’t get over how simultaneously cool and silly it was. Like, all those lovely old men I met at dinner really hang out in here? Why don't they just go bowling?”
I loved chatting to you in the comments over the weekend, and after that I chatted to New Zealand journalist Kim Hill about what the hell is going on with New Zealand’s conspiracy scene — you can listen to our conversation here.
As for today — it’s time for a Webworm podcast. I wanted to try something every now and then where I share a piece of my writing from earlier in my career. I have stuff scattered in a variety of places — old laptops and computers, USB sticks (remember them?) and of course Google Docs.
Today’s piece was originally published on the 3News website, back when I was a journalist in New Zealand.
The website no longer exists, so neither does this piece — except, I found it in my Google Docs folder. I enjoyed revisiting it, so — like when Stephen King releases a new edition of The Stand — I decided to clean it up a little, add a few paragraphs, and re-release it into the world.
I just compared myself to one of America’s greatest writers. Not arrogant at all.
This one is a medical mystery; a rabbit hole I never expected to go down.
Trigger warning: if you’re squeamish, this might make you a bit squeamish. Nonetheless — I hope you enjoy it. Let’s travel back to 2015.
David.
Pulling on a Mysterious Thread
UFOs, chemtrails, shadowy government agents. The phone-calls usually start around 9pm. People call the newsroom with information they desperately want to tell you; information they can’t give to anyone else.
Their stories are similar and familiar — and always filled with paranoia and conspiracy. One man insists the government has put an implant in his brain, using it to track his every move. A woman calls up insisting she’s been systematically abducted by aliens for the last 15 years. 
People call the newsroom — often me specifically — because they see it as their last opportunity to be understood. Or at least be heard. The police are no help. Doctors and medical professionals have turned them away. Most of them don’t even want to consider writing to the government, because the government’s in on it. They want to talk to the open-minded reporter.
None of these callers are looking for answers, because they already have the answers. Their problem is that no one will listen to them.
These far-flung stories don’t always come over the phone. Increasingly, people direct their story to my Facebook inbox or my Twitter DMs. People like Andy:
And Andy started telling his story. It was involved and complex, full of names, dates and allegations.
The messages arrived in my inbox in a steady stream. 10… 20… 86 messages by the end of the day.  It was unrelenting and I didn’t know where to start. He claimed many troubling things, but there was no way to verify any of his claims.
And then he started talking about the threads. 
I paused when reading this, and then I re-read it, just to clarify. I didn’t quite get it. Threads? I don’t know what he is talking about. I can’t picture it. Andy is very candid about it: “It’s not normal to be able to pull threads out of your chest. I’ve got wounds everywhere”. 
Andy tells me he didn’t used to have