Crazy: ‘Business Insider’ raises the alarm on “rumors of a coup d’état” in Spain

It is war. Well, almost. As if Spain did not have enough problems, Business Insider has decided that “there are dark rumors of a coup d’état”. Here you have the link.

So, it would be all for a good laugh, but that media organization has way too big an audience an relevance to dismiss it off-handedly.

Business Insider has 23 million unique visitors and its success is such that Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has invested $5 million in it. It occupies the place 435 in Alexa’s global rankings, and its audience is made of “highly men earning over $60,000”, according to that site. Business Insider has been even the subject of a lengthy article in the always respectable magazine ‘The New Yorker’, and the specific piece we are talking about was posted in Facebook by more than 1,000 readers, and had more than 250 retweets.

This is one more crazy misrepresentation of the Spanish situation by international media. The statements were made by a General Antonio Chicharro, who is in the ‘active reserve’. That means that,  even if he is still in the Army, has no forces under his command. That fact does not diminishes the gravity of his proclaims, but at least Business Insider could put his words in some sort of context. This is something that the Spanish media did when informed about the incident. Actually, Business Insider’s piece is just a translation of that article, simply exaggerating the details and pruning all the nuances, particularly in the headline.

Perhaps this anecdote should not surprise us. We still have fresh in our memories the jeremiads of Zero Hedge in 2011 when  it proclaimed that the Spanish police was harassing people and in rural areas stores had dropped the euros in favor of the old pesetas.

Even more intriguing is the author of the piece–Wolf Ritcher who, according to the site, has “has 20 years of C-level operations and finance experience, including turnaround situations and startups. He lived in five foreign countries and in fascinating places like Tokyo, Paris, New York, and Wichita Falls, TX. Traveled to 100 countries on all continents, much of it overland. Currently in San Francisco.”

Amazing and very specific Résumé, right? Wait, he is also a published author. He has written two books, ‘Cascade into an Odyssey’ and ‘Testosterone Pit’ which, by the way, is also the name of his website. In this regard, Ritcher is also in the same league as Simon Black, the author of Zero Hedge’s article, who defines himself as an “international investor, entrepreneur, permanent traveler, freeman.”

It is a pity that “honest” never makes it to the Résumés of those writers… or their media organizations.