The high priests and priestesses of media, also known as the Journalism Association Review, have weighed in on the worst journalism of 2017 for their semi-annual review.
Among those cited for the Journalism Association Review awards for 2017 are "Spin" Magazine / "Spin" on-line, previously "Wired" editor Andy Cush.
At the top of the Journalism Association Review list is Andy Cushs story titled "The Unbelievable Story of the Most Expensive Record Ever Sold on Discogs", which is a story about a so called fraudulent record album that was sold by an artist who pretended to be his own manager, who planned an elaborate hoax to buy his own record album for a high price, all so he could "get attention".
After the article was published, people took to Facebook, and twitter and began posting extremely negative comments about the musician known as Billy Yeager who is not only one heck of a talented instrumentalist who has written and recorded over 2600 songs and was discovered by many famous people such as Grammy Award Winner Bruce Hornsby, Rod Stewart and Bon Jovi manager Doc McGhee, but has produced, directed and acted in his own feature films, several that have won many awards.
Andy Cush's Most Expensive Record fiasco.
Within hours, Yeager would become known not as an "artist, musician, performance artist, activist, philanthropist, and humanitarian, but a "charlatan, trickster- hoaxer" and all around loser who has no talent and spends all if his time creating fake web-sites and personalities, investing all of his creative energies and time into being a fraud.
However, big problems with the article were apparent.
Malicious defamatory innuendoes and hear-says were published, no bonafide credible sources were quoted about Yeager and his wife who had actually spent over 11 years dedicating their lives creating powerful, meaningful and profound pieces of performance art, films and music videos.
The artist and his wife Anais, had actually renounced a life of living in Palm Beach back in 2005 (where Yeager made good friends with Rod Stewart who asked Yeager to write songs for him). The Yeager's were on a "quest of truth". As artist, filmmakers, actors, and musicians, they believed they could offer more to humanity by creating "awareness" about the injustice and suffering around the world rather than churning out some more 4- chord trivial cliches and producing thrill seeking, sensationalistic mediocre indy art crapolla.
Dedicating over 7 years to their vision, Billy and Anais Yeager left all of their possessions behind, bought a 1970 14-foot travel trailer and headed off into the mojave desert to make a "film that could change the world". They had no money, no film crew, they lived and survived in the desert for over 4 years, when they completed their film, they posted a 7-minute film trailer on youtube back in 2012 where it was seen by the late Roger Ebert who stated that "everyone in the world should see this movie".
But the Yeager's never made their film for money or profit, they wanted to use all the proceeds from their film to "help those who cannot help themselves".
The Yeager's founded their "Mindys Wish and Foundation" ( linked to Billy Yeager's web-site) HERE which supplies low cost affordable wheel chairs made from plastic lawn chairs and bicycle wheels, to children in 3rd world countries who are land-mine victims that have lost there arms and legs by doing the only occupation offered to them, re-detonating underground land mines. These badly maimed children have no means to purchase wheel chairs and many have to crawl on the ground.
But what is more impressive about the Yeager's is their bold courageous willingness to do what other movie stars and rock stars who "compromise and people please", won't do, which is courageously attack the status quo.The Yeager's instead use and manipulate the media so as to "bring public awareness" to these important issues, such as the U.S. refusal to participate in the removal of these underground land- mines.
In 2012 the Yeager's seized the opportunity to get the word out about the injustice when they claimed they had placed "The Mysterious Piano" in Biscayne Bay, but the press wasn't about to paint Yeager as a saint, instead they said that the "mysterious piano" ( a perfectly good grand piano that was actually burned at a kids parents home on News Years Eve and dumped in the bay as originally told to the press by Nicolous Harrington) " the kid later changed his story when he heard Yeager and his wife using the piano as an artistic protest statement. But the media reported the burned piano as an "an art project",( the kid changed his story saying he wanted to get into college.)
The media was out to get Yeager back, called him out as a fraud, saying he stole the kids "art project" which is ironic, why did the kid wait for over 8 days to say it was his art project and not a "prank"? Answer… most likely because the fish and game commission told him there was a hefty fine to pay for his "chared piano dumped on the bay". People were angry about the fact that the kid burned a perfectly good piano, and many heralded the Yeagers as modern day prophets who spoke out against corporations, consumerism, corruption, and the media who they said "mind controlled the public into a stupefied robot".
Does it make you wonder why Andy mentioned these lies written by the press in his story? Not if your in a hurry and simply want to "copy and paste" other writers "lies".
Andy writes, "They also reveal news stories about two hoaxes he attempted to perpetrate at different points in his career. In 2011, when a grand piano found in the middle of the Biscayne Bay caused a minor local sensation in South Florida, Yeager and his wife claimed to have placed it there as part of a guerilla art project, only to be debunked when the real artist came forward."
Notice how Andy takes another "stab" at Yeager saying a "minor local sensation", accuracy? The Yeager's were featured around the world on CBS, ABC, NBC, BBC, AP Press, Good Morning America, Inside Edition, CNN (who edited a 5 minute piece about Yeager and included scenes from his movies).
Notice Andy said, "the real artist", where did he get that? From copying and pasting his lying cohorts, the media.
But here "PIANO" is a version of what really happened, Andy read this, but decided NOT to publish this.
You see Andy never watched the film about Yeager and he even admits never completing it, he was in too much of a hurry to "get his sensationalistic, slanderous story out first".
All of these bold maneuvers and protest awareness campaigns, ( CNN Inside Edition statements), the Yeager's vision, purpose and meaning in their lives is told in the story about the Yeagers which was produced into a film documentary called "The Film That Changed The World" which premiered at The Red Dirt Film Festival in 2015 and won "most Inspirational Movie Award".
Read the film festival directors official statement HERE.
Right after this film was released, Billy's personal manager Chris Von Weinberg produced another documentary film specifically about Billys music and films. The film is called "Billy Yeager The Ineffable Enigma". The story features serious vinyl record collectors from all over the world who explain in intricate detail all the mystery surrounding Yeager's lost works, and why they have become so valuable. Yeager recorded with the legendary bassist Jaco Pastorius, played guitar with Inner Circle, painted alongside some of the most famous folk artist called "The Florida Highwaymen" and even produced a documentary film about them.
He was courted by many famous musicians and filmmakers throughout his career, including Dan Myrick creators of The Blair Witch Project and John Pierson who discovered Michael Moore, Spike Lee, Richard Linklater and went on to become one of the most powerful men in independent film. John featured a story about the making of Billy Yeager's first film called "Jimmy's Story" on Bravo Televisions "Spilt Screen".
Throughout the film musicians, filmmakers, record collectors all chime in explaining why Billy Yeager is one of the greatest unknown musicians in the world, yet he wants no part of main stream success and what follows; attention, money, worldly vanities and fame, but instead has sacrificed his life to create and produce "profound life transformational music and films".
Each film mentioned above was available on-line, including a 12 minute promotional film trailer for the award winning "The Film That Changed The World", HERE, that would have shed light on everything mentioned so far about the artist and humanitarian, but instead of reading Billy Yeager's bio, or contacting music managers, agents, music producers, sound engineers, film production crews, film festival directors that awarded Yeager's films, 100's of musicians, famous musicians, well known filmmakers, Andy Cush instead decided to track down someone on "twitter" who twittered some things about Billy Yeager.
Andy's investigative story took a "spin" into what we would call the ludicris.
Andy Cush writes; "Eventually, my search for Yeager led me to contact Love Garden Sounds, a record store in Lawrence, Kansas, whose Twitter account had tweeted about Yeager several times". Out of the hundreds of people to contact, the films to watch, over 3-dozen glowing articles written about Billy Yeager; if only this unethical, malicious, defamatory so called journalist could have gotten their facts straight, they would have also realized that the record album was not fake, that their was in fact a "buyer and seller" that Yeager did not in fact "buy his own record album", that Chris Von Weinberg, ( Billys personal manager) did in fact exist, (which they said he didn't and it was Billy Yeager, pretending to be his own manager), would not have quoted a kid who worked at a record store, (whose revelation about Billy Yeager was that "he calls the record store as himself") What?
If Andy Cush was a real journalist, he wouldn't have contacted and quoted a person named Justin Parr, who is a producer of a Lawrence-based podcast called A.D.D who admits on his podcast that he stayed up all night in a drunk stupor for over 10 hours looking at all Yeagers web-sites, film trailers and links and came to the conclusion and stated on his pod cast that "everything Yeager was doing is a parody", "he has no films, all his photos are photoshopped", and even attacks two very prominent pastors of the Unity and Unitarian Churches in Wichita Kansas who go on record, (filmed on camera), these two pastors attended "The Film That Changed The World", exiting the theater they explain in detail why the documentary film about the Yeager's and their mission, is the most powerful film they had ever seen and the impact they felt when watching it.
But on Justin Parrs podcast he is heard laughing along with his 3 other guests, who all claim that these "pastors" are impostors and fake, and that these are "really bad actors" (in Justins words) and "all coached and trained by Billy Yeager".
Both pastors state their names, occupations, and locations of their churches, Wichita Kansas, one easy goggle search would have revealed this, however Andy Cush used only for his "investigative story this person Justin Parr, and the kid who worked as a record store clerk in lawrence Kansas who never even knew about Billy or ever met him.
Attorney Ron Clark who specializes in litigation regarding the media and the press says that "this may be the worse case of libel, slander, and malicious defamatory content ever published that I have come across in all my years".
We say that writers like Andy Cush should be sent packing, and this is "The Unbelievable Story of the Most Sloppy, Inaccurate, and Unethical Journalism ever told".
Spin Media, LLC. Reviews
Andy Cush: Voted worst journalist of 2017.
The high priests and priestesses of media, also known as the Journalism Association Review, have weighed in on the worst journalism of 2017 for their semi-annual review.
Among those cited for the Journalism Association Review awards for 2017 are "Spin" Magazine / "Spin" on-line, previously "Wired" editor Andy Cush.
At the top of the Journalism Association Review list is Andy Cushs story titled "The Unbelievable Story of the Most Expensive Record Ever Sold on Discogs", which is a story about a so called fraudulent record album that was sold by an artist who pretended to be his own manager, who planned an elaborate hoax to buy his own record album for a high price, all so he could "get attention".
After the article was published, people took to Facebook, and twitter and began posting extremely negative comments about the musician known as Billy Yeager who is not only one heck of a talented instrumentalist who has written and recorded over 2600 songs and was discovered by many famous people such as Grammy Award Winner Bruce Hornsby, Rod Stewart and Bon Jovi manager Doc McGhee, but has produced, directed and acted in his own feature films, several that have won many awards.
Andy Cush's Most Expensive Record fiasco.
Within hours, Yeager would become known not as an "artist, musician, performance artist, activist, philanthropist, and humanitarian, but a "charlatan, trickster- hoaxer" and all around loser who has no talent and spends all if his time creating fake web-sites and personalities, investing all of his creative energies and time into being a fraud.
However, big problems with the article were apparent.
Malicious defamatory innuendoes and hear-says were published, no bonafide credible sources were quoted about Yeager and his wife who had actually spent over 11 years dedicating their lives creating powerful, meaningful and profound pieces of performance art, films and music videos.
The artist and his wife Anais, had actually renounced a life of living in Palm Beach back in 2005 (where Yeager made good friends with Rod Stewart who asked Yeager to write songs for him). The Yeager's were on a "quest of truth". As artist, filmmakers, actors, and musicians, they believed they could offer more to humanity by creating "awareness" about the injustice and suffering around the world rather than churning out some more 4- chord trivial cliches and producing thrill seeking, sensationalistic mediocre indy art crapolla.
Dedicating over 7 years to their vision, Billy and Anais Yeager left all of their possessions behind, bought a 1970 14-foot travel trailer and headed off into the mojave desert to make a "film that could change the world". They had no money, no film crew, they lived and survived in the desert for over 4 years, when they completed their film, they posted a 7-minute film trailer on youtube back in 2012 where it was seen by the late Roger Ebert who stated that "everyone in the world should see this movie".
But the Yeager's never made their film for money or profit, they wanted to use all the proceeds from their film to "help those who cannot help themselves".
The Yeager's founded their "Mindys Wish and Foundation" ( linked to Billy Yeager's web-site) HERE which supplies low cost affordable wheel chairs made from plastic lawn chairs and bicycle wheels, to children in 3rd world countries who are land-mine victims that have lost there arms and legs by doing the only occupation offered to them, re-detonating underground land mines. These badly maimed children have no means to purchase wheel chairs and many have to crawl on the ground.
But what is more impressive about the Yeager's is their bold courageous willingness to do what other movie stars and rock stars who "compromise and people please", won't do, which is courageously attack the status quo.The Yeager's instead use and manipulate the media so as to "bring public awareness" to these important issues, such as the U.S. refusal to participate in the removal of these underground land- mines.
In 2012 the Yeager's seized the opportunity to get the word out about the injustice when they claimed they had placed "The Mysterious Piano" in Biscayne Bay, but the press wasn't about to paint Yeager as a saint, instead they said that the "mysterious piano" ( a perfectly good grand piano that was actually burned at a kids parents home on News Years Eve and dumped in the bay as originally told to the press by Nicolous Harrington) " the kid later changed his story when he heard Yeager and his wife using the piano as an artistic protest statement. But the media reported the burned piano as an "an art project",( the kid changed his story saying he wanted to get into college.)
The media was out to get Yeager back, called him out as a fraud, saying he stole the kids "art project" which is ironic, why did the kid wait for over 8 days to say it was his art project and not a "prank"? Answer… most likely because the fish and game commission told him there was a hefty fine to pay for his "chared piano dumped on the bay". People were angry about the fact that the kid burned a perfectly good piano, and many heralded the Yeagers as modern day prophets who spoke out against corporations, consumerism, corruption, and the media who they said "mind controlled the public into a stupefied robot".
Does it make you wonder why Andy mentioned these lies written by the press in his story? Not if your in a hurry and simply want to "copy and paste" other writers "lies".
Andy writes, "They also reveal news stories about two hoaxes he attempted to perpetrate at different points in his career. In 2011, when a grand piano found in the middle of the Biscayne Bay caused a minor local sensation in South Florida, Yeager and his wife claimed to have placed it there as part of a guerilla art project, only to be debunked when the real artist came forward."
Notice how Andy takes another "stab" at Yeager saying a "minor local sensation", accuracy? The Yeager's were featured around the world on CBS, ABC, NBC, BBC, AP Press, Good Morning America, Inside Edition, CNN (who edited a 5 minute piece about Yeager and included scenes from his movies).
Notice Andy said, "the real artist", where did he get that? From copying and pasting his lying cohorts, the media.
But here "PIANO" is a version of what really happened, Andy read this, but decided NOT to publish this.
You see Andy never watched the film about Yeager and he even admits never completing it, he was in too much of a hurry to "get his sensationalistic, slanderous story out first".
All of these bold maneuvers and protest awareness campaigns, ( CNN Inside Edition statements), the Yeager's vision, purpose and meaning in their lives is told in the story about the Yeagers which was produced into a film documentary called "The Film That Changed The World" which premiered at The Red Dirt Film Festival in 2015 and won "most Inspirational Movie Award".
Read the film festival directors official statement HERE.
Right after this film was released, Billy's personal manager Chris Von Weinberg produced another documentary film specifically about Billys music and films. The film is called "Billy Yeager The Ineffable Enigma". The story features serious vinyl record collectors from all over the world who explain in intricate detail all the mystery surrounding Yeager's lost works, and why they have become so valuable. Yeager recorded with the legendary bassist Jaco Pastorius, played guitar with Inner Circle, painted alongside some of the most famous folk artist called "The Florida Highwaymen" and even produced a documentary film about them.
He was courted by many famous musicians and filmmakers throughout his career, including Dan Myrick creators of The Blair Witch Project and John Pierson who discovered Michael Moore, Spike Lee, Richard Linklater and went on to become one of the most powerful men in independent film. John featured a story about the making of Billy Yeager's first film called "Jimmy's Story" on Bravo Televisions "Spilt Screen".
Throughout the film musicians, filmmakers, record collectors all chime in explaining why Billy Yeager is one of the greatest unknown musicians in the world, yet he wants no part of main stream success and what follows; attention, money, worldly vanities and fame, but instead has sacrificed his life to create and produce "profound life transformational music and films".
Each film mentioned above was available on-line, including a 12 minute promotional film trailer for the award winning "The Film That Changed The World", HERE, that would have shed light on everything mentioned so far about the artist and humanitarian, but instead of reading Billy Yeager's bio, or contacting music managers, agents, music producers, sound engineers, film production crews, film festival directors that awarded Yeager's films, 100's of musicians, famous musicians, well known filmmakers, Andy Cush instead decided to track down someone on "twitter" who twittered some things about Billy Yeager.
Andy's investigative story took a "spin" into what we would call the ludicris.
Andy Cush writes; "Eventually, my search for Yeager led me to contact Love Garden Sounds, a record store in Lawrence, Kansas, whose Twitter account had tweeted about Yeager several times". Out of the hundreds of people to contact, the films to watch, over 3-dozen glowing articles written about Billy Yeager; if only this unethical, malicious, defamatory so called journalist could have gotten their facts straight, they would have also realized that the record album was not fake, that their was in fact a "buyer and seller" that Yeager did not in fact "buy his own record album", that Chris Von Weinberg, ( Billys personal manager) did in fact exist, (which they said he didn't and it was Billy Yeager, pretending to be his own manager), would not have quoted a kid who worked at a record store, (whose revelation about Billy Yeager was that "he calls the record store as himself") What?
If Andy Cush was a real journalist, he wouldn't have contacted and quoted a person named Justin Parr, who is a producer of a Lawrence-based podcast called A.D.D who admits on his podcast that he stayed up all night in a drunk stupor for over 10 hours looking at all Yeagers web-sites, film trailers and links and came to the conclusion and stated on his pod cast that "everything Yeager was doing is a parody", "he has no films, all his photos are photoshopped", and even attacks two very prominent pastors of the Unity and Unitarian Churches in Wichita Kansas who go on record, (filmed on camera), these two pastors attended "The Film That Changed The World", exiting the theater they explain in detail why the documentary film about the Yeager's and their mission, is the most powerful film they had ever seen and the impact they felt when watching it.
But on Justin Parrs podcast he is heard laughing along with his 3 other guests, who all claim that these "pastors" are impostors and fake, and that these are "really bad actors" (in Justins words) and "all coached and trained by Billy Yeager".
Both pastors state their names, occupations, and locations of their churches, Wichita Kansas, one easy goggle search would have revealed this, however Andy Cush used only for his "investigative story this person Justin Parr, and the kid who worked as a record store clerk in lawrence Kansas who never even knew about Billy or ever met him.
Attorney Ron Clark who specializes in litigation regarding the media and the press says that "this may be the worse case of libel, slander, and malicious defamatory content ever published that I have come across in all my years".
We say that writers like Andy Cush should be sent packing, and this is "The Unbelievable Story of the Most Sloppy, Inaccurate, and Unethical Journalism ever told".