NOTE: As of this notice (22 Apr 2022), there is still uncertainty as to Gonzalo Lira’s status, whether he is alive and unharmed. This post may be edited at a future time.

It looks like we’ve come to the point that news media outlets have decided that it’s acceptable to engage in behavior that is harmful to their political opponents, as exemplified in Washington Post’s recent doxxing of the people behind the Twitter account, Libs of TikTok.

As bad as that was, it seems as though The Daily Beast’s Mark Hay has done The Washington Post one worse: he’s slandered a YouTuber as being a pro-Putin shill while he was in Ukraine, putting him at risk of being abducted, tortured, and put to death by a group of Nazis that the left has no problem with, the Azov Battalion.

Which was apparently what happened.

The Daily Beast’s Mark Hay has unlocked a grisly achievement: he has killed with his keyboard. Though considering just how his hit-piece drags Lira across rusty nails, and considering the voluminous mountain of bullshit that Mark Hay produces, it’s hard to imagine that he feels anything about it. Mark Hay had hate in his heart, and it so happens that he was able to find a place, The Daily Beast, that was willing to pay him to express it.

The name Gonzalo Lira might not be as familiar to you as his YouTube handle, Coach Red Pill. Which is a name I’ve heard, because it was only six months ago that I wrote up an article criticizing him for encouraging people to leave their home countries in an effort to avoid what he saw as a coming conflict.

That was months prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And yeah, I’m aware of the optics involved, and how well that article aged in just a short time.

There is a possibility that Lira may still be alive, which is something that I’d prefer. Not just to spite the jackasses that say he was stupid and that he deserved it (he was not and did not), and not just to deny the shitweasel that is Mark Hay the pleasure of knowing that his writing has shed blood, but because he’s a human being, as deserving of life as the rest of us.

Between Lira and Hay, Gonzalo Lira delivered better journalism, without question. While Lira may have been a bit eccentric, it still remains that he delivered us coverage right from the scene. This is in stark contrast to Hay, who sits his ass down in front of a glowing screen and proceeds to destroy.

Now go on, news media. Continue writing glowing pieces about how your killers are so much better than Putin’s killers.