The American Press Is Destroying Itself or 'Journalistic Careers Matter'

[Urinal Cake]

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-news-media-is-destroying-itself

A bit too long to quote.
I follow Lee Fang on twitter and to me what he was doing seemed a lot like 'concern trolling' regarding the protests. As a non-black person who generally like his work I found it a bit distasteful I would of rather him just come out and state his position but he was trying to be a bit clever. Also as lame Bon Apetit subscriber it was more than a 'toxic workplace culture' the real issue was discrimination regarding BIPOC's (now it's Black, Indigenous and POC) wages, career advancement and 'white merit'.

But I agree with Taibbi on NYT and Tom Cotton. And the NYT has tried to be balanced by allowing editorials advocating BLM. But none of them have the profile of Tom Cotton so they are drowned out first by Cotton's piece and then by the backlash.

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

I think there are some good points lurking there that are ruined by Taibbi's contrarian, mad-that-somebody-was-mean-to-his-friend take on it all. It leads him to use some poor examples and make some atrocious reactionary arguments.

The New York Times, the most important news outlet in the country, running an op-ed by a sitting senator calling for the use of the military against protesters is fucking unconscionable. The guy responsible for that absolutely deserved to get fired.

[Funcrusher]

I like Taibbi a lot and agree wholeheartedly with his despair at debate and disagreement being replaced with cancelling and writers having to meekly apologise and beg for forgiveness. He's been right about Russiagate, from which US media progressives seem determined to learn nothing.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

But I agree with Taibbi on NYT and Tom Cotton. And the NYT has tried to be balanced by allowing editorials advocating BLM. But none of them have the profile of Tom Cotton so they are drowned out first by Cotton's piece and then by the backlash.

why did they run a piece by a senator - a senator - calling for a military response to protests, when the police response was only inflaming the situation

why does every fucking news outlet have to treat stupid ignorant opinions as if they're valid

the planet is headed for environmental collapse because we all have to sit around debating about whether climate change is even happening because some assholes think it isn't and DEY'RE OPNINON IS BALID

measles is seeing a resurgence because dipshits think vaccines cause autism and DATS DEY'RE CHOICE

journos writing opinion pieces on richard spencer gobbling his dick over HOW DAPPER HE IS he's a fucking nazi he even has the fucking haircut

[Urinal Cake]

'Freedom of Speech' and some sort of view that bad ideas die in the contest of ideas. The first I respect, the second seems like rubbish.

[Barry Admin]

Rolled my eyes and gave up at this point during the second paragraph:

It feels liberating to say after years of tiptoeing around the fact, but the American left has lost its mind. It's become a cowardly mob of upper-class social media addicts, Twitter Robespierres who move from discipline to discipline torching reputations and jobs with breathtaking casualness.

Maybe I'll try again tomorrow, but meh.

[chveik]

there wasn't much to destroy to begin with. "twitter Robespierres" is indeed cringy af.

[kngen]

Bennett and the Inquirer guy both deserved the boot on purely journalistic terms (rather than ideological ones). One for not even reading the contentious op-ed that his section was publishing (which they solicited from him), which is fucking inexcusable. And Wichowski for that terrible, tone deaf headline. In  the business of journalism, they were damaging the brand. People have been sacked for far less. It's not a witch hunt, it's wholly misreading the tenor of the times, which is pretty important when you're trying to sell newspapers.

I like Taibbi, but he's way off target about those two.

[Funcrusher]

Taibbi interviewed about the piece by The Hill.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yq3y8UBguO8

[Sebastian Cobb]

Dos Dedos Mis Amigos!

Press Will Eat Itself.

[evilcommiedictator]

Awww widdle diddums Taibbi got his feelings hurt, will someone from the left give him a sticker to feel better perhaps, whilst he pretends that being a big word boy is a real job

[Rainbow Moses]

why did they run a piece by a senator - a senator - calling for a military response to protests, when the police response was only inflaming the situation

why does every fucking news outlet have to treat stupid ignorant opinions as if they're valid

the planet is headed for environmental collapse because we all have to sit around debating about whether climate change is even happening because some assholes think it isn't and DEY'RE OPNINON IS BALID

measles is seeing a resurgence because dipshits think vaccines cause autism and DATS DEY'RE CHOICE

journos writing opinion pieces on richard spencer gobbling his dick over HOW DAPPER HE IS he's a fucking nazi he even has the fucking haircut

there wasn't much to destroy to begin with. "twitter Robespierres" is indeed cringy af.

Awww widdle diddums Taibbi got his feelings hurt, will someone from the left give him a sticker to feel better perhaps, whilst he pretends that being a big word boy is a real job

Is it required to write like you're a teenager when you're on the 'right-on' branch of the left? Aren't you guys in your 20s and 30s?

[chveik]

it must be great to be a single issue sock.

[Dog Botherer]

generally like Taibbi but this was a big ol swing and a miss

[Dex Sawash]

it must be great to be a single issue sock.

All my socks have had a single 'issue' before I wash them

[Retinend]

The article sounds like a living hell. Very devastating if all read together like that but it's hopefully just exaggerated/cherry picked. People are bound to overreact in hot moments like these.

Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey, who argued for police reform and attempted to show solidarity with protesters in his city, was shouted down after he refused to commit to defunding the police. Protesters shouted "Get the fuck out!" at him, then chanted "Shame!" and threw refuse, Game of Thrones-style, as he skulked out of the gathering.

But I mean, this is completely outrageous mob-like behaviour. It's positively shakespearean.

[Bernice]

My god, shouting down a politician? Truly a living hell.

[Dog Botherer]

dunno how any leftie could watch the vid of Buttigieg Jr. getting heckled to oblivion and think anything other than "nice"

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

The weird thing is there was no reason for him to write this so poorly.

The Lee Fang kerfuffle does seem symptomatic of a worrying trend of labeling someone "racist" and trying to get them fired just because they are obnoxious or slightly out of step with the Twitter consensus.

And having followed the Bon Appetit thing very closely, it does seem to me that "racism" is being used as a cover to discuss other workplace grievances that would be better discussed in their real form. You know there's a bit of hivemind going on when every single solemn post about it uses the acronym "BIPOC" which despite being a fairly tapped-in leftist I can't recall ever seeing before one week ago.

[Urinal Cake]

I guess this is going to be Taibbi's schtick for the near future. Even poor Chomsky got roped in.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Is it required to write like you're a teenager when you're on the 'right-on' branch of the left? Aren't you guys in your 20s and 30s?

Oh, so you can't actually refute anything we said. Good.

[evilcommiedictator]

They've conned organization after organization into empowering panels to search out thoughtcrime, and it's established now that anything can be an offense, from a UCLA professor placed under investigation for reading Martin Luther King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" out loud to a data scientist fired* from a research firm for — get this — retweeting an academic study suggesting nonviolent protests may be more politically effective than violent ones!

Yeah, a guy who kept going after being asked to stop when showing graphic lynchings and another "data scientist" misrepresenting data science by drawing causation due to correlations to blame Black people for political outcomes.

Like many reporters, Fang has always viewed it as part of his job to ask questions in all directions.

Like in the previous paragraph where you link that he pushes "black on black" crime narratives, huh, I wonder why people are upset at that pointless and meaningless in isolation statistic that is pushed by white supremacists?

[bgmnts]

The article sounds like a living hell. Very devastating if all read together like that but it's hopefully just exaggerated/cherry picked. People are bound to overreact in hot moments like these.

But I mean, this is completely outrageous mob-like behaviour. It's positively shakespearean.

Don't sugar coat this, what were the casualty numbers?

[chveik]

what does 'shakespearean' mean in this context?

[Zetetic]

misrepresenting data science by drawing causation due to correlations

That's pretty much "data science", if it's anything. B

Regardless, what he actually did was point towards a Politics academic making the case for a particular mechanism. (As far as I'm aware the claims about the interaction of protestor- and state-violence affecting attitudes aren't particularly novel, but the claim about it tipping the '64 election is.)

I've no idea if this is why Shor was fired, mind you, which seems the bigger gap.

[Urinal Cake]

Yeah, a guy who kept going after being asked to stop when showing graphic lynchings and another "data scientist" misrepresenting data science by drawing causation due to correlations to blame Black people for political outcomes.

Like in the previous paragraph where you link that he pushes "black on black" crime narratives, huh, I wonder why people are upset at that pointless and meaningless in isolation statistic that is pushed by white supremacists?

I think Taibbi's conflated 'civilians' and journalists. Sure they're both professionals but journalists choose to be public and become the focus- most other people operate in a grey space on social media.  The professor and data scientist need a talking to by HR and that's probably it. Don't need the public pile on either.

But Lee Fang as a journalist oddly enough was the one chided by HR when really he should've been asked to write an article and 'come clean.' Then it becomes an editorial decision relies on 'free speech' rather than a journalist chipping away at a movement on social media.

[Retinend]

what does 'shakespearean' mean in this context?

I was referring to Julius Caesar (iii. 2.), but I was also thinking of Jack Cade in Henry VI pt. 2 (iv. 6.).