This is probably my bias taking, and I'm sure that he is an incredible journalist, but I can't really see this as anything other than yet another woe be to cancel culture piece, with all the...
This is probably my bias taking, and I'm sure that he is an incredible journalist, but I can't really see this as anything other than yet another woe be to cancel culture piece, with all the tropes from "journalism used to mean something, man!" to "he was only asking questions" to "why are we being critical of other journalists, that's so wrong!" This really doesn't bring anything new to the table outside of the thing we are supposed to be disgusted at.
I am not especially enlightened by the anecdote about how one of the good journalists was nearly but not actually fired, nor am I impressed that those who criticized him have said that what he...
I am not especially enlightened by the anecdote about how one of the good journalists was nearly but not actually fired, nor am I impressed that those who criticized him have said that what he said was actually okay. It is technically reporting, and it supports the theme that talented public investigation work sounds scarily precarious, but otherwise this is definitely editorial:
Even people who try to keep up with protest goals find themselves denounced the moment they fail to submit to some new tenet of ever-evolving doctrine, via a surprisingly consistent stream of retorts: fuck you, shut up, send money, do better, check yourself, I’m tired and racist.
Here is a description of someone who is not protesting but "keeping up with protest goals," which they view not as the cry of a society which cannot bear its conditions in silence, but as an agenda of contingent demands which can be observed remotely or participated with through insulated repetition -- which gosh darnit, they just never seem to get it right for all their careful effort. It's insensitive, to say the least.
Oh sure, much of it is an opinion piece and as you say, it exaggerates. I was just countering the notion that "it doesn't bring anything new to the table." Actually calling people up and asking...
Oh sure, much of it is an opinion piece and as you say, it exaggerates. I was just countering the notion that "it doesn't bring anything new to the table." Actually calling people up and asking what they think is something journalists do that most of us don't do.
It's more than I do. I tend to stick to online "research". (That is, Googling things and giving up if I don't find an answer that way.)
I felt it was noteworthy to put the authors name in the title because I find Taibbi to be one of the few sober, thoughtful and rigorous journalists currently out there. If anyone has any...
I felt it was noteworthy to put the authors name in the title because I find Taibbi to be one of the few sober, thoughtful and rigorous journalists currently out there.
If anyone has any recommendations on specific journalists, preferably (quasi)independent, who are similar in stature, I'm all ears. I'm giving up on regular media outlets.
I saw this article a couple days ago and considered sharing because there's some good info, but decided not to hit "post" since there's another article that covers similar ground. I find some of...
I saw this article a couple days ago and considered sharing because there's some good info, but decided not to hit "post" since there's another article that covers similar ground.
I find some of Taibbi's writing inflammatory and sensationalistic. This is the guy who is famous for calling Goldman Sachs "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." Which admittedly must have been fun to write, but the Rolling Stones article didn't help much for understanding finance.
And... that headline. It's his own blog, so I assume he wrote that. Many newspapers are failing, but it's not because of inside-the-newsroom controversy. I do think the issue he's writing about is important, but I prefer a more "just the facts" presentation.
But anyway, there's a good bit in there where he called up Maximum Fr who was interviewed by Fang and found out where he's coming from.
Max himself was stunned to find out that his comments on all this had created a Twitter firestorm. “I couldn’t believe they were coming for the man’s job over something I said,” he recounts. “It was not Lee’s opinion. It was my opinion.”
By phone, Max spoke of a responsibility he feels Black people have to speak out against all forms of violence, “precisely because we experience it the most.” He described being affected by the Floyd story, but also by the story of retired African-American police captain David Dorn, shot to death in recent protests in St. Louis. He also mentioned Tony Timpa, a white man whose 2016 asphyxiation by police was only uncovered last year. In body-camera footage, police are heard joking after Timpa passed out and stopped moving, “I don’t want to go to school! Five more minutes, Mom!”
“If it happens to anyone, it has to be called out,” Max says.
Max described discussions in which it was argued to him that bringing up these other incidents now is not helpful to the causes being articulated at the protests. He understands that point of view. He just disagrees.
“They say, there has to be the right time and a place to talk about that,” he says. “But my point is, when? I want to speak out now.” He pauses. “We’ve taken the narrative, and instead of being inclusive with it, we’ve become exclusive with it. Why?”
TalkingPointsMemo is probably one of the best political journalism outfits. Josh Marshall is clear about where his sympathies/biases are but also extremely impartial about evaluating the facts in...
TalkingPointsMemo is probably one of the best political journalism outfits. Josh Marshall is clear about where his sympathies/biases are but also extremely impartial about evaluating the facts in front of him. The same goes for all the journos who work under him.
This is indeed sober, but I am unsympathetic. Prostration to the masses is obviously functionally compulsory for journalists as it has been for decades to anyone who cannot isolate their influence...
This is indeed sober, but I am unsympathetic. Prostration to the masses is obviously functionally compulsory for journalists as it has been for decades to anyone who cannot isolate their influence through wealth or other means. It is a problem of large readerships and massive platforms; actions which wield outsized influence can be punished by mobs for little to no reason. Insurrections interior to newsrooms seems of a piece with this trend. That editors cannot function under pervasive (digital) scrutiny seems like a change worth chronicling, but I am not interested in the professional difficulties experienced by those who would hope to contend against such overwhelming force; those efforts are sentimental and wasteful. It is troubling that I cannot quite discern between the scrutiny of the mob and the presumably more even-keeled and thoughtful work of honest editorships, and of course I am worried by anti-intellectual campaigning, but this essay amounts to a lame, vain complaint.
This is probably my bias taking, and I'm sure that he is an incredible journalist, but I can't really see this as anything other than yet another woe be to cancel culture piece, with all the tropes from "journalism used to mean something, man!" to "he was only asking questions" to "why are we being critical of other journalists, that's so wrong!" This really doesn't bring anything new to the table outside of the thing we are supposed to be disgusted at.
There is actual reporting in there. It seems he talked to Fang, Lacy, and Maximum Fr.
I am not especially enlightened by the anecdote about how one of the good journalists was nearly but not actually fired, nor am I impressed that those who criticized him have said that what he said was actually okay. It is technically reporting, and it supports the theme that talented public investigation work sounds scarily precarious, but otherwise this is definitely editorial:
Here is a description of someone who is not protesting but "keeping up with protest goals," which they view not as the cry of a society which cannot bear its conditions in silence, but as an agenda of contingent demands which can be observed remotely or participated with through insulated repetition -- which gosh darnit, they just never seem to get it right for all their careful effort. It's insensitive, to say the least.
Oh sure, much of it is an opinion piece and as you say, it exaggerates. I was just countering the notion that "it doesn't bring anything new to the table." Actually calling people up and asking what they think is something journalists do that most of us don't do.
It's more than I do. I tend to stick to online "research". (That is, Googling things and giving up if I don't find an answer that way.)
I felt it was noteworthy to put the authors name in the title because I find Taibbi to be one of the few sober, thoughtful and rigorous journalists currently out there.
If anyone has any recommendations on specific journalists, preferably (quasi)independent, who are similar in stature, I'm all ears. I'm giving up on regular media outlets.
I saw this article a couple days ago and considered sharing because there's some good info, but decided not to hit "post" since there's another article that covers similar ground.
I find some of Taibbi's writing inflammatory and sensationalistic. This is the guy who is famous for calling Goldman Sachs "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." Which admittedly must have been fun to write, but the Rolling Stones article didn't help much for understanding finance.
And... that headline. It's his own blog, so I assume he wrote that. Many newspapers are failing, but it's not because of inside-the-newsroom controversy. I do think the issue he's writing about is important, but I prefer a more "just the facts" presentation.
But anyway, there's a good bit in there where he called up Maximum Fr who was interviewed by Fang and found out where he's coming from.
TalkingPointsMemo is probably one of the best political journalism outfits. Josh Marshall is clear about where his sympathies/biases are but also extremely impartial about evaluating the facts in front of him. The same goes for all the journos who work under him.
This is indeed sober, but I am unsympathetic. Prostration to the masses is obviously functionally compulsory for journalists as it has been for decades to anyone who cannot isolate their influence through wealth or other means. It is a problem of large readerships and massive platforms; actions which wield outsized influence can be punished by mobs for little to no reason. Insurrections interior to newsrooms seems of a piece with this trend. That editors cannot function under pervasive (digital) scrutiny seems like a change worth chronicling, but I am not interested in the professional difficulties experienced by those who would hope to contend against such overwhelming force; those efforts are sentimental and wasteful. It is troubling that I cannot quite discern between the scrutiny of the mob and the presumably more even-keeled and thoughtful work of honest editorships, and of course I am worried by anti-intellectual campaigning, but this essay amounts to a lame, vain complaint.