The American Press Is Destroying Itself
taibbi.substack.com
The American Press Is Destroying Itself
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Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself
#2Thing is, when the New York Times was "the newspaper of record", everyone read it. When they only print what will pass muster with the howling mob, for fear of losing their jobs if they offend, then only the howling mob will read it. But the howling mob doesn't have enough members to support the New York Times.
That is, catering to the most vocal segment of the Right Thinkers is a ticket to an ever-shrinking readership, because 1) everyone who isn't a card-carrying member of the Right Thinkers leaves, and 2) the Right Thinkers shrinks as the majority repeatedly throws out people for not being right thinking enough.
Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself
#3I love Taibbi. He is fearless and pays the price for pointing out groupthink.
Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself
#4Parallels to McCarthyism anyone?
Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself
#5I love Taibbi. He is fearless and pays the price for pointing out groupthink.
I find the proposition of lionizing someone because they fight the “groupthink”, however you define that, quite an odd thing to do. Thinking like that will occasionally result in you supporting absolute cranks, because the heuristic you’re using is unrelated to actual correctness or other useful characteristics.
Seek out people who seek to be right and back up their arguments consistently with logic and data, not people who are disliked by people you dislike.
Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself
#6Thing is, when the New York Times was "the newspaper of record", everyone read it. When they only print what will pass muster with the howling mob, for fear of losing their jobs if they offend, then only the howling mob will read it. But the howling mob doesn't have enough members to support the New York Times. That is, catering to the most vocal segment of the Right Thinkers is a ticket to an ever-shrinking readersh…
There's a flip side to that though which is that the other side of the aisle is also a howling mob. The discourse across the board has become so radically polarized that it's impossible to reconcile the competing world views. In the mean time, there's apparently a belief in the news room that centrists are rare enough that they need not be catered to.
Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself
#7I think this piece rambles on against the far-left a bit to much to be useful.
The political dialogue is currently in territory that is Important. Normal families are under significant financial pressures, the legitimacy of major institutions (police, presidential elections, government solvency) is open to questioning. Global conditions are tense, let alone America's internal problems.
This is a time for sober discussion of the issues, not calling people "great reality-show villain" or "Twitter Robespierres".
There is a real problem that the atmosphere on the left is stifling alternative ideas for one, ironically experimental, orthodoxy. That needs to be discussed. Lots of other issues also need to be discussed.
And answering the headline; I fully expect all the narratives in all major US press outlets to be proven false at some point in the future. What passes for 'good journalism' these days is being vaguely correct about what the issues are. I wouldn't be surprised if not a single quote from a political figure has been presented in context in the last 2 years. I refuse to believe anything in the media about who said what without cross-referencing against a primary source. It is impossible to have an honest political discussion in that environment.
Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself
#8This honestly just reads to me like more media-class self absorption. How you manage to use the phrase “Twitter Robspierre” and then pivot to defending Cotton’s editorial on populist grounds is beyond me. I’m sure the guy managing the Olive Garden in Upper Arlington, Ohio is up at night worrying that the Times Op-Ed page is going to be taken over by the reincarnation of Danton.
Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself
#9I think this piece rambles on against the far-left a bit to much to be useful. The political dialogue is currently in territory that is Important. Normal families are under significant financial pressures, the legitimacy of major institutions (police, presidential elections, government solvency) is open to questioning. Global conditions are tense, let alone America's internal problems. This is a time for sober discus…
The territory can be Important and the dialog toxic at the same time
Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself
#10Thing is, when the New York Times was "the newspaper of record", everyone read it. When they only print what will pass muster with the howling mob, for fear of losing their jobs if they offend, then only the howling mob will read it. But the howling mob doesn't have enough members to support the New York Times. That is, catering to the most vocal segment of the Right Thinkers is a ticket to an ever-shrinking readersh…
People also seem to be unaware that howling mobs move on...you just have to wait them out. Stand firm and they'll quickly find another target to bully.