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The American Press Is Destroying Itself

taibbi.substack.com

51–60 of 618 posts

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#51

The New Yorker depiction of this very site (or was it the Atlantic) was particularly egregious.

To restate a popular maxim, the lesson to take from this is that the media depiction on almost everything is egregiously bad, not just those things where you personally know better.

The question then is why do we expend so much time and money engaging with and propagating discourse which we know is so fundamentally misrepresenting reality?

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#52
post #42

Taibbi at this point should start a new news co. He, and to some degree, Glenn Greenwald, have been the only two members of the press who seem to be unable to see the emperor’s new clothes in the parades of the last several years.

Why not Tucker Carlson?

Just for the record, I subscribe to The Intercept and am a fan of Glenn Greenwald.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#54
post #33

Counterpoint, from Ezra Klein of Vox ( https://www.vox.com/2020/6/10/21284651/new-york-times-tom-co... ): > There have always been boundaries around acceptable discourse, and the media has always been involved, in a complex and often unacknowledged way, in both enforcing and contesting them. In 1986, the media historian Daniel Hallin argued that journalists treat ideas as belonging to three spheres, each of which is…

It would be hard to argue that a view is universally repugnant when it is espoused by an elected official and there is at least a significant minority of voters polling in support of the view. Given those criteria, we should argue that outright racist or sexist views are both unacceptable and not universally repugnant. I'm still supportive of editors who refuse to publish in those cases.

So I'm just quibbling with the word "universally" here. I would rather editorial pages be forthright about where their window of acceptability lies for them. I would especially advocate aversion to doublespeak, especially in journalistic contexts. Propaganda, even well meaning propaganda, is another enterprise.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#55
post #42

Taibbi at this point should start a new news co. He, and to some degree, Glenn Greenwald, have been the only two members of the press who seem to be unable to see the emperor’s new clothes in the parades of the last several years.

Why not Tucker Carlson? Just for the record, I subscribe to The Intercept and am a fan of Glenn Greenwald.

Morally flexible.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#57
post #40

Great article but it's so depressing that it starts with disinformation by claiming Trump said it is a great day for Floyd due to unemployment numbers (actually discussed completely separately in that speech). He said it's a great day due to increasing equality. [0] Twisting someone's words to make them look worse in a piece that rightly blames others for doing so is just sad. So I am asking again - Why do even the s…

The article does have an ambiguous "and" in the relevant sentence but it's a bit of a far stretch to get from that to the paraphrase you provide.

Here is the literal quote from the article: "Calls to “dominate” marchers and ad-libbed speculations about Floyd’s “great day” looking down from heaven at Trump’s crisis management and new unemployment numbers (“only” 21 million out of work!) were pure gasoline at a tinderbox moment. The man seems determined to talk us into civil war."

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#58
post #40

Great article but it's so depressing that it starts with disinformation by claiming Trump said it is a great day for Floyd due to unemployment numbers (actually discussed completely separately in that speech). He said it's a great day due to increasing equality. [0] Twisting someone's words to make them look worse in a piece that rightly blames others for doing so is just sad. So I am asking again - Why do even the s…

There is a very long history of mainstream media taking a Trump quote, not just out of context, but actively rewriting it to mean the exact opposite of what he is saying.

From Charlottesville to this, you can safely bet that anything reconciliatory that Trump says will be twisted into something divisive through intentionally misreporting what was said.

This is the actual quote. The fact is that he made this remark during a press conference which also discussed jobs numbers;

“Equal justice under the law must mean that every American receives equal treatment in every encounter with law enforcement regardless of race, color, gender, or creed," Trump said. "They have to receive fair treatment from law enforcement. They have to receive it. We all saw what happened last week. We can't let that happen. Hopefully, George is looking down right now and saying, 'This is a great day that's happening for our country.' It's a great day for him. It's a great day for everybody. This is a great day for everybody. This is a great day in terms of equality. It's really what our Constitution requires and it's what our country is all about."

When I read this quote I hear Trump praising the protests and supporting the cause of equal treatment under the law and ending police brutality. The mass media reported the statement as, among other things, “revolting”. [1]

[1] - https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/202...

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#59
Of the points the author is bringing up, all of them sound like comments that had they been made on here would be flagged and downvoted for 'flame bait' because they are purposefully incendiary.

I don't disagree. Some of the reactions have been over the top but everyone is pretty wound up right now.

I don't think the editor of nyt opinion should be fired for running the Tom Cotton piece, but some real reflection of intent and purpose needed to be checked. Same with the reporter in Oakland.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#60
post #42

Taibbi at this point should start a new news co. He, and to some degree, Glenn Greenwald, have been the only two members of the press who seem to be unable to see the emperor’s new clothes in the parades of the last several years.

He did this a few years ago, basically in parallel to the Intercept. It didn't work out, and he went back to Rolling Stone afterwards https://theintercept.com/2014/10/30/inside-story-matt-taibbi...
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