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My Resignation from the Intercept

greenwald.substack.com

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Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#311

Post by parliament32 »

mundo wrote: post #180

It seems impossible to hold a strong opinion on this without reading the article, and in particular, seeing how it is sourced. The elephant in the room (which Greenwald barely acknowledges in this essay) is that many mainstream news organizations have concluded that the evidence for this story was too weak to publish, and some believe it was fabricated by Russian intelligence. If Greenwald has evidence to the contrar…

Does this explain why the tried to stop him from publishing elsewhere? Relevant section:

>Worse, The Intercept editors in New York, not content to censor publication of my article at the Intercept, are also demanding that I not exercise my separate contractual right with FLM regarding articles I have written but which FLM does not want to publish itself. Under my contract, I have the right to publish any articles FLM rejects with another publication. But Intercept editors in New York are demanding I not only accept their censorship of my article at The Intercept, but also refrain from publishing it with any other journalistic outlet, and are using thinly disguised lawyer-crafted threats to coerce me not to do so (proclaiming it would be “detrimental” to The Intercept if I published it elsewhere).

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#312

Post by TearsInTheRain »

ivalm wrote: post #86
1980phipsi wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would withhold any opinion that it is a "garbage story" until actually reading it...

It is about emails which have no headers, that are impossible to verify, that were “known to fbi” for a long time but didn’t produce any action (because likely fake), and that are specifically being pushed to change outcome of election despite, again, no real evidence of their veracity.

The emails have literally been verified by people on the emails and further their authenticity has never been denied by the Biden campaign. To claim that they are fake or disinformation at this point is either an act of extreme ignorance or duplicitous intent.

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#313

Post by disown »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #283
kev_da_dev wrote: post #190

Go look at all the comments being downvoted. It's insane how many reasonable, common-sense arguments are being downvoted into oblivion. HN has a serious astroturfing problem and I can only imagine who's behind it.

I see a lot of boilerplate handwringing about how this is the end of free speech and a reliable media, that kind of stuff gets posted over and over again in every article of this nature. Its not particularly interesting, or relevant, especially after being repeated ad nauseum.

Really, most of the top comments are those defending censorship and those sneakily trying to undermine free speech and support the censorship of a journalist.

> Its not particularly interesting, or relevant, especially after being repeated ad nauseum.

Fighting for free speech is that offense to you huh? You wouldn't happen to be a journalist?

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#314

Post by mcphage »

blhack wrote: post #27

Glenn had a 3 hour long conversation on a podcast a few days ago where he laid out the problem really well: Journalists have essentially become socialites. They don't want to publish articles that will rock the boat, because the people they are friends with are the ones that own that boat, invite them to parties, and are a part of their friend groups. The reporting around this story has been absolutely unbelievable t…

> This story seems like the type of thing that would normally make peoples' entire journalistic career, and yet the journalists, the people who are supposed to be a part of our protection and sense-making system are actively trying to suppress it.

This story is the type of thing that would make peoples' entire journalistic career if it was true. And if a journalist pushes it, and it turns out false, it would ruin their entire career—for instance, see Dan Rather. So journalists have to assess how likely they feel that it's true, and I think we've seen a pretty consistent response to those assessments.

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#315

Post by archagon »

hajile wrote: post #262
clint wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like if they only cared about clicks and ads they would've ran the article. From my position, they exercised the bare-minimum duties of any good editor to shut down stories they don't believe meet the standards they set for themselves. And for exercising that duty, they are leaving clicks, ad impressions, and probably a good amount of money on the table.

They published the Steele dossier with ZERO evidence. It's now been completely discredited as a Russian plant the Obama administration knew was from a Russian asset. The US government has officially said there's no Russian involvement in the recent Biden leak and it's been vouched for by Tony Bobulinski who definitely has close ties to the Biden family, yet it's not publishable? That's as partisan as it gets and dese…

Horseshit. Last I checked, most things in that dossier turned out to be true.

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#316

Post by lordnacho »

gfodor wrote: post #6

The media has fallen into the well-known trap of optimizing the wrong KPI. You want to maximize trust with the public, not engagement, if you want your media company to survive if its value proposition is providing journalism and the usual benefits that come with a free press. Unfortunately, not only is engagement the wrong metric, but it's also one which incentivizes the undermining of the actual metric you need to…

This is why the Economist, FT and the WSJ still have a somewhat positive reputation. They're expensive and tend to write about things that are important, not sensational.

All other publications are slowly falling victim to the parametdynamicser of the entertainment game, including ones that were also in that bracket not long ago. Mind you I'm not saying WaPo and NYT are trash now, they did start with a high rep and try to square the circle by staying there and getting people to pay for it.

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#317

Post by throwaway2048 »

disown wrote: post #313
throwaway2048 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see a lot of boilerplate handwringing about how this is the end of free speech and a reliable media, that kind of stuff gets posted over and over again in every article of this nature. Its not particularly interesting, or relevant, especially after being repeated ad nauseum.

Really, most of the top comments are those defending censorship and those sneakily trying to undermine free speech and support the censorship of a journalist. > Its not particularly interesting, or relevant, especially after being repeated ad nauseum. Fighting for free speech is that offense to you huh? You wouldn't happen to be a journalist?

"Go look at all the comments being downvoted." this is what I was referring to.

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#318

Post by benmmurphy »

ivalm wrote: post #86
1980phipsi wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would withhold any opinion that it is a "garbage story" until actually reading it...

It is about emails which have no headers, that are impossible to verify, that were “known to fbi” for a long time but didn’t produce any action (because likely fake), and that are specifically being pushed to change outcome of election despite, again, no real evidence of their veracity.

I would say the most likely reason the FBI did nothing because there was no crime.

What Hunter/Joe Biden are accused of doing is a very popular scam among politicians in most countries and unless you are dumb enough to explicitly put in writing a bribery scheme then there is very little legal risk.

The scam comes about because it is fundamentally unfair to limit the employment opportunities of a politician’s family or the politician themselves after they leave office. So what happen is that companies will put a politician’s family members into positions of employment where there is a large gap between the value they produce in that position and what their reenumeration is. Alternatively, after the politician leaves office they will be parachuted into one of these scam jobs.

In return for organising these scam positions the company gets some alternative value from the politician. There can be a whole range of value from impressing (helping to scam) third parties to actually getting favourable government action or policy changes.

I feel like this is a very common arrangement for politicians and this is part of the reason there is a lot of pressure by the media to not cover this.

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#319

Post by SamBam »

Pet_Ant wrote: post #134
SamBam wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is not publishing an unverifiable story "censorship"? That's what we trust real news organizations to do. And saying that they should at least publish the controversy is absurd -- first of all, the Times did publish the controversy days ago [1], and second of all, it basically allows the peddlers of these unverifiable stories to dictate the news. 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/25/business/media/hunter-bid...

> it basically allows the peddlers of these unverifiable stories to dictate the news. The allegation itself is news, but it's important to label it as such when reporting it. The next step is to investigate it. If Trump says there are extraterrestrials living in Area 51 that's news regardless if you can verify it.

That would be news because the President said that.

If I, random nobody, show up with an allegation against Trump, using unverifiable "evidence," then that allegation is not newsworthy.

And doubly-so if my whole job is to be a partisan hack trying to delver an October surprise.

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#320

Post by mcphage »

nickysielicki wrote: post #232
CogentHedgehog wrote: post #64

Keep in mind we're just seeing Greenwald's side of this. It sure sounds like he's trying to paint it a way that makes him look good and the Intercept look bad. Lots of claims of "censorship" etc. I want to hear their side of it as well. My guess is that there's a lot more to this story. My guess is if all his peers thought the claims were not solid enough to publish, there is probably a reason for that -- not simply…

> not simply a desire to "censor" someone they've worked with for years. This reads as though you're implying The Intercept existed independently of Greenwald. They didn't, he co-founded The Intercept . He ought to (and I imagine, he does) have seniority on any editor. I think it speaks volumes about him as a journalist and his journalistic integrity that he setup The Intercept as an outlet where he and his co-founde…

> He ought to (and I imagine, he does) have seniority on any editor.

> His submissions aren't treated specially. It's not his mouthpiece.

These two statements are contradictory.

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