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The American Press Is Destroying Itself

taibbi.substack.com

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Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#381

Post by csallen »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #348
csallen wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way does being capable of considering multiple issues simultaneously require protest for all of these issues, or equal prominence for all of these issues? I have no idea what point you're trying to make, really.

> In what way does being capable of considering multiple issues simultaneously require protest for all of these issues, or equal prominence for all of these issues? Because that's what considering means. It takes more than just declaring that something is under consideration while not really paying attention to it or doing anything about it. We don't actually consider all issues at once equally. That's why it makes s…

You're assuming that care for every issue is expressed in the same way, and also that whether or not something makes front page news or gets people riled up is a fair measure of how much they care, as opposed to a measure of simply how flashy or exciting that issue is.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#382

Post by fzeroracer »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #278
fzeroracer wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, Donald Trump literally reversed transgender health protections this week. If you're voting for a Republican, you're voting for the party of Donald Trump and efforts like that which take away the rights of certain classes of citizens. You can't vote for a party and try to avoid taking the whole package deal. You get what you voted for.

But that logic means that if I vote for a Democrat, I'm also taking the whole package deal. And, bluntly, there aren't very many people that actually support all of that package deal.

Yes, that's right. I don't agree with the full package deal, but I think it's far better than the alternative

Again: You get what you vote for. Using 'I disagree with what my party is doing, but I'm voting for them anyways' as an attempt to avoid criticism doesn't work. That's the nature of US politics. If you vote for one party despite them doing some heinous things, then you tacitly support what they're doing. If you don't like it, then either don't vote or vote for the opposite party.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#383

Post by AmericanChopper »

humanrebar wrote: post #54
scott_s wrote: 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 th…

> Given those criteria, we should argue that outright racist or sexist views are both unacceptable and not universally repugnant

I think you’ll find classifying what counts as “outright racist or sexist views” constitutes a legitimate controversy.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#384

Post by pnako »

desertrider12 wrote: post #287
maps7 wrote: post #277

On a side note, does anyone subscribe to any good news/information site? I would like to subscribe to something good and know I'm supporting it.

The Economist has high quality news. It has a slight free market/neoliberal bias on economic issues, but for politics it's just the facts. Wikipedia is actually a decent free news source too, since articles about current events get updated and reviewed frequently.

The Economist is completely biased, they just have a way to write that somehow tones it down.

You could probably write a National-Socialist or Marxist-Leninist publication in the style of the Economist.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#385

Post by csallen »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #346
arkades wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I understand your comment correctly. Are you saying that black communities should be reasonably crime-free before they can expect institutions not to systematically discriminate them and enact retributionless, extralegal violence upon them?

What I'm saying is that when black people kill more than ten times more black people than cops kill black people, somebody is not wrong to ask why the focus should only be on the cops.

Again, the focus isn't only on cops. There's plenty of time, effort, money, etc. spent on minimizing "normal" violence and crime. Society is quite capable of doing more than one thing at once, even if the media likes to focus.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#386

Post by dang »

buzzkillington wrote: post #360
fzeroracer wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, Donald Trump literally reversed transgender health protections this week. If you're voting for a Republican, you're voting for the party of Donald Trump and efforts like that which take away the rights of certain classes of citizens. You can't vote for a party and try to avoid taking the whole package deal. You get what you voted for.

Trans rights affect about 0.5% of the population. More people will die of covid than there are trans people in the US. It is literally a non-issue.

This is trolling. There's no view that requires that level of disrespect. If you continue to post flamebait to HN we will ban you.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#387

Post by AnthonyMouse »

csallen wrote: post #381
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In what way does being capable of considering multiple issues simultaneously require protest for all of these issues, or equal prominence for all of these issues? Because that's what considering means. It takes more than just declaring that something is under consideration while not really paying attention to it or doing anything about it. We don't actually consider all issues at once equally. That's why it makes s…

You're assuming that care for every issue is expressed in the same way, and also that whether or not something makes front page news or gets people riled up is a fair measure of how much they care, as opposed to a measure of simply how flashy or exciting that issue is.

> that whether or not something makes front page news or gets people riled up is a fair measure of how much they care

That seems like a pretty good metric for whether the political system is grappling with something.

What metric are you proposing as an alternative? Does it show a different result?

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#388

Post by dang »

giardini wrote: post #298
watwut wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We would still get bias. Pretending it does not exist is worst then actually visibly admitting it. In particular, who, what, why is extremely sensitive to unadopted bias.

Don't put words in my mouth: I'm not pretending bias doesn't exist. And WTF is "unadopted bias"? Searches with Bing and DuckDuckGo come up absolutely empty and an analysis of the language is befuddling. Did you just make it up, b/c literally nobody and nothing on the Innertubes speaks of "unadopted bias" except you? From that I presume you not a native English speaker and I've possibly been trolled by a bot or an "id…

This comment breaks the site guidelines egregiously. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#389

Post by dragonwriter »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #323
xg15 wrote: post #283

> I always question, why does a Black life matter only when a white man takes it?... I mean, Lacy does have a point that this kind of question in the context of the protests is nothing more than distracting. The protests are about systematic discrimination of black people. No one questioned that black people can also be perpetrators - it's just irrelevant to the topic at hand. Would nazis running concentration camps…

> The protests are about systematic discrimination of black people. No one questioned that black people can also be perpetrators - it's just irrelevant to the topic at hand. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? There is something to be said for asking someone to start by getting their own house in order.

“Black people” aren't an organization.

Police are (well, police departments are organizations), and those organizations act on behalf of the public.

Systemic police abuse for which there is no effective public accountability and systemic correction isn't the private acts of individual wrongdoers, it's violence by and with the at least tacit support of the public. That's why the focus exists: responsible citizenship.

Re: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

#390

Post by dang »

goatinaboat wrote: post #251
free_rms wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like uncritical support for manufacturing consent, to me. I mean it's not like taibbi is speaking up for child molesters. He turned out to be factually right about a lot of this stuff, but it was completely unacceptable to say so.

I mean it's not like taibbi is speaking up for child molesters Unlike, say, the NY Times https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/06/opinion/pedophilia-a-diso...

"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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