My Resignation from the Intercept • Hacker News Board

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#871

Post by ezekiel68 » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 9:35 AM UTC

It shocks, and disgusts me to see clearly intelligent people rallying around a guy who wants to publish unverified and irrelevant drivel as an October Surprise. Defenders here are quoting Tucker Carlson for God's sake -- whose defense team in court persuasively argued that no reasonable person should expect to hear the truth from his show. Comments are barely falling short of singing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" while breathlessly decrying the existential threat this tempest in a teacup poses to our nation.

We in the US are not voting for Hunter Biden and no business meetings in the Ukraine or China took place. Hence, attempting to legitimize this nothingburger is disinformation when it is perpetrated in the closing weeks of a US Presidential election. Fear, uncertainty, doubt all wrapped up in a puff of smoke. Something something before the truth has a chance to lace up its boots, and all that.

The cynical streak in me has to wonder if this isn't simply some kind of clickbait market-share grab by The Intercept.

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#872

Post by cryptica » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 9:37 AM UTC

It seems that many contrarian journalists have been getting fired recently. For example, journalists from Truthdig were fired recently as well. This is coordinated criminal activity. Those who control the media have crossed over into criminal territory and the people already know it. They are foolish to think they can get away with this.

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#873

Post by icare_1er » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 9:50 AM UTC

The censorship applied by the GAFA and the MSM is frightening, especially when comparing to how the fake dossier of Trump's golden shower was passed around in 2016, while these revelations on Biden's corruptness are censored.

Google was also caught red-handed in 2016, suppressing searches on Hillary's health.

But yes, the problem is that Trump is KGB agent and that Putin hacks Twitter lol

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#874

Post by watwut » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 9:52 AM UTC

cambalache wrote: post #716

tptacek wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those two deserve each other.

And may that pair long continue fighting the good fight against hypocrites and charlatans

That is the problem with Taibibi, right? He "fights". He uses "jokes" to imply and push not exactly true statements. Mostly to insult opponents. Not really to engage or argue, just fight.

He has sometimes good arguments. But plenty of times he does not, so he goes for second best thing to fight whoever he sees as opponenent.

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#875

Post by meigwilym » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 9:55 AM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #316

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 t…

I had never seen the word "parametdynamicser" before. Googling lead me back here. Although it does ask if I meant "parameter dynamics".

Could you explain what you meant with it?

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#876

Post by ritchiea » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 9:56 AM UTC

marcusverus wrote: post #411

ggggtez wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also the kind of story that can break someone's journalistic career. Even Fox News wouldn't run the story because it wasn't supported by facts. And last I heard, there still has been no concrete evidence of wrongdoing. Tucker Carlson claims that his evidence "got lost in the mail". In the age of the internet, they didn't snap any photos of this so-called proof? There is no "there" there. Just a bunch of internet…

Glenn Greenwald is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist. He broke the Snowden story--another sensational-sounding scoop which likely sounded like total bullshit at first. Is it possible that Mr. Greenwald is a better judge of whether or not there is a story here?

Greenwald didn't have to do any work for the Snowden stories, Snowden approached Greenwald. And from my understanding, Snowden didn't approach Greenwald because he was the "best" journalist to break the story. Snowden had an existing relationship with Barton Gellman of the Washington Post who Snowden also leaked to. But Greenwald was willing to put an encrypted key in the leaks to help Snowden prove he was the leaker to foreign governments while seeking asylum, which Gellman wasn't willing to do.

Then Greenwald parlayed having Snowden approach him into becoming a celebrity journalist. So Greenwald is a guy who takes a lot of credit for being in the right place at the right time and someone else handing him a scoop. Exactly the kind of person I wouldn't trust.

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#877

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 10:08 AM UTC

meigwilym wrote: post #875

lordnacho wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

I had never seen the word "parametdynamicser" before. Googling lead me back here. Although it does ask if I meant "parameter dynamics". Could you explain what you meant with it?

[deleted]

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#878

Post by raxxorrax » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 10:10 AM UTC

tootie wrote: post #731

marcusverus wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glenn Greenwald is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist. He broke the Snowden story--another sensational-sounding scoop which likely sounded like total bullshit at first. Is it possible that Mr. Greenwald is a better judge of whether or not there is a story here?

Greenwald is a lifelong sensationalist. His blog in the old days was extremely colorful and featured a lot of leaps of logic. It won him a fan base that included Ed Snowden. He's really a terrible journalist who just happened to get his hands on a treasure trove. The Guardian was part of the Snowden story as well and they don't publish garbage like the Biden laptop story with any undue credence.

What is your reference for a good journalist? Your criticism sounds baseless to be honest.

Sensationalism because he uncovered evidence of mass surveillance. Who is a better journalist?

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#879

Post by varjag » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 10:12 AM UTC

jerry1979 wrote: post #712

dmix wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mind you I'm not saying WaPo and NYT are trash now WaPo and NYT aren't trash but they have fallen mightly. Which sucks because NYT easily has one of the best web design teams on the internet IMO and I used to look forward to reading it daily for over a decade. I'm still angry that they chose to go all Buzzfeed and hammer it everywhere politicially on their website. WSJ has been a fine replacement, but it's not as e…

NYT also helped sell America into Iraq.

Greenwald fully supported the Iraq War as well.

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#880

Post by jackthezipper » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 10:21 AM UTC

fareesh wrote: post #865

There seems to be a premise in the USA that if Russia has a hand in true information coming to light, the bigger story is about Russia's hand in it, and not the information itself. This narrative has been seen a lot, and often times it is invoked as the default narrative whenever things are being claimed in a particular political direction. I would like to question this at a fundamental level. At what point does the…

>There seems to be a premise in the USA that if Russia has a hand in true information coming to light, the bigger story is about Russia's hand in it, and not the information itself.

You're absolutely right, and it is frustrating to no end.