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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. Th

by blhack 6y ago

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 to me. 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. It's actually surreal to see this happening.

agentdrtran 6y ago
"Journalists have essentially become socialites. They don't want to publish articles that will rock the boat," There have been a virtually uncountable number of high-profile investigative pieces that criticise people in power published in the last 6 months! This argument is nonsense.
- nwienert 6y ago
  There’s two social groups, they don’t want to critique their social group.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    Many more than two social groups.
    - nwienert 6y ago
      Sure, pedantically.
      - justnotworthit 6y ago
        Alternatively, us & them = 2
- andrewflnr 6y ago
  This is an oversimplification. There's a difference between rocking someone else's boat and rocking the one you're riding on.
- __blockcipher__ 6y ago
  It's not nonsense, because you're missing that if you criticize someone who you are allowed to criticize, there is no risk to yourself. It's going against the herd and criticizing someone like Joe Biden that will get you thrown out of the club. So, if it's a high-profile investigative piece on a senior trump admin official, everyone will applaud you. But as soon as you start investigating the Biden family or, on the other hand, write something positive about Trump & Co, then you'll quickly find yourself out of the club.
  - Veen 6y ago
    You are right, but it goes both ways. If a writer at the Federalist or Breibart tried to publish a piece arguing AOC's economics actually had some merit, they would not be met with an enthusiastic response from their professional and social circles. Polarization and factionalism on both sides of the media is the problem.
    - chrisco255 6y ago
      The right doesn't try to get people fired for saying they like AOC. They will just hit back with their own points. That's the way it's supposed to go in a civil society.
- koolba 6y ago
  Can you say with a straight face that the NY Times or WaPo has done that with liberals or Democratic candidates? Outside of tearing down Bernie Sanders I'd say it's a firm no. Prominent liberals like Alan Dershowitz say they're being socially blacklisted for not taking part in a pile on against Trump: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/03/us/alan-dershowitz-marthas-vineyard.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/03/us/alan-dershowitz-martha... Even being "neutral" is apparently not enough. It's easy to see why journalists and editors would succumb to that social pressure.
  - Pils 6y ago
    > Prominent liberals like Alan Dershowitz say they're being socially blacklisted for not taking part in a pile on against Trump: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/03/us/alan-dershowitz-martha https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/03/us/alan-dershowitz-martha... Not going to directly engage with your argument, but this framing is frankly absurd. Alan Dershowitz is not "neutral" with regards to Trump, he was literally part of his legal defense team!
    - koolba 6y ago
      > Not going to directly engage with your argument, but this framing is frankly absurd. Alan Dershowitz is not "neutral" with regards to Trump, he was literally part of his legal defense team! That article is dated a year and half prior to Trump’s impeachment. Dershowitz disagrees with Trump on policy matters on just about everything. What he doesn’t do is let his political disagreements pervert his legal opinions on constitutional matters. And hence he gets blacklisted for not joining the hate.
      - whimsicalism 6y ago
        > he doesn’t do is let his political disagreements pervert his legal opinions on constitutional matters I think the idea of the "apolitical" constitution is more myth than reality. Dershowitz is perhaps a liberal in the classic political philosophy sense, but I would not call him a "prominent liberal" in the American sense. He also might have been 'blacklisted' because he was at least somewhat credibly accused of pedophilia.
- disown 6y ago
  > There have been a virtually uncountable number of high-profile investigative pieces that criticise people in power published in the last 6 months! This argument is nonsense. They have been attack dogs of one political party or the other. But its always been this way. Social media ( especially twitter ) has shown people that journalists are political actors, not dispensers of "truth". They are part of the power structure, not a counterweight to the power structure. At this point most newspapers should just be part of the democratic, republican or intelligence agency because that's all they are. I can almost guarantee that most of the people here attacking greenwald and partaking in the downvote brigade are news employees or members of a particular political party. It's hilarious.
  - r-w 6y ago
    A nihilist regarding truth, I see. You might want to watch this video to see why that's a dangerous attitude, and one that plays into the hands of morally unscrupulous actors and foreign adversaries: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nknYtlOvaQ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nknYtlOvaQ0
    - seppin 6y ago
      "Everything is shit and everyone is guilty" is the exact thing an autocrat needs the majority of his citizens to believe to remain in power.
    - disown 6y ago
      > A nihilist regarding truth Nope. I believe in truth. My point is that the news industry isn't in the business of truth. They have never been. The news is in the propaganda business. They exist to form opinions. It's why pretty much every news company around the world was formed by a politician, banker, industrialist or government. If trump created "Real News Company", I'm sure you'd say only the naive would view such a company as a purveyor of truth right? > You might want to watch this video to see why that's a dangerous attitude, and one that plays into the hands of morally unscrupulous actors You might also look up the history of the news industry, manufacturing consent, etc. And the morally unscrupulous actors are the major news companies. The real danger is not from those who question the news, it's from those who blindly view it as the truth.
- pvarangot 6y ago
  Yeah, and they are published either by socialites from a group that hates the group being exposed, or by "freaks" like Greenwald that no one with a public persona wants near them because they know he's a time bomb.
  - fredguth 6y ago
    Long live the freaks of the world. We need them more than ever.
    - cambalache 6y ago
      A-men
    - chrisco255 6y ago
      Here's to the rebels...
- cambalache 6y ago
  Please show me a high-profile investigative piece from the mainstream media against Biden.
  - noelsusman 6y ago
    It was the New York Times that originally broke the Biden Ukraine story back in 2015. Recent iterations of it are mostly just rehashing the original article. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/world/europe/corruption-ukraine-joe-biden-son-hunter-biden-ties.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/world/europe/corruption-u...
    - cambalache 6y ago
      Come on. This was not what OP implied. Of Biden as a candidate, L6M. Impossible.
      - noelsusman 6y ago
        https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/us/politics/biden-son-ukraine.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/us/politics/biden-son-ukr...
        cambalache 6y ago
        May 1st, 2019
pm90 6y ago
If journalists didn’t rock the boat, the current POTUS would be very happy. But they do, and he’s not, so this theory seems to have no merit.
- jaywalk 6y ago
  The journalists are not on that boat with the POTUS, so they are more than happy to rock it.
nebolo 6y ago
Can you be a bit more specific on what you believe to be so important/surprising/relevant about this story that would make an entire journalistic career? What is the story that is not being told, and actively being suppressed? I have been following this quite closely and can't see it.
- ehsankia 6y ago
  I'm curious about this too. It definitely doesn't help that every single person involved in the story has zero credibility left, starting with a "lawyer" who has time and time again been caught peddling the president's lies, has exposed himself to a "15yo" reporter, and who the intelligence community say is being used by foreign nations to meddle in our elections.
  - evan_ 6y ago
    Oof, took me a couple tries to figure out specifically which trump lawyer you were describing because your description roughly fits a few of them
- TearsInTheRain 6y ago
  Did you watch the Tony Babulinksi interview with Tucker Carlson? It shows that Joe Biden had an ownership stake in and was directly involved with his son's company that received a 5-10 million forgivable loan from a top member of the Chinese Communist party. This directly contradicts claims Joe Biden has made throughout his campaign and at the last debate.
  - AaronFriel 6y ago
    Fox News argued before Mary Kay Vyskocil, United States District Judge, well, to use the court's words: "Fox persuasively argues, that given Mr. Carlson's reputation, any reasonable viewer 'arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism' about the statement he makes." My question to you is: are you arriving with an appropriate amount of skepticism? Tucker Carlson is not a credible source, and nothing aired on that program "showed" anything definitive except accusations that were made. The Wall Street Journal ran their own story on these allegations and found no link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/hunter-bidens-ex-business-partner-alleges-father-knew-about-venture-11603421247 https://www.wsj.com/articles/hunter-bidens-ex-business-partn...
stumblers 6y ago
I'll have to listen to the podcast, but I think you're way off in thinking this kind of story makes careers. Journalists take their credibility very seriously and this story doesn't have it, at least not yet if it ever will. Going with a story that hasn't been vetted marks a serious journalist as a dupe for the rest of their lives.
- blhack 6y ago
  What do you mean this story hasn't been vetted? One of the major players in the story has gone on record, giving an approximately 45 minute long interview verifying the claims. The FBI and DNI have also both confirmed the validity of the laptop. How much more "verified" than that would you need?
  - ehsankia 6y ago
    The same FBI claims Giuliani is being used by foreign nations to influence our elections. What's your source? https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/giuliani-biden-ukraine-russian-disinformation/2020/10/15/43158900-0ef5-11eb-b1e8-16b59b92b36d_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/giuliani-bi...
    - blhack 6y ago
      The source is the Director of National Intelligence: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/fbi-hunter-biden-laptop-russia/2020/10/20/3478408a-133d-11eb-bc10-40b25382f1be_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/fbi-hunter-...
      - af16090 6y ago
        I don't see anything in that article that indicates that "[t]he FBI and DNI have also both confirmed the validity of the laptop". From the article: > Appearing Monday on Fox Business Channel, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said “there is no intelligence that supports” the idea that the purported Hunter Biden laptop and the emails on it “are part of a Russian disinformation campaign.” Absence of intelligence that the laptop is "part of a Russian disinformation campaign" doesn't mean that the contents of the laptop are genuine. That statement still leaves open a bunch of possibilities including that the contents of the laptop were faked by non-Russians, were faked by the Russians but the US doesn't have intelligence confirming it, etc. As for the FBI, they say "we have nothing to add" to the DNI's statement and that "the FBI can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any ongoing investigation". Nothing in the FBI's letter says anything about the laptop's contents being genuine.
stefan_ 6y ago
The system set up by people ignorant to its effects many many years ago has succeeded in making everything a choice between two factions. It's no longer just guaranteeing you forever get two parties, two candidates, you now also need to join a side individually. It's silly watching from afar because as is highly likely, both choices are bad so embracing one of them so wholeheartedly just comes across as uninformed and plain mental. Not much more needs to be said on Trump but it also doesn't take a history diploma to know Biden wrote the 1994 "tough on crime, law and order" bill.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> 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. To the extent this is arguably true of etablishment journalist, the mirror image seems to be true of anti-establishment journalists. Instead of being unreasonably resistant to publishing stories that rock the boat, they are unreasonable eager to do so, taking sources that validate this pre-established bias uncritically, opening themselves up for manipulation and as agents of propaganda, because the people they are friends with, and that invite them to parties are more interested in capsizing the boat than the truth.
- r-w 6y ago
  Extremely relevant reading: _Purity_, by Jonathan Franzen https://www.amazon.com/dp/0374239215 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0374239215
- jimkleiber 6y ago
  Wow, exactly what I was thinking but probably more articulate than I could have put it. That there are a lot of people building a journalistic career on being anti-establishment, saying that the "mainstream media" et al are lying to us and censoring us and are crooked...and gaining followers as a result. Often telling us to not trust groups A-Y, and only trusting them, the Z. At the end of the day, I have to trust someone to be doing the legwork, research, investigation to verify the stories and to report it to me as honestly as they can. For me, I mostly trust the vast majority of professional journalists and institutions to do that work together, to check and balance each other most of the time to make sure something is as true as it can be, and feel skeptical when someone tells me to distrust them so strongly. (I worry that sometimes I post things that may be too charged or opinionated or just inappropriate for HN, so if you think this is, I'd be grateful if you let me know why in a reply)
- free_rms 6y ago
  That's a really good and fair point, but we're at a junction where looking at the Ukraine situation and saying "yeah but that looks fucked tho" is met with ABSOLUTE OPPROBRIUM. Come on. The same people who'd happily get someone fired for tweeting something insensitive are all closing ranks against any criticism of Mr. "You ain't black". Come on. I can't wait until the election is over.
jrochkind1 6y ago
In the general sense, it's not a new problem. One of the main points I got from Chomsky & Herman's _Manufacturing Consent_ (1988, analyzing news from a decade earlier), is that journalists print what the government says because it's convenient -- it's less work to print what the government (or anyone else) says at a press conference than to do your own research -- AND even when it comes to privately given info, because they need to maintain the relationships with government (and other powerful) sources, if you make a government source mad, and they stop giving info, how are you going to get that privileged info to write your stories? Journalists develop "sources", and relationships with those sources, and then there are pressures to serve the interests of those sources. Sources are usually powerful people (whether government or "socialites"), because that's who has valuable info on an ongoing basis, generally.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  Chomsky & Herman's _Manufacturing Consent_ (1988, analyzing news from a decade earlier), While it may be good work, it's so out of date it's useless as a tool for evaluating the media landscape of today. I spent 20 years as a journalist and can tell you from first-hand experience and the contacts I have kept in the industry that the media today is not the same as the media of 2010, or 2000, or 1990, and certainly not the 1970's.
  - uoaei 6y ago
    Obviously it is not the same as it was decades ago. But how can you deny that the "5 pillars" framework presented in the book still holds true today?
  - jrochkind1 6y ago
    I can believe it. There's been a heck of a lot of change, newsrooms have been decimated. To me, like I said, mostly what I remember taking from it is how it got me thinking about how a journalists dependence on sources, and resource-constraints to be able to get out stories without exceeding available time to report em... leads to over-reliance on reporting what the powerful say as "the news" and by implication "what happened". I'd suspect that is still relevant to the landscape of today, probably even MORE so because reporting resources have been so devastated, but do you think not?
ggggtez 6y ago
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 sleuths with MS paint red circles and theories about deep states. And your comment falls into this category.
- marcusverus 6y ago
  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?
  - drewrv 6y ago
    It's also possible he's a once great journalist who has gone off the rails. Which seems likely given the fact that the editors at a publication he founded refused to publish this piece.
    - outsomnia 6y ago
      The big problem for me is he does not set the context for the allegations, that the US is about to go to a critical and fiercely-contested election, last time there were all kinds of manipulations, and the role he s set on playing right in the last few days is analogous to that of Comey v2 and the laptop is "the emails". Without the context, it's not being given to the reader to judge why this is a story, the real provonance of the maguffin-laptop, if it really has any impact in the Biden vs Trump question or is just noise...
      - afiori 6y ago
        In this context jumping on claims of Russian interference is similarly damaging. Moreover I feel like this would be a bad precedent. Suppose Biden wins now and Trump runs again in 2024, I personally would not like a similar grace being offered to him (with no evidence of interference).
mcphage 6y ago
> 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.
reaperducer 6y ago
There have always been socialite-class journalists, and under-class journalists. The problem is that the people coming out of journalism schools these days want fame and to become YouTube stars, rather than change the world for the better. And the schools optimize for this desire in order to keep the tuition money flowing in.
ntsplnkv2 6y ago
Trump for years has attacked the media - what do you expect? And now I'm supposed to suddenly accept this "scandal" conveniently placed right before the election in a literal tabloid with a huge conservative bent? I mean how can anyone who doesn't support Trump already buy in? And then it's "oh my god censorship!!!". Give me a break.
president 6y ago
It's more that journalists don't want to upset their boss and their boss doesn't want to upset their boss and all the way up the chain. Somewhere in that chain is someone that is aligned with getting that particular story suppressed. The issue here is that somewhere along the way, keeping your job became more valuable than keeping your integrity. Happens in tech all the time in my experience.
bofenbref 6y ago
Aformentioned podcast link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0rcLsoIKgA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0rcLsoIKgA
k2enemy 6y ago
> 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. Sounds like they are taking the path that academia took.
Bhilai 6y ago
By this logic most of NYT senior staff should be close friends with Trump.
seppin 6y ago
> Journalists have essentially become socialites. Glenn earned 400k a year at the intercept and has no end of opportunities now that he's quit and blamed the mythical "liberal bias" on his unceremonious departure.
monkeydreams 6y ago
> Glenn had a 3 hour long conversation on a podcast a few days ago where he laid out the problem really well: .... > The reporting around this story has been absolutely unbelievable to me OK, here's the thing though. This is what I call the "Jordan Peterson school of thought." You begin with a premise. Hunter Biden left his laptop at a repair store, some files were found on it, and these were delivered to a Republican Party muck-raker (and that is the most neutral thing you can say about Giuliani). But, before you examine the premise, you are invited to look at the implications. If this is true then Hunter Biden has traded on his father's name! If this is true then Hunter Biden has gotten involved with some shady characters in Ukraine! If this is true, why hasn't Joe Biden ever recused himself from his dealings with these self-same shady characters?! And the biggest thing... why isn't the Main Stream Media (MSM) doing something about this? What do they have to hide?! In short, you are set a premise, you are required to accept the truth of this premise, then you are pulled on an emotional journey about where the premise leads you... But the premise is garbage. In Jordan Peterson's case, the US military is not the same in terms of complexity as real life, for instance. In this case, the Hunter Biden forgot his laptop story does not appear to hold water. You would have to assume a range of additional entities for it to make sense. The reason the media are not reporting on this is because they want evidence that Hunter owned that laptop and that it is, as the US Intelligence community already pointed out, likely Russian interference. (No additional entities assumed here, since their intention to disrupt the US election is well documented, videoed and demonstrated). Why this story is gaining so much traction on HN is beyond me. I am sure that Biden does not have the pearly white hands of a saint, nor is Trump as evil as he is sometimes painted, but I need you to pay the coin of logic before you expect me to invest in your emotional stock.
- ethanwillis 6y ago
  We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement -- just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case. https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000175-4393-d7aa-af77-579f9b330000 https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000175-4393-d7aa-af77-579f9...
BLKNSLVR 6y ago
Australian journalist Emma Alberici[0] was eventually forced out of the national broadcaster the ABC due primarily to a single article she wrote that was critical of the Government's economic policies, pointing to historic evidence that the policies being pursued were ineffective against the problem the Government were attempting to solve.[1][2]. There are strong implications that the ABC was pressured into editing the articles and putting Emma on the outer until finally letting her go. The ABC is a government-funded but independent media organisation, but has been subject to budget cuts and unprecedented pressure from the current Government since it came to power in 2013 under Tony Abbott. Coincidentally or otherwise, the current Australian Government is known to have a cosy relationship with News Corp, who frequently bash the ABC for, ironically, biased reporting. [0]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Alberici https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Alberici [1]:https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-14/why-many-big-companies-dont-pay-corporate-tax/9443840 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-14/why-many-big-companie... [2]:https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-22/more-to-jobs-and-growth-than-a-corporate-tax-cut/9471856 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-22/more-to-jobs-and-grow...
- harry8 6y ago
  How many corrections did Emma Alberici end up publishing on that one piece?
  - harry8 6y ago
    Nine ackowledged errors of _fact_ in one news artcile containing badly supported opinion. An article of the same quality written about the other major party when in power would have got a very similar response. https://finance.nine.com.au/business-news/abc-senate-estimates-emma-alberici-cabinet-files/d5df8375-6b04-45c2-ad60-2697469c4f3d https://finance.nine.com.au/business-news/abc-senate-estimat... "News story: government policies are garbage here's _nine_ errors of fact to support an non-opinion piece." My opinion is that the government policies are garbage but I'm not pretending that's news, I'm not being paid by the national broadcaster to report news and I probably don't have nine errors of fact here. There's plenty to look at in unfair media influence this story just wasn't it.
noobermin 6y ago
It's not just journalists, it's the entire class of "thoughtleaders" and such in the tri-state area.
JeremyNT 6y ago
The thing is, Greenwald is an editorialist and a pundit. I don't mean to give the intercept a pass here, but what Greenwald was doing wasn't "journalism" in the sense that most people think of it. This isn't "his" story - he didn't break it and he didn't do the primary research. Does his background give him insights that could make for a good editorial? Perhaps, and the Intercept used to pull no punches on that kind of content. But it's not like he deserved any real "credit" or "blame" for the story itself, which was reported by other outlets.
- rramach 6y ago
  Greenwald was not claiming he is breaking the story. He was trying to shed light into the media blacklisting of the story. It is indeed Ironic that his story got blacklisted as well! I think some editors are perhaps trying to avoid a repeat of the 'Hillary email/Comey announcement of 2016' scenario but didn't anticipate the Streisand effect. In hindsight, best approach may have been to cover the story, get a sound bite from Biden denying that he benefitted, say there is no evidence he benefitted and leave it at that.
TheRealDunkirk 6y ago
> 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. Watch The Post, and you'll see this sort of thing goes (at least) back to The Pentagon Papers. I'm not old enough to have watched this play out in real time, so it was an eye opener. The owner of The Washington Post was cozy in the circles the President ran around in, and had to weigh what it would mean to him personally to run that series of articles.
0goel0 6y ago
Just because a story can rock the boat doesn't mean it passes the journalistic bar to be published. My take based on all parties' responses is that Glenn threw a tantrum because his editors were doing their job (stopping unsubstantiated lies from being published).
valuearb 6y ago
I thought Peter Maas email (that Greenwald posted) asking him for edits was very good. https://greenwald.substack.com/p/emails-with-intercept-editors-showing https://greenwald.substack.com/p/emails-with-intercept-edito... Greenwald’s piece has some good points about lazy and biased journalism on the Hunter Biden story, but goes off the rails when he misrepresents what actually happened with Joe Biden firing the Ukraine prosecutor.
rufus_foreman 6y ago
>> Journalists have essentially become socialites. They don't want to publish articles that will rock the boat Here's how Frederik deBoer puts it (https://fredrikdeboer.com/2020/10/30/only-the-club-remains/ https://fredrikdeboer.com/2020/10/30/only-the-club-remains/): "The social capture of media plays a huge role in how media operates, dictating what gets reported and which voices are heard. To some degree this is overt – if you you have drinks with the right people in media, that improves your ability to get published. That’s a fact; just a fact, a plain fact. And if you retweet the right people’s tweets that helps too. But there’s a deeper and subtler element to this. What you must show is not that you are talented, or that you’re principled, or that you’re hard working, or even that your arguments are correct. You have to show that you are one of them. You have to have the right social and cultural signifiers. They are innumerable and stretch from performing the right woke posturing and commenting on the correct TV shows to (especially, especially) telling the same kind of shitty, inside-dealing jokes, the kind that say to everyone “I am a member of a club, and it is very important.” Professional, political, and moral considerations have been consumed. There is only idenitification with the group, now. The sole criterion for having a successful career in media today is the degree to which you can signal to the crowd that you are one of them, that you share their values and petty obsessions."

by blhack 6y ago

agentdrtran 6y ago

"Journalists have essentially become socialites. They don't want to publish articles that will rock the boat," There have been a virtually uncountable number of high-profile investigative pieces that criticise people in power published in the last 6 months! This argument is nonsense.

nwienert 6y ago
There’s two social groups, they don’t want to critique their social group.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  Many more than two social groups.
  - nwienert 6y ago
    Sure, pedantically.
    - justnotworthit 6y ago
      Alternatively, us & them = 2
andrewflnr 6y ago
This is an oversimplification. There's a difference between rocking someone else's boat and rocking the one you're riding on.
__blockcipher__ 6y ago
It's not nonsense, because you're missing that if you criticize someone who you are allowed to criticize, there is no risk to yourself. It's going against the herd and criticizing someone like Joe Biden that will get you thrown out of the club. So, if it's a high-profile investigative piece on a senior trump admin official, everyone will applaud you. But as soon as you start investigating the Biden family or, on the other hand, write something positive about Trump & Co, then you'll quickly find yourself out of the club.
- Veen 6y ago
  You are right, but it goes both ways. If a writer at the Federalist or Breibart tried to publish a piece arguing AOC's economics actually had some merit, they would not be met with an enthusiastic response from their professional and social circles. Polarization and factionalism on both sides of the media is the problem.
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    The right doesn't try to get people fired for saying they like AOC. They will just hit back with their own points. That's the way it's supposed to go in a civil society.
koolba 6y ago
Can you say with a straight face that the NY Times or WaPo has done that with liberals or Democratic candidates? Outside of tearing down Bernie Sanders I'd say it's a firm no. Prominent liberals like Alan Dershowitz say they're being socially blacklisted for not taking part in a pile on against Trump: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/03/us/alan-dershowitz-marthas-vineyard.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/03/us/alan-dershowitz-martha... Even being "neutral" is apparently not enough. It's easy to see why journalists and editors would succumb to that social pressure.
- Pils 6y ago
  > Prominent liberals like Alan Dershowitz say they're being socially blacklisted for not taking part in a pile on against Trump: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/03/us/alan-dershowitz-martha https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/03/us/alan-dershowitz-martha... Not going to directly engage with your argument, but this framing is frankly absurd. Alan Dershowitz is not "neutral" with regards to Trump, he was literally part of his legal defense team!
  - koolba 6y ago
    > Not going to directly engage with your argument, but this framing is frankly absurd. Alan Dershowitz is not "neutral" with regards to Trump, he was literally part of his legal defense team! That article is dated a year and half prior to Trump’s impeachment. Dershowitz disagrees with Trump on policy matters on just about everything. What he doesn’t do is let his political disagreements pervert his legal opinions on constitutional matters. And hence he gets blacklisted for not joining the hate.
    - whimsicalism 6y ago
      > he doesn’t do is let his political disagreements pervert his legal opinions on constitutional matters I think the idea of the "apolitical" constitution is more myth than reality. Dershowitz is perhaps a liberal in the classic political philosophy sense, but I would not call him a "prominent liberal" in the American sense. He also might have been 'blacklisted' because he was at least somewhat credibly accused of pedophilia.
disown 6y ago
> There have been a virtually uncountable number of high-profile investigative pieces that criticise people in power published in the last 6 months! This argument is nonsense. They have been attack dogs of one political party or the other. But its always been this way. Social media ( especially twitter ) has shown people that journalists are political actors, not dispensers of "truth". They are part of the power structure, not a counterweight to the power structure. At this point most newspapers should just be part of the democratic, republican or intelligence agency because that's all they are. I can almost guarantee that most of the people here attacking greenwald and partaking in the downvote brigade are news employees or members of a particular political party. It's hilarious.
- r-w 6y ago
  A nihilist regarding truth, I see. You might want to watch this video to see why that's a dangerous attitude, and one that plays into the hands of morally unscrupulous actors and foreign adversaries: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nknYtlOvaQ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nknYtlOvaQ0
  - seppin 6y ago
    "Everything is shit and everyone is guilty" is the exact thing an autocrat needs the majority of his citizens to believe to remain in power.
  - disown 6y ago
    > A nihilist regarding truth Nope. I believe in truth. My point is that the news industry isn't in the business of truth. They have never been. The news is in the propaganda business. They exist to form opinions. It's why pretty much every news company around the world was formed by a politician, banker, industrialist or government. If trump created "Real News Company", I'm sure you'd say only the naive would view such a company as a purveyor of truth right? > You might want to watch this video to see why that's a dangerous attitude, and one that plays into the hands of morally unscrupulous actors You might also look up the history of the news industry, manufacturing consent, etc. And the morally unscrupulous actors are the major news companies. The real danger is not from those who question the news, it's from those who blindly view it as the truth.
pvarangot 6y ago
Yeah, and they are published either by socialites from a group that hates the group being exposed, or by "freaks" like Greenwald that no one with a public persona wants near them because they know he's a time bomb.
- fredguth 6y ago
  Long live the freaks of the world. We need them more than ever.
  - cambalache 6y ago
    A-men
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    Here's to the rebels...
cambalache 6y ago
Please show me a high-profile investigative piece from the mainstream media against Biden.
- noelsusman 6y ago
  It was the New York Times that originally broke the Biden Ukraine story back in 2015. Recent iterations of it are mostly just rehashing the original article. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/world/europe/corruption-ukraine-joe-biden-son-hunter-biden-ties.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/world/europe/corruption-u...
  - cambalache 6y ago
    Come on. This was not what OP implied. Of Biden as a candidate, L6M. Impossible.
    - noelsusman 6y ago
      https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/us/politics/biden-son-ukraine.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/us/politics/biden-son-ukr...
      - cambalache 6y ago
        May 1st, 2019

pm90 6y ago

If journalists didn’t rock the boat, the current POTUS would be very happy. But they do, and he’s not, so this theory seems to have no merit.

jaywalk 6y ago
The journalists are not on that boat with the POTUS, so they are more than happy to rock it.

nebolo 6y ago

Can you be a bit more specific on what you believe to be so important/surprising/relevant about this story that would make an entire journalistic career? What is the story that is not being told, and actively being suppressed? I have been following this quite closely and can't see it.

ehsankia 6y ago
I'm curious about this too. It definitely doesn't help that every single person involved in the story has zero credibility left, starting with a "lawyer" who has time and time again been caught peddling the president's lies, has exposed himself to a "15yo" reporter, and who the intelligence community say is being used by foreign nations to meddle in our elections.
- evan_ 6y ago
  Oof, took me a couple tries to figure out specifically which trump lawyer you were describing because your description roughly fits a few of them
TearsInTheRain 6y ago
Did you watch the Tony Babulinksi interview with Tucker Carlson? It shows that Joe Biden had an ownership stake in and was directly involved with his son's company that received a 5-10 million forgivable loan from a top member of the Chinese Communist party. This directly contradicts claims Joe Biden has made throughout his campaign and at the last debate.
- AaronFriel 6y ago
  Fox News argued before Mary Kay Vyskocil, United States District Judge, well, to use the court's words: "Fox persuasively argues, that given Mr. Carlson's reputation, any reasonable viewer 'arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism' about the statement he makes." My question to you is: are you arriving with an appropriate amount of skepticism? Tucker Carlson is not a credible source, and nothing aired on that program "showed" anything definitive except accusations that were made. The Wall Street Journal ran their own story on these allegations and found no link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/hunter-bidens-ex-business-partner-alleges-father-knew-about-venture-11603421247 https://www.wsj.com/articles/hunter-bidens-ex-business-partn...

stumblers 6y ago

I'll have to listen to the podcast, but I think you're way off in thinking this kind of story makes careers. Journalists take their credibility very seriously and this story doesn't have it, at least not yet if it ever will. Going with a story that hasn't been vetted marks a serious journalist as a dupe for the rest of their lives.

blhack 6y ago
What do you mean this story hasn't been vetted? One of the major players in the story has gone on record, giving an approximately 45 minute long interview verifying the claims. The FBI and DNI have also both confirmed the validity of the laptop. How much more "verified" than that would you need?
- ehsankia 6y ago
  The same FBI claims Giuliani is being used by foreign nations to influence our elections. What's your source? https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/giuliani-biden-ukraine-russian-disinformation/2020/10/15/43158900-0ef5-11eb-b1e8-16b59b92b36d_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/giuliani-bi...
  - blhack 6y ago
    The source is the Director of National Intelligence: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/fbi-hunter-biden-laptop-russia/2020/10/20/3478408a-133d-11eb-bc10-40b25382f1be_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/fbi-hunter-...
    - af16090 6y ago
      I don't see anything in that article that indicates that "[t]he FBI and DNI have also both confirmed the validity of the laptop". From the article: > Appearing Monday on Fox Business Channel, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said “there is no intelligence that supports” the idea that the purported Hunter Biden laptop and the emails on it “are part of a Russian disinformation campaign.” Absence of intelligence that the laptop is "part of a Russian disinformation campaign" doesn't mean that the contents of the laptop are genuine. That statement still leaves open a bunch of possibilities including that the contents of the laptop were faked by non-Russians, were faked by the Russians but the US doesn't have intelligence confirming it, etc. As for the FBI, they say "we have nothing to add" to the DNI's statement and that "the FBI can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any ongoing investigation". Nothing in the FBI's letter says anything about the laptop's contents being genuine.

stefan_ 6y ago

The system set up by people ignorant to its effects many many years ago has succeeded in making everything a choice between two factions. It's no longer just guaranteeing you forever get two parties, two candidates, you now also need to join a side individually. It's silly watching from afar because as is highly likely, both choices are bad so embracing one of them so wholeheartedly just comes across as uninformed and plain mental. Not much more needs to be said on Trump but it also doesn't take a history diploma to know Biden wrote the 1994 "tough on crime, law and order" bill.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> 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. To the extent this is arguably true of etablishment journalist, the mirror image seems to be true of anti-establishment journalists. Instead of being unreasonably resistant to publishing stories that rock the boat, they are unreasonable eager to do so, taking sources that validate this pre-established bias uncritically, opening themselves up for manipulation and as agents of propaganda, because the people they are friends with, and that invite them to parties are more interested in capsizing the boat than the truth.

r-w 6y ago
Extremely relevant reading: _Purity_, by Jonathan Franzen https://www.amazon.com/dp/0374239215 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0374239215
jimkleiber 6y ago
Wow, exactly what I was thinking but probably more articulate than I could have put it. That there are a lot of people building a journalistic career on being anti-establishment, saying that the "mainstream media" et al are lying to us and censoring us and are crooked...and gaining followers as a result. Often telling us to not trust groups A-Y, and only trusting them, the Z. At the end of the day, I have to trust someone to be doing the legwork, research, investigation to verify the stories and to report it to me as honestly as they can. For me, I mostly trust the vast majority of professional journalists and institutions to do that work together, to check and balance each other most of the time to make sure something is as true as it can be, and feel skeptical when someone tells me to distrust them so strongly. (I worry that sometimes I post things that may be too charged or opinionated or just inappropriate for HN, so if you think this is, I'd be grateful if you let me know why in a reply)
free_rms 6y ago
That's a really good and fair point, but we're at a junction where looking at the Ukraine situation and saying "yeah but that looks fucked tho" is met with ABSOLUTE OPPROBRIUM. Come on. The same people who'd happily get someone fired for tweeting something insensitive are all closing ranks against any criticism of Mr. "You ain't black". Come on. I can't wait until the election is over.

jrochkind1 6y ago

In the general sense, it's not a new problem. One of the main points I got from Chomsky & Herman's _Manufacturing Consent_ (1988, analyzing news from a decade earlier), is that journalists print what the government says because it's convenient -- it's less work to print what the government (or anyone else) says at a press conference than to do your own research -- AND even when it comes to privately given info, because they need to maintain the relationships with government (and other powerful) sources, if you make a government source mad, and they stop giving info, how are you going to get that privileged info to write your stories? Journalists develop "sources", and relationships with those sources, and then there are pressures to serve the interests of those sources. Sources are usually powerful people (whether government or "socialites"), because that's who has valuable info on an ongoing basis, generally.

reaperducer 6y ago
Chomsky & Herman's _Manufacturing Consent_ (1988, analyzing news from a decade earlier), While it may be good work, it's so out of date it's useless as a tool for evaluating the media landscape of today. I spent 20 years as a journalist and can tell you from first-hand experience and the contacts I have kept in the industry that the media today is not the same as the media of 2010, or 2000, or 1990, and certainly not the 1970's.
- uoaei 6y ago
  Obviously it is not the same as it was decades ago. But how can you deny that the "5 pillars" framework presented in the book still holds true today?
- jrochkind1 6y ago
  I can believe it. There's been a heck of a lot of change, newsrooms have been decimated. To me, like I said, mostly what I remember taking from it is how it got me thinking about how a journalists dependence on sources, and resource-constraints to be able to get out stories without exceeding available time to report em... leads to over-reliance on reporting what the powerful say as "the news" and by implication "what happened". I'd suspect that is still relevant to the landscape of today, probably even MORE so because reporting resources have been so devastated, but do you think not?

ggggtez 6y ago

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 sleuths with MS paint red circles and theories about deep states. And your comment falls into this category.

marcusverus 6y ago
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?
- drewrv 6y ago
  It's also possible he's a once great journalist who has gone off the rails. Which seems likely given the fact that the editors at a publication he founded refused to publish this piece.
  - outsomnia 6y ago
    The big problem for me is he does not set the context for the allegations, that the US is about to go to a critical and fiercely-contested election, last time there were all kinds of manipulations, and the role he s set on playing right in the last few days is analogous to that of Comey v2 and the laptop is "the emails". Without the context, it's not being given to the reader to judge why this is a story, the real provonance of the maguffin-laptop, if it really has any impact in the Biden vs Trump question or is just noise...
    - afiori 6y ago
      In this context jumping on claims of Russian interference is similarly damaging. Moreover I feel like this would be a bad precedent. Suppose Biden wins now and Trump runs again in 2024, I personally would not like a similar grace being offered to him (with no evidence of interference).

mcphage 6y ago

> 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.

reaperducer 6y ago

There have always been socialite-class journalists, and under-class journalists. The problem is that the people coming out of journalism schools these days want fame and to become YouTube stars, rather than change the world for the better. And the schools optimize for this desire in order to keep the tuition money flowing in.

ntsplnkv2 6y ago

Trump for years has attacked the media - what do you expect? And now I'm supposed to suddenly accept this "scandal" conveniently placed right before the election in a literal tabloid with a huge conservative bent? I mean how can anyone who doesn't support Trump already buy in? And then it's "oh my god censorship!!!". Give me a break.

president 6y ago

It's more that journalists don't want to upset their boss and their boss doesn't want to upset their boss and all the way up the chain. Somewhere in that chain is someone that is aligned with getting that particular story suppressed. The issue here is that somewhere along the way, keeping your job became more valuable than keeping your integrity. Happens in tech all the time in my experience.

bofenbref 6y ago

Aformentioned podcast link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0rcLsoIKgA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0rcLsoIKgA

k2enemy 6y ago

Bhilai 6y ago

By this logic most of NYT senior staff should be close friends with Trump.

seppin 6y ago

> Journalists have essentially become socialites. Glenn earned 400k a year at the intercept and has no end of opportunities now that he's quit and blamed the mythical "liberal bias" on his unceremonious departure.

monkeydreams 6y ago

> Glenn had a 3 hour long conversation on a podcast a few days ago where he laid out the problem really well: .... > The reporting around this story has been absolutely unbelievable to me OK, here's the thing though. This is what I call the "Jordan Peterson school of thought." You begin with a premise. Hunter Biden left his laptop at a repair store, some files were found on it, and these were delivered to a Republican Party muck-raker (and that is the most neutral thing you can say about Giuliani). But, before you examine the premise, you are invited to look at the implications. If this is true then Hunter Biden has traded on his father's name! If this is true then Hunter Biden has gotten involved with some shady characters in Ukraine! If this is true, why hasn't Joe Biden ever recused himself from his dealings with these self-same shady characters?! And the biggest thing... why isn't the Main Stream Media (MSM) doing something about this? What do they have to hide?! In short, you are set a premise, you are required to accept the truth of this premise, then you are pulled on an emotional journey about where the premise leads you... But the premise is garbage. In Jordan Peterson's case, the US military is not the same in terms of complexity as real life, for instance. In this case, the Hunter Biden forgot his laptop story does not appear to hold water. You would have to assume a range of additional entities for it to make sense. The reason the media are not reporting on this is because they want evidence that Hunter owned that laptop and that it is, as the US Intelligence community already pointed out, likely Russian interference. (No additional entities assumed here, since their intention to disrupt the US election is well documented, videoed and demonstrated). Why this story is gaining so much traction on HN is beyond me. I am sure that Biden does not have the pearly white hands of a saint, nor is Trump as evil as he is sometimes painted, but I need you to pay the coin of logic before you expect me to invest in your emotional stock.

ethanwillis 6y ago
We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement -- just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case. https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000175-4393-d7aa-af77-579f9b330000 https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000175-4393-d7aa-af77-579f9...

BLKNSLVR 6y ago

Australian journalist Emma Alberici[0] was eventually forced out of the national broadcaster the ABC due primarily to a single article she wrote that was critical of the Government's economic policies, pointing to historic evidence that the policies being pursued were ineffective against the problem the Government were attempting to solve.[1][2]. There are strong implications that the ABC was pressured into editing the articles and putting Emma on the outer until finally letting her go. The ABC is a government-funded but independent media organisation, but has been subject to budget cuts and unprecedented pressure from the current Government since it came to power in 2013 under Tony Abbott. Coincidentally or otherwise, the current Australian Government is known to have a cosy relationship with News Corp, who frequently bash the ABC for, ironically, biased reporting. [0]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Alberici https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Alberici [1]:https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-14/why-many-big-companies-dont-pay-corporate-tax/9443840 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-14/why-many-big-companie... [2]:https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-22/more-to-jobs-and-growth-than-a-corporate-tax-cut/9471856 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-22/more-to-jobs-and-grow...

harry8 6y ago
How many corrections did Emma Alberici end up publishing on that one piece?
- harry8 6y ago
  Nine ackowledged errors of _fact_ in one news artcile containing badly supported opinion. An article of the same quality written about the other major party when in power would have got a very similar response. https://finance.nine.com.au/business-news/abc-senate-estimates-emma-alberici-cabinet-files/d5df8375-6b04-45c2-ad60-2697469c4f3d https://finance.nine.com.au/business-news/abc-senate-estimat... "News story: government policies are garbage here's _nine_ errors of fact to support an non-opinion piece." My opinion is that the government policies are garbage but I'm not pretending that's news, I'm not being paid by the national broadcaster to report news and I probably don't have nine errors of fact here. There's plenty to look at in unfair media influence this story just wasn't it.

noobermin 6y ago

It's not just journalists, it's the entire class of "thoughtleaders" and such in the tri-state area.

JeremyNT 6y ago

The thing is, Greenwald is an editorialist and a pundit. I don't mean to give the intercept a pass here, but what Greenwald was doing wasn't "journalism" in the sense that most people think of it. This isn't "his" story - he didn't break it and he didn't do the primary research. Does his background give him insights that could make for a good editorial? Perhaps, and the Intercept used to pull no punches on that kind of content. But it's not like he deserved any real "credit" or "blame" for the story itself, which was reported by other outlets.

rramach 6y ago
Greenwald was not claiming he is breaking the story. He was trying to shed light into the media blacklisting of the story. It is indeed Ironic that his story got blacklisted as well! I think some editors are perhaps trying to avoid a repeat of the 'Hillary email/Comey announcement of 2016' scenario but didn't anticipate the Streisand effect. In hindsight, best approach may have been to cover the story, get a sound bite from Biden denying that he benefitted, say there is no evidence he benefitted and leave it at that.

TheRealDunkirk 6y ago

> 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. Watch The Post, and you'll see this sort of thing goes (at least) back to The Pentagon Papers. I'm not old enough to have watched this play out in real time, so it was an eye opener. The owner of The Washington Post was cozy in the circles the President ran around in, and had to weigh what it would mean to him personally to run that series of articles.

0goel0 6y ago

Just because a story can rock the boat doesn't mean it passes the journalistic bar to be published. My take based on all parties' responses is that Glenn threw a tantrum because his editors were doing their job (stopping unsubstantiated lies from being published).

valuearb 6y ago

I thought Peter Maas email (that Greenwald posted) asking him for edits was very good. https://greenwald.substack.com/p/emails-with-intercept-editors-showing https://greenwald.substack.com/p/emails-with-intercept-edito... Greenwald’s piece has some good points about lazy and biased journalism on the Hunter Biden story, but goes off the rails when he misrepresents what actually happened with Joe Biden firing the Ukraine prosecutor.

rufus_foreman 6y ago

>> Journalists have essentially become socialites. They don't want to publish articles that will rock the boat Here's how Frederik deBoer puts it (https://fredrikdeboer.com/2020/10/30/only-the-club-remains/ https://fredrikdeboer.com/2020/10/30/only-the-club-remains/): "The social capture of media plays a huge role in how media operates, dictating what gets reported and which voices are heard. To some degree this is overt – if you you have drinks with the right people in media, that improves your ability to get published. That’s a fact; just a fact, a plain fact. And if you retweet the right people’s tweets that helps too. But there’s a deeper and subtler element to this. What you must show is not that you are talented, or that you’re principled, or that you’re hard working, or even that your arguments are correct. You have to show that you are one of them. You have to have the right social and cultural signifiers. They are innumerable and stretch from performing the right woke posturing and commenting on the correct TV shows to (especially, especially) telling the same kind of shitty, inside-dealing jokes, the kind that say to everyone “I am a member of a club, and it is very important.” Professional, political, and moral considerations have been consumed. There is only idenitification with the group, now. The sole criterion for having a successful career in media today is the degree to which you can signal to the crowd that you are one of them, that you share their values and petty obsessions."