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Greenwald has never operated in a way that concerns itself with the consequences of actions. The philosophy is "we report, freely, what we believe to be true an

Greenwald has never operated in a way that concerns itself with the consequences of actions. The philosophy is "we report, freely, what we believe to be true and fair, and whats comes of it does not matter". I am personally torn on this kind of philosophy. Would that everyone was like this, but since they are not, surely there are times when too much is on the line to behave this way? He explicitly talks about this attitude in this interview: https://www.vox.com/2016/9/15/12853236/glenn-greenwald-trump-clinton https://www.vox.com/2016/9/15/12853236/glenn-greenwald-trump... But it is a bit weird that here we are again, on the cusp of another trump presidency, and Greenwald swoops in to Trump's aid, again. Not sure how I feel about it.

whimsicalism 6y ago
This is where the distinction between "act" and "rule" consequentialism becomes important. Perhaps there is "too much" on the line, but I think that we live in a complex world, it is difficult to estimate the downstream impacts of your action, and that every time you choose to suppress a story due to potential political consequences, you are undermining broader "trust." Better to default to reporting freely since, as a rule, suppressing stories generally erodes trust, whereas the direct downstream impact of airing a specific story can be difficult to estimate in a complex world.
- garden_hermit 6y ago
  Both both blocking and running a story are conscious actions with political consequences and which have the potential to undermine trust. Plenty of people lost trust in the media following their focus on the Hillary Clinton email scandal, which amounted to nothing but likely swayed the election. There seems to be some sort of paradox of tolerance to trust and the news media. In principle, we should allow all information. However, bad faith actors can easily take advantage of this principle, and flood the airwaves with dubious and ultimately-overblown stories (see Clinton's emails). If bad-faith actors are afoot (which seems the case here), then at some point an editor needs to step in and refuse to print the story—the question though, is when? And is there anyway to step in, and have it not look like censorship?
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    I agree that both actions have consequences. I wasn't trying to defend taking action in general, I was trying to claim that I think a consequential rule of: "Do not block new information due to perceived impact on election" might be a good one. > Plenty of people lost trust in the media following their focus on the Hillary Clinton email scandal, which amounted to nothing but likely swayed the election. Hm, let's do a comparison. Do you think trust in the media would have been better or worse if media outlets had received leaked emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign during the summer (some indicating, for instance, that some members of Hillary Clinton's campaign had conspired to acquire questions ahead of the Democratic debates), embargoed them until after the election, and then released them? "bad-faith actors are afoot (which seems the case here)" -> I don't see why the 'faith' of the actors really has any relevance as to whether the information is in the public interest to know.
    - garden_hermit 6y ago
      > Hm, let's do a comparison. Do you think trust in the media would have been better or worse if media outlets had received leaked emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign during the summer (some indicating, for instance, that some members of Hillary Clinton's campaign had conspired to acquire questions ahead of the Democratic debates), embargoed them until after the election, and then released them? It depends! What is the source of the information? Does the source have incentive to fabricate or exaggerate their claims? Can other trustworthy sources confirm the information? Does the information hold up to critical scrutiny? Does the information matter? If the answer to these questions are all yes, then I think the media acted in a trustworthy way. If not, then I don't think so. My argument is not that embarrassing information should be withheld because of an an election. Instead, my argument is that news media should not publish any and all information without the due process of journalism. If the claims hold up to scrutiny, then sure, publish it! If the claims don't hold up, then don't publish it. > "bad-faith actors are afoot (which seems the case here)" -> I don't see why the 'faith' of the actors really has any relevance as to whether the information is in the public interest to know. No, but bad faith actors have an incentive to inject noise into the news cycle, and in turn, have incentive to fabricate or exaggerate claims. Journalists and their editors, when they believe information is given in bad faith, should hold it to a higher level of scrutiny so that they avoid mischaracterizing a story. edit: typo
starkd 6y ago
He is more concerned with upholding the principle of the first amendment than supporting the ideology of the moment. Supressing information because its not convenient at the moment is the very definition of hack journalism. Something he wants no part of. You'd think the democratic party would have learned after 2016 by nominating another clinton. The seem to feel that supressing negative stories is just easier than answering them. Nominating someone like Sanders would have at least allowed the issues to be discussed.
- alchemism 6y ago
  How does the First Amendment come into play in a situation wherein a private corporation making an internal decision regarding a corporate asset?
  - starkd 6y ago
    Fair point. But this is not just the Intercept. This is multiple outlets all letting their partisan affiliation interfere with their reporting. Greenwald has been bothered by this for a long while now, along with a growing list: Andrew Sullivan, Matt Taibbi, just to name a few.
  - RonanTheGrey 6y ago
    Not upholding the first amendment; upholding the principle of the first amendment, that is, the first amendment doesn't create a right, it protects one that we all already have. The Bill of Rights are based on natural rights, ones we have by benefit of being alive, one of which is free speech. The First Amendment concerns itself with a very small corner of that universe, but the rest of it is ours, and should remain free. The founders never imagined a situation where a very few private citizens would have the power to censor the speech of millions of others. Nothing even remotely similar to that existed at the time and there was nothing to suggest it could ever exist. The US Constitution is also a minimalist document so it wasn't concerned with enforcing behavior between private citizens.
  - colordrops 6y ago
    There is a concerted effort by the establishment through PR campaigns by think tanks, bot networks, and major media outlet connections, to push the narrative that free speech is dangerous and should be curtailed. They are first starting with pressure and leverage on private outlets, while simultaneously floating the idea that there should be legal limitations on online speech. It's all part of the same effort. Furthermore there are a few private outfits that have near a near monopoly on public speech, so they have the effect of censorship.
gldalmaso 6y ago
It is definitely a two-edged blade. It might serve as a moral pillar to Greenwald, but it also makes him easy to manipulate. One could feed the leak at the time where it would do most damage and know that where other editors would think twice Glenn would jump on it. Sadly I have the feeling that good faith journalism has no role to play nowadays. It doesn't have the reach and credibility it needs to justify it. People now "inform" themselves in a decentralized manner, seldom break their bubble and don't care much about facts preferring narratives. The hardest facts and science can be presented and it will still come out as narrative.
LeifCarrotson 6y ago
I completely agree. He notes that "Everything gets interpreted through this lens of, ‘Which side are you helping, and which side are you on?’" It's absolutely true that this framework is unhelpful for comprehending the situation, that it makes it difficult to forming a coherent philosophy, and and that it makes it impedes the process of learning about and sharing complex ideas. But there is an obvious outcome where this gets published, people realize that Biden has flaws, and choose to elect Trump instead as if he did not have flaws. There is no chance of an outcome where people realize that Biden has flaws and elect a different candidate without flaws instead. If Greenwald was actually concerned about presidential emoluments clause violations, nepotism, and corruption, it would be unwise to publish a hack job against the candidate less guilty of these infractions. Now, I do think that awareness of progressive causes and systemic shortcomings were advanced during Trump's presidency; perhaps Greenwald is playing the extremely long game, hoping that in 2024 the system is able to make a more permanent reform? But it seems more like he's angry that the game is rigged and is destructively flipping the game board over instead of playing - please don't do that, Glenn, I live here.
FpUser 6y ago
>"But it is a bit weird that here we are again, on the cusp of another trump presidency, and Greenwald swoops in to Trump's aid, again. Not sure how I feel about it.But it is a bit weird that here we are again, on the cusp of another trump presidency, and Greenwald swoops in to Trump's aid, again. Not sure how I feel about it." He does not owe it to anyone to support/be against any particular candidate. His task is to report. And if someone is inconvenienced by the truth it is their problem.

whimsicalism 6y ago

This is where the distinction between "act" and "rule" consequentialism becomes important. Perhaps there is "too much" on the line, but I think that we live in a complex world, it is difficult to estimate the downstream impacts of your action, and that every time you choose to suppress a story due to potential political consequences, you are undermining broader "trust." Better to default to reporting freely since, as a rule, suppressing stories generally erodes trust, whereas the direct downstream impact of airing a specific story can be difficult to estimate in a complex world.

garden_hermit 6y ago
Both both blocking and running a story are conscious actions with political consequences and which have the potential to undermine trust. Plenty of people lost trust in the media following their focus on the Hillary Clinton email scandal, which amounted to nothing but likely swayed the election. There seems to be some sort of paradox of tolerance to trust and the news media. In principle, we should allow all information. However, bad faith actors can easily take advantage of this principle, and flood the airwaves with dubious and ultimately-overblown stories (see Clinton's emails). If bad-faith actors are afoot (which seems the case here), then at some point an editor needs to step in and refuse to print the story—the question though, is when? And is there anyway to step in, and have it not look like censorship?
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  I agree that both actions have consequences. I wasn't trying to defend taking action in general, I was trying to claim that I think a consequential rule of: "Do not block new information due to perceived impact on election" might be a good one. > Plenty of people lost trust in the media following their focus on the Hillary Clinton email scandal, which amounted to nothing but likely swayed the election. Hm, let's do a comparison. Do you think trust in the media would have been better or worse if media outlets had received leaked emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign during the summer (some indicating, for instance, that some members of Hillary Clinton's campaign had conspired to acquire questions ahead of the Democratic debates), embargoed them until after the election, and then released them? "bad-faith actors are afoot (which seems the case here)" -> I don't see why the 'faith' of the actors really has any relevance as to whether the information is in the public interest to know.
  - garden_hermit 6y ago
    > Hm, let's do a comparison. Do you think trust in the media would have been better or worse if media outlets had received leaked emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign during the summer (some indicating, for instance, that some members of Hillary Clinton's campaign had conspired to acquire questions ahead of the Democratic debates), embargoed them until after the election, and then released them? It depends! What is the source of the information? Does the source have incentive to fabricate or exaggerate their claims? Can other trustworthy sources confirm the information? Does the information hold up to critical scrutiny? Does the information matter? If the answer to these questions are all yes, then I think the media acted in a trustworthy way. If not, then I don't think so. My argument is not that embarrassing information should be withheld because of an an election. Instead, my argument is that news media should not publish any and all information without the due process of journalism. If the claims hold up to scrutiny, then sure, publish it! If the claims don't hold up, then don't publish it. > "bad-faith actors are afoot (which seems the case here)" -> I don't see why the 'faith' of the actors really has any relevance as to whether the information is in the public interest to know. No, but bad faith actors have an incentive to inject noise into the news cycle, and in turn, have incentive to fabricate or exaggerate claims. Journalists and their editors, when they believe information is given in bad faith, should hold it to a higher level of scrutiny so that they avoid mischaracterizing a story. edit: typo

starkd 6y ago

He is more concerned with upholding the principle of the first amendment than supporting the ideology of the moment. Supressing information because its not convenient at the moment is the very definition of hack journalism. Something he wants no part of. You'd think the democratic party would have learned after 2016 by nominating another clinton. The seem to feel that supressing negative stories is just easier than answering them. Nominating someone like Sanders would have at least allowed the issues to be discussed.

alchemism 6y ago
How does the First Amendment come into play in a situation wherein a private corporation making an internal decision regarding a corporate asset?
- starkd 6y ago
  Fair point. But this is not just the Intercept. This is multiple outlets all letting their partisan affiliation interfere with their reporting. Greenwald has been bothered by this for a long while now, along with a growing list: Andrew Sullivan, Matt Taibbi, just to name a few.
- RonanTheGrey 6y ago
  Not upholding the first amendment; upholding the principle of the first amendment, that is, the first amendment doesn't create a right, it protects one that we all already have. The Bill of Rights are based on natural rights, ones we have by benefit of being alive, one of which is free speech. The First Amendment concerns itself with a very small corner of that universe, but the rest of it is ours, and should remain free. The founders never imagined a situation where a very few private citizens would have the power to censor the speech of millions of others. Nothing even remotely similar to that existed at the time and there was nothing to suggest it could ever exist. The US Constitution is also a minimalist document so it wasn't concerned with enforcing behavior between private citizens.
- colordrops 6y ago
  There is a concerted effort by the establishment through PR campaigns by think tanks, bot networks, and major media outlet connections, to push the narrative that free speech is dangerous and should be curtailed. They are first starting with pressure and leverage on private outlets, while simultaneously floating the idea that there should be legal limitations on online speech. It's all part of the same effort. Furthermore there are a few private outfits that have near a near monopoly on public speech, so they have the effect of censorship.

gldalmaso 6y ago

It is definitely a two-edged blade. It might serve as a moral pillar to Greenwald, but it also makes him easy to manipulate. One could feed the leak at the time where it would do most damage and know that where other editors would think twice Glenn would jump on it. Sadly I have the feeling that good faith journalism has no role to play nowadays. It doesn't have the reach and credibility it needs to justify it. People now "inform" themselves in a decentralized manner, seldom break their bubble and don't care much about facts preferring narratives. The hardest facts and science can be presented and it will still come out as narrative.

LeifCarrotson 6y ago

I completely agree. He notes that "Everything gets interpreted through this lens of, ‘Which side are you helping, and which side are you on?’" It's absolutely true that this framework is unhelpful for comprehending the situation, that it makes it difficult to forming a coherent philosophy, and and that it makes it impedes the process of learning about and sharing complex ideas. But there is an obvious outcome where this gets published, people realize that Biden has flaws, and choose to elect Trump instead as if he did not have flaws. There is no chance of an outcome where people realize that Biden has flaws and elect a different candidate without flaws instead. If Greenwald was actually concerned about presidential emoluments clause violations, nepotism, and corruption, it would be unwise to publish a hack job against the candidate less guilty of these infractions. Now, I do think that awareness of progressive causes and systemic shortcomings were advanced during Trump's presidency; perhaps Greenwald is playing the extremely long game, hoping that in 2024 the system is able to make a more permanent reform? But it seems more like he's angry that the game is rigged and is destructively flipping the game board over instead of playing - please don't do that, Glenn, I live here.

FpUser 6y ago

>"But it is a bit weird that here we are again, on the cusp of another trump presidency, and Greenwald swoops in to Trump's aid, again. Not sure how I feel about it.But it is a bit weird that here we are again, on the cusp of another trump presidency, and Greenwald swoops in to Trump's aid, again. Not sure how I feel about it." He does not owe it to anyone to support/be against any particular candidate. His task is to report. And if someone is inconvenienced by the truth it is their problem.