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> "But this is now the prevailing ethos in corporate journalism. They have insufficient talent or skill, and even less desire, to take on real power centers: th
by bmmayer1 6y ago
> "But this is now the prevailing ethos in corporate journalism. They have insufficient talent or skill, and even less desire, to take on real power centers: the military-industrial complex, the CIA and FBI, the clandestine security state, Wall Street, Silicon Valley monopolies, the corrupted and lying corporate media outlets they serve. So settling on this penny-ante, trivial bullshit — tattling, hall monitoring, speech policing: all in the most anti-intellectual, adolescent and primitive ways — is all they have. It’s all they are. It’s why they have fully earned the contempt and distrust in which the public holds them."
This should be the real concern: that journalism may be dedicated (and some would say, specifically incentivized) to performing non-valuable work, at the expense of valuable work the public needs journalists to perform. In this media landscape, everyone loses except for the people with actual power, who gain more.
Where does this lead? And how much of this nonsense is driven or encouraged by the very establishment that journalists are supposed to be keeping in check?
- jakelazaroff 6y agoVery ironic that this sentence was planted in the middle of a 3000-word screed comparing someone who tweeted a misheard quote to the Stasi.
- alentist 6y agoStasi-like citizen-surveillance. And there's nothing ironic about it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26070324 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26070324 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26069728 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26069728 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26070040 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26070040
- jakelazaroff 6y agoThe irony is that this piece is, to use Glenn’s words, “penny-ante, trivial bullshit”. Again, it’s a 3,000 word polemic rant in response to… a mistaken allegation in a tweet. It’s not speaking truth to power. It’s not shedding light on corruption. It’s just Glenn up on his high horse, spewing the same boring right-wing outragebait that he’s peddled for years.
- alentist 6y agoYour description of this (now failed) attempt at character assassination as simply "a mistaken allegation" is very disingenuous. Why are you so angry that it was foiled? An NYT reporter trying to ruin people's lives and reputations for petty ideological reasons is anything but "trivial bullshit".
- jakelazaroff 6y agoI’m not being disingenuous, I’m simply giving Taylor Lorenz the benefit of the doubt. I would extend that courtesy to Glenn Greenwald too, had he not exhausted it writing shit like this. Anyway, here’s the larger point: it’s absolutely ludicrous to claim that Marc Andreeson’s life and reputation would be ruined even if the allegation were true. That’s why this is such trivial bullshit to write about. Glenn is coming to defend a powerful person against an allegation that would have had literally no impact on his life or work.
- alentist 6y ago> I’m simply giving Taylor Lorenz the benefit of the doubt. I suggest you read how she reacted to being exposed. > I would extend that courtesy to Glenn Greenwald too, had he not exhausted it writing shit like this. Again, what "shit" are you referring to? Why are you so angry that he's reporting on this issue? > Anyway, here’s the larger point: it’s absolutely ludicrous to claim that Marc Andreeson’s life and reputation would be ruined even if the allegation were true. That’s why this is such trivial bullshit to write about. So you give the perpetrator a free pass because their victim in this case happens to be a high-profile person who might be able to defend themselves against the slander and all its consequences? What hope is left for the little guy?
- oh_sigh 6y agoYou probably are nuanced enough to differentiate between direct apples to apples comparisons and hyperbole. Or did you think the soup nazi was exterminating jews between serving cups of jambalaya?