4 ms·

Hedges vs. Obama

17 points by 1cvmask 5y ago

mark_l_watson 5y ago
Chris Hedges was a very good reporter, a good author (America, The Farewell Tour, is a must read), and an excellent source of current information. He has replaced Noam Chomsky as the person I go out of my way to listen to about politics, social injustice, etc. Matt Taibbi is also pretty good as an information source.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  For progressive takes, I recommend Thomas Frank. Chris Hedges is also good in that he has coverage of working class issues, but like the rest of the alt-reporting crowd, there is a lot of strident oversimplification and too much crusading. The temptation to sensationalize and ignore contradictory data is just too great. For example, you can't just rant about "greedy healthcare industries" and expect to generate more light than heat. Healthcare is complicated, and cannot be boiled down to a couple of the seven deadly sins. . You can't view the world through a theological lense and be a good reporter. You can, however, view the world through a theological lense and get a lot of useful data. And that is ultimately the job of the reporter -- to provide useful data, understanding that it is just a small slice of reality, but an important slice that deserves to be made known. I would also put Robert Fisk in the same bucket -- I loved to read him, and enjoyed "Pity the Nation", but then he had all these extreme takes about china-petro-dollar conspiracies that made me groan. But still, he provided useful data that was a slice of reality. Greenwald, Taibbi, all these fall into the same bucket. Good on the ground stories, but ignore the sweeping conclusions.
  - pstuart 5y ago
    > For example, you can't just rant about "greedy healthcare industries" and expect to generate more light than heat. Healthcare is complicated, and cannot be boiled down to a couple of the seven deadly sins. I agree in principle that nuance should be recognized, but there's a very simple story about healthcare: the current system is broken and has no incentive to change, and that a single payer system would be more cost effective and humane.
- 1cvmask 5y ago
  That's why the establishment and corporate journalists are coming after the likes of independent journalists like Glen Greenwald and Matt Taibbi: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/10/what-happened-to-matt-taibbi.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/10/what-happened-to-mat... Also this part in discussion with journalists Chris Hedges and Glenn Greenwald with Edward Snowden is interesting on how corporate media and corporate journalists work to hide the truth or create fake news: https://youtu.be/sP76tolGrho?t=4682 https://youtu.be/sP76tolGrho?t=4682
  - jjeaff 5y ago
    I doubt the establishment cares whether they are good or not. They care that they are stealing eyes away from their own publications.
  - footlose_3815 5y ago
    greenwald went weird after wikileaks. he went even weirder after Trump. I recall him saying some thing is never expect him to during the Trump years
    - pstuart 5y ago
      "russiagate" has the feel of the effective deflection that Karl Rove engineered for GWB over his AWOL incident -- release a convincing fake that substantiated the narrative and then once it's accepted to reveal the forgery and shift all focus to that, rather than Bush's indiscretions. I admire the deftness of that trickery but have no love for the substance of it.
  - pstuart 5y ago
    I've been thrown by Greenwald's and Taibbi's shift to the right. In the case of Taibbi it seems like he's still butthurt by getting beaten up over #metoo stuff. Of course there's plenty to criticize about mainstream media and "leftism", but Taibbi's critiques seem to be significantly aligned with right wing messaging. I "lean left" but like to consider myself as non-ideological and when I checked what he's had to say lately it seems to be devoid of criticism of the right. I'm not writing this to condemn him, I'm genuinely puzzled. Counter examples welcomed. Edit: I was curious about Taibbi's change in tone and searched to see if I was alone in this and came across this: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/10/what-happened-to-matt-taibbi.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/10/what-happened-to-mat...

17 points by 1cvmask 5y ago

Chris Hedges was a very good reporter, a good author (America, The Farewell Tour, is a must read), and an excellent source of current information. He has replaced Noam Chomsky as the person I go out of my way to listen to about politics, social injustice, etc. Matt Taibbi is also pretty good as an information source.

rsj_hn 5y ago
For progressive takes, I recommend Thomas Frank. Chris Hedges is also good in that he has coverage of working class issues, but like the rest of the alt-reporting crowd, there is a lot of strident oversimplification and too much crusading. The temptation to sensationalize and ignore contradictory data is just too great. For example, you can't just rant about "greedy healthcare industries" and expect to generate more light than heat. Healthcare is complicated, and cannot be boiled down to a couple of the seven deadly sins. . You can't view the world through a theological lense and be a good reporter. You can, however, view the world through a theological lense and get a lot of useful data. And that is ultimately the job of the reporter -- to provide useful data, understanding that it is just a small slice of reality, but an important slice that deserves to be made known. I would also put Robert Fisk in the same bucket -- I loved to read him, and enjoyed "Pity the Nation", but then he had all these extreme takes about china-petro-dollar conspiracies that made me groan. But still, he provided useful data that was a slice of reality. Greenwald, Taibbi, all these fall into the same bucket. Good on the ground stories, but ignore the sweeping conclusions.
- pstuart 5y ago
  > For example, you can't just rant about "greedy healthcare industries" and expect to generate more light than heat. Healthcare is complicated, and cannot be boiled down to a couple of the seven deadly sins. I agree in principle that nuance should be recognized, but there's a very simple story about healthcare: the current system is broken and has no incentive to change, and that a single payer system would be more cost effective and humane.
1cvmask 5y ago
That's why the establishment and corporate journalists are coming after the likes of independent journalists like Glen Greenwald and Matt Taibbi: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/10/what-happened-to-matt-taibbi.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/10/what-happened-to-mat... Also this part in discussion with journalists Chris Hedges and Glenn Greenwald with Edward Snowden is interesting on how corporate media and corporate journalists work to hide the truth or create fake news: https://youtu.be/sP76tolGrho?t=4682 https://youtu.be/sP76tolGrho?t=4682
- jjeaff 5y ago
  I doubt the establishment cares whether they are good or not. They care that they are stealing eyes away from their own publications.
- footlose_3815 5y ago
  greenwald went weird after wikileaks. he went even weirder after Trump. I recall him saying some thing is never expect him to during the Trump years
  - pstuart 5y ago
    "russiagate" has the feel of the effective deflection that Karl Rove engineered for GWB over his AWOL incident -- release a convincing fake that substantiated the narrative and then once it's accepted to reveal the forgery and shift all focus to that, rather than Bush's indiscretions. I admire the deftness of that trickery but have no love for the substance of it.
- pstuart 5y ago
  I've been thrown by Greenwald's and Taibbi's shift to the right. In the case of Taibbi it seems like he's still butthurt by getting beaten up over #metoo stuff. Of course there's plenty to criticize about mainstream media and "leftism", but Taibbi's critiques seem to be significantly aligned with right wing messaging. I "lean left" but like to consider myself as non-ideological and when I checked what he's had to say lately it seems to be devoid of criticism of the right. I'm not writing this to condemn him, I'm genuinely puzzled. Counter examples welcomed. Edit: I was curious about Taibbi's change in tone and searched to see if I was alone in this and came across this: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/10/what-happened-to-matt-taibbi.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/10/what-happened-to-mat...