5 ms·

What Happened to Matt Taibbi?

35 points by 1cvmask 5y ago

rospaya 5y ago
Just another victim of the ultra-polarising US media machine that's halfway between dumbed down mass entertainment and media wings of political and commercial interests. Some more, some less, but it's increasingly forcing people to choose sides, however stupid or radical they might be. The saddest thing is that there's no way it's going to get better, only worse.
vfclists 5y ago
Nothing.
Veliladon 5y ago
I think the better question is "who actually cares?"
david927 5y ago
It's almost as if the piece is asking him, "Why are you still trying to be a journalist? No one else is."
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  That's exactly what this piece is.
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  Seems to me the second-to-last paragraph is asking, why be a shit-flinger against left-biased journalism when there are more difficult substantial reporting that he could do with his talent; flinging shit against those establishments is easy and there are many doing it.
  - garren 5y ago
    I just read his post on NPR [0] and as a frequent listener of NPR, I am surprised to admit that I don’t entirely disagree. Taking a critical stance against established media outlets that one was previously closely aligned with, that seems difficult and substantial to me. [0] https://taibbi.substack.com/p/nprs-brilliant-self-own https://taibbi.substack.com/p/nprs-brilliant-self-own
rtpg 5y ago
I remember while back there was a Chapo interview with him where he was like… arguing about how you would get absolutely destroyed by the media for talking about looters during the Floyd protests. All while basically all coverage had this angle! Even (especially) from the “precious liberal media” like the times and the Washington post. But of course people Taibbi know complained about this, and he didn’t like it. The conservative mindset is not satisfied just by winning on the fundamentals. They must have everyone also like them as well. This explains the whining by Taibbi, the packed room of multi-millionaires to billionaires to listen to Bari Weiss talk about cancel culture, and to pg tweeting about how rich people are under attack because people dare to not like him. Given that this is a mindset basically focused around being liked, it would be nice to say “social media caused this” but this has probably been around for much longer.
- stolenmerch 5y ago
  > All while basically all coverage had this angle! It's nearly impossible to analyze this because each person can point to their personally curated news feed and "prove" any sort of bias. If you listen to a lot of Chapo Trap House, you are getting one view. If you listen to a lot of Daily Wire you are getting another. The point here is how the big, mainstream, corporate news rooms reacted to the aftermath of the George Floyd killing. You can show the editorial decisions to not use the word "rioter" or "looter" in favor of "protester". You can see how many of them gave air time to radical left-wing positions such as "In Defense of Looting"[0]. My personal read of the situation lines up with Matt Taibbi's. Basically, you had to publicly show support for all BLM riots/protests or risk losing your reputation or job. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/08/27/906642178/one-authors-argument-in-defense-of-looting https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/08/27/906642178...
  - rtpg 5y ago
    I put NYT and Wapo in scare-quote “liberal” for a reason. Those are the mainstream things. Fox News is hiring, OAN is hiring. And hell, if you’re an opinion writer you could get away with a bunch of factual flexibility at the Times as well. Yeah Code Switch covered a book release covering a way of describing the issue one way. Do we need to dig up all the air time given to people who thought cops should start “applying the law”? I do agree that establishing what the “real bias” was is hard. But Taibbi is just wrong on this. Like Weiss, they are confounding “people will yell at me” with “I will lose my job”, and confounding that with “I will not be able to practice journalism”.
vfclists 5y ago
TLDR about what in particular?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
GeekyBear 5y ago
He became one of a diminishing number of liberal journalists who don't routinely put the interests of political party partisanship ahead of journalism?
numair 5y ago
This is your friendly reminder that NY Magazine, previously owned by the late great Bruce Wasserstein, is now a Vox publication. I don’t think I need to say much more about that... https://nymag.com/press/2019/09/vox-media-and-new-york-media-come-together.html https://nymag.com/press/2019/09/vox-media-and-new-york-media...
bigodbiel 5y ago
Glad the article answered the question: Substack happened.
malshe 5y ago
In his own words “I feel pretty strongly that the only thing that’s changed is that the New York media world once agreed with the things I was saying, and now they don’t.” That’s really what has happened. I have been reading his work for a long time, and for me he always comes across as a honest and principled journalist. I may not agree with everything he says but that doesn’t mean he has changed!
- ddingus 5y ago
  This is the right answer. I have read his work as well and I see very little overall change in his professional work.
cblconfederate 5y ago
> What Happened to Matt Taibbi? He's fine
unclebucknasty 5y ago
Taibbi, Greenwald, Naomi Klein, Andrew Sullivan--they're the same lot. They've managed to turn a corner from constructive critique of government to profound Anti-Americanism of the type invoked by our adversaries. The quality of their "change" has a strikingly similar feel, as if they were transformed by a similar process. The tell-tale sign with these types is the rank hypocrisy. They reserve the harshest criticism for some, while giving others a pass or even endorsement for similar behavior. They preen as if they are objectively above it all, while revealing their agenda with every word from their pens and mouths.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
whatwhaaaaat 5y ago
The censorship on this site is outrageous. Enabling show dead shows an astounding number of flagged comments that are not factually wrong, not trolls, and do not detract from the situation. They simply do not cater to the sensibilities (or lack there of) of whatever admin keeps going on political hacker news benders. If you’re going to remove anything truthful that does not align with you politically at least remove the false comments too.

35 points by 1cvmask 5y ago

Just another victim of the ultra-polarising US media machine that's halfway between dumbed down mass entertainment and media wings of political and commercial interests. Some more, some less, but it's increasingly forcing people to choose sides, however stupid or radical they might be. The saddest thing is that there's no way it's going to get better, only worse.

vfclists 5y ago

Nothing.

Veliladon 5y ago

I think the better question is "who actually cares?"

david927 5y ago

It's almost as if the piece is asking him, "Why are you still trying to be a journalist? No one else is."

rsj_hn 5y ago
That's exactly what this piece is.
bellyfullofbac 5y ago
Seems to me the second-to-last paragraph is asking, why be a shit-flinger against left-biased journalism when there are more difficult substantial reporting that he could do with his talent; flinging shit against those establishments is easy and there are many doing it.
- garren 5y ago
  I just read his post on NPR [0] and as a frequent listener of NPR, I am surprised to admit that I don’t entirely disagree. Taking a critical stance against established media outlets that one was previously closely aligned with, that seems difficult and substantial to me. [0] https://taibbi.substack.com/p/nprs-brilliant-self-own https://taibbi.substack.com/p/nprs-brilliant-self-own

rtpg 5y ago

I remember while back there was a Chapo interview with him where he was like… arguing about how you would get absolutely destroyed by the media for talking about looters during the Floyd protests. All while basically all coverage had this angle! Even (especially) from the “precious liberal media” like the times and the Washington post. But of course people Taibbi know complained about this, and he didn’t like it. The conservative mindset is not satisfied just by winning on the fundamentals. They must have everyone also like them as well. This explains the whining by Taibbi, the packed room of multi-millionaires to billionaires to listen to Bari Weiss talk about cancel culture, and to pg tweeting about how rich people are under attack because people dare to not like him. Given that this is a mindset basically focused around being liked, it would be nice to say “social media caused this” but this has probably been around for much longer.

stolenmerch 5y ago
> All while basically all coverage had this angle! It's nearly impossible to analyze this because each person can point to their personally curated news feed and "prove" any sort of bias. If you listen to a lot of Chapo Trap House, you are getting one view. If you listen to a lot of Daily Wire you are getting another. The point here is how the big, mainstream, corporate news rooms reacted to the aftermath of the George Floyd killing. You can show the editorial decisions to not use the word "rioter" or "looter" in favor of "protester". You can see how many of them gave air time to radical left-wing positions such as "In Defense of Looting"[0]. My personal read of the situation lines up with Matt Taibbi's. Basically, you had to publicly show support for all BLM riots/protests or risk losing your reputation or job. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/08/27/906642178/one-authors-argument-in-defense-of-looting https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/08/27/906642178...
- rtpg 5y ago
  I put NYT and Wapo in scare-quote “liberal” for a reason. Those are the mainstream things. Fox News is hiring, OAN is hiring. And hell, if you’re an opinion writer you could get away with a bunch of factual flexibility at the Times as well. Yeah Code Switch covered a book release covering a way of describing the issue one way. Do we need to dig up all the air time given to people who thought cops should start “applying the law”? I do agree that establishing what the “real bias” was is hard. But Taibbi is just wrong on this. Like Weiss, they are confounding “people will yell at me” with “I will lose my job”, and confounding that with “I will not be able to practice journalism”.

vfclists 5y ago

TLDR about what in particular?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

GeekyBear 5y ago

He became one of a diminishing number of liberal journalists who don't routinely put the interests of political party partisanship ahead of journalism?

numair 5y ago

This is your friendly reminder that NY Magazine, previously owned by the late great Bruce Wasserstein, is now a Vox publication. I don’t think I need to say much more about that... https://nymag.com/press/2019/09/vox-media-and-new-york-media-come-together.html https://nymag.com/press/2019/09/vox-media-and-new-york-media...

bigodbiel 5y ago

Glad the article answered the question: Substack happened.

malshe 5y ago

In his own words “I feel pretty strongly that the only thing that’s changed is that the New York media world once agreed with the things I was saying, and now they don’t.” That’s really what has happened. I have been reading his work for a long time, and for me he always comes across as a honest and principled journalist. I may not agree with everything he says but that doesn’t mean he has changed!

ddingus 5y ago
This is the right answer. I have read his work as well and I see very little overall change in his professional work.

cblconfederate 5y ago

> What Happened to Matt Taibbi? He's fine

unclebucknasty 5y ago

Taibbi, Greenwald, Naomi Klein, Andrew Sullivan--they're the same lot. They've managed to turn a corner from constructive critique of government to profound Anti-Americanism of the type invoked by our adversaries. The quality of their "change" has a strikingly similar feel, as if they were transformed by a similar process. The tell-tale sign with these types is the rank hypocrisy. They reserve the harshest criticism for some, while giving others a pass or even endorsement for similar behavior. They preen as if they are objectively above it all, while revealing their agenda with every word from their pens and mouths.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

whatwhaaaaat 5y ago

The censorship on this site is outrageous. Enabling show dead shows an astounding number of flagged comments that are not factually wrong, not trolls, and do not detract from the situation. They simply do not cater to the sensibilities (or lack there of) of whatever admin keeps going on political hacker news benders. If you’re going to remove anything truthful that does not align with you politically at least remove the false comments too.