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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 abou

by 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”.
  - stolenmerch 5y ago
    Taibbi and Weiss, in particular, are interesting (along with Greenwald) because they are giving voice to the concerns of smaller journalists who can't muster a living on Substack. I don't think they are bemoaning their own status so much as pointing out the new yellow journalism of a post-Trump corporate news world. Non-celebrity journalists were not allowed to portray BLM riots as anything but virtuous. Again, hard to prove because of endless counterpoints on all things, but to consume CNN in every waiting room, lobby, etc. in 2020 was to know these protests as "fiery, but mostly peaceful".
    - rtpg 5y ago
      They can totally be anti-BLM, they might not be able to do it at the outlets they like. But that’s their own moral conflict. Weiss tried to get a professor fired, her anti-cancel culture screeds are disingenuous
      - 1cvmask 5y ago
        Yep and she is not a journalistic peer to Taibbi or Greenwald.
      - vanattab 5y ago
        >Weiss tried to get a professor fired, her anti-cancel culture screeds are disingenuous What are you referring to here?
    - pstuart 5y ago
      > were not allowed to portray BLM riots as anything but virtuous Gold star for framing there! Your tell was referring to all of that as BLM riots vs BLM protests. The protests themselves were by definition virtuous (a first amendment action at its core), whereas the riots were an ugly aftermath of that. If those riots bother you, are you bothered by the fact that outside agitators might have fanned the flames? Case in point: https://minnesotareformer.com/2021/06/02/whats-up-with-umbrella-man/ https://minnesotareformer.com/2021/06/02/whats-up-with-umbre...
raxxorrax 5y ago
I doubt this is very accurate. I don't even know Taibbi, but he already made a good impression by his distractors to be honest. Just because it relays a perspective how anyone that disagrees is a conservative or billionaire or has other alleged character flaws. Of course to not fall into the same trap of an reactionary echo chamber, I will still listen to the arguments itself, but I would lie if I said it doesn't already convey a bonus.

by rtpg 5y ago

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”.
- stolenmerch 5y ago
  Taibbi and Weiss, in particular, are interesting (along with Greenwald) because they are giving voice to the concerns of smaller journalists who can't muster a living on Substack. I don't think they are bemoaning their own status so much as pointing out the new yellow journalism of a post-Trump corporate news world. Non-celebrity journalists were not allowed to portray BLM riots as anything but virtuous. Again, hard to prove because of endless counterpoints on all things, but to consume CNN in every waiting room, lobby, etc. in 2020 was to know these protests as "fiery, but mostly peaceful".
  - rtpg 5y ago
    They can totally be anti-BLM, they might not be able to do it at the outlets they like. But that’s their own moral conflict. Weiss tried to get a professor fired, her anti-cancel culture screeds are disingenuous
    - 1cvmask 5y ago
      Yep and she is not a journalistic peer to Taibbi or Greenwald.
    - vanattab 5y ago
      >Weiss tried to get a professor fired, her anti-cancel culture screeds are disingenuous What are you referring to here?
  - pstuart 5y ago
    > were not allowed to portray BLM riots as anything but virtuous Gold star for framing there! Your tell was referring to all of that as BLM riots vs BLM protests. The protests themselves were by definition virtuous (a first amendment action at its core), whereas the riots were an ugly aftermath of that. If those riots bother you, are you bothered by the fact that outside agitators might have fanned the flames? Case in point: https://minnesotareformer.com/2021/06/02/whats-up-with-umbrella-man/ https://minnesotareformer.com/2021/06/02/whats-up-with-umbre...

raxxorrax 5y ago

I doubt this is very accurate. I don't even know Taibbi, but he already made a good impression by his distractors to be honest. Just because it relays a perspective how anyone that disagrees is a conservative or billionaire or has other alleged character flaws. Of course to not fall into the same trap of an reactionary echo chamber, I will still listen to the arguments itself, but I would lie if I said it doesn't already convey a bonus.