7 ms·

I get my news from Glenn Greenwald, Chris Hedges, Kim Iversen, Jimmy Dore, Max Blumenthal, Matt Tiabbi, Katie Halper, Viva Frei, Louis Rossmann, Alexander Merco

I get my news from Glenn Greenwald, Chris Hedges, Kim Iversen, Jimmy Dore, Max Blumenthal, Matt Tiabbi, Katie Halper, Viva Frei, Louis Rossmann, Alexander Mercouris, among others. That doesn't mean I believe or agree with everything they say, they all have blind spots and biases. But the quality of the news from these sources makes all corporate news look like complete garbage, because it is. I would be shocked if there's anything any corporate news network could do that make make me trust them for one second. Surprisingly, the closest thing to mainstream news coverage worth its salt that I've seen in a very long time is from Buzzfeed News, and on some issues, especially war-related, Tucker Carlson. I am positive that I will live the rest of my life talking to a majority of people primarily informed by corporate news networks (and their fake-populist analogues like reddit) whose raison d'etre is to prop up the same corrupt donors and establishment organizations that have hijacked our government and economy.

havblue 4y ago
While I like a lot of the people you mentioned, I think an issue with them is they don't create enough original news and comment more on why existing news sucks. (Which it does) Greenwald might be an exception though.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> But the quality of the news from these sources makes all corporate news look like complete garbage, because it is I don't follow all of those, but the ones I have seen a lot from (especially Greenwald and Taibbi) seem to have abandoned even the pretense of doing news for pure commentary, and commentary that is usually pretty predictable in content from just the subject matter and the current alignment of political factions. I can understand finding them comforting if your ideological biases align with their approach but mistaking them for quality news sources is... surprising.
- uoaei 4y ago
  For many who are just getting comfortable with the concept of media criticism more broadly, the wordiness and detail of writers like Greenwald and Taibbi can be enchanting, but that's exactly how reactionaries drive engagement -- by seeming like the heady adult in the room, despite their very predictable arguments and abandonment of "journalism" per se, toward "political commentary".
  - meowface 4y ago
    Who is a good independent journalist/blogger? (I'm not even going to ask "who are some" - I'd be happy with just a single person.) I've also found myself disappointed by those two, even if they're not as bad as CNN/Fox or whatever. They're "independent journalists" as a profession, rather than journalists who happen to be independent.
    - wolverine876 4y ago
      I think independence can be greatly overrated. Real news requires resources to investigate, gather, corroborate, etc. An truly independent blogger has little ability to do that.
  - user3939382 4y ago
    That’s a very condescending position, that only those with a lack of exposure would find these sources compelling because they’ve been hoodwinked by their writing style. You go on to cite Glenn Greenwald as an example of not a real journalist, who has a Pulitzer Prize and founded a gigantic news organization. Glenn Greenwald doesn’t “seem like” the adult in the room, he is. The corporate media meanwhile almost exclusively provides commentary on stories from news wires, and where they do break stories, have many times turned out to be false, politically motivated, and never retracted. Chris Hedges spent years of his career in active conflict zones. Max Blumenthal, Aaron Mate, Matt Taibbi — these guys have done tons of original investigative journalism. Your criticism doesn’t land.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > You go on to cite Glenn Greenwald as an example of not a real journalist, who has a Pulitzer Prize and founded a gigantic news organization. Greenwald clearly was a real journalist, but also fairly overtly quit real journalism specifically over journalistic integrity standards (standards which, even prior to his departure, he had, somewhat unusually, left to others when founding a “gigantic news organization”, fairly overtly because while he at the time recognized their importance to journalism, they were not what interested him about it.) I would never accuse Greenwald of being incapable of real journalism, only as having, after building a career in it, decided his calling is in building a personal brand in ideological commentary unconstrained by the norms of journalistic integrity.
- user3939382 4y ago
  > finding them comforting if your ideological biases align Actually this group’s political positions are all over the map. The thread that connects them is a lack of influence from DC/Wall St/arms industry. So in other words the comfort is to the extent that I completely distrust those institutions. For someone who does trust those institutions, corporate media is probably fantastic.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > Actually this group’s political positions are all over the map So? What I said is I understand finding them comforting if your ideological biases align with their approach, not if you happen to share their exact (especially superficial) ideological position. > The thread that connects them is a lack of influence from DC/Wall St/arms industry. That (substantively or superficially) is certainly an angle that can appeal to a particular set of ideological biases, yes.
    - user3939382 4y ago
      > What I said is I understand finding them comforting if your ideological biases align with their approach I apologize for being argumentative, but originally you didn't say "approach" you said "ideological biases" which I interpret on its own as a synonym for political views. > mistaking them for quality news sources is... surprising This statement you didn't really support with anything, though of course you're not obligated to. In the absence of that I'm not sure why you would find it surprising that people with Pulitzer prizes for their work in journalism are considered quality sources. I'd be very curious what you consider a quality source to be.
      - dragonwriter 4y ago
        > > What I said is I understand finding them comforting if your ideological biases align with their approach > I apologize for being argumentative, but originally you didn't say "approach" you said "ideological biases" which I interpret on its own as a synonym for political views. No, I said both (one referring the the reader and the other to the writer) the first time [0], exactly as I did the second time [1]. “I can understand finding them comforting if your ideological biases align with their approach.” I can forgive being argumentative, but a selective quote of a partial sentence in one response followed by a straight-out lie about the same material excluded from that quote in the next is... more than just argumentative. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31599240 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31599240 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31600009 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31600009
- JeremyNT 4y ago
  > I don't follow all of those, but the ones I have seen a lot from (especially Greenwald and Taibbi) seem to have abandoned even the pretense of doing news for pure commentary, and commentary that is usually pretty predictable in content from just the subject matter and the current alignment of political factions. The parent post seems to be conflating punditry with news. Ironically, the very issue CNN et al are so incredibly guilty of... Pundits can be interesting, entertaining, and at times even informative, but using them as a primary source of information seems suspect to me. Their worldviews are (usually, not subtly) skewed towards their ideologies, and they market and sell themselves to people who enjoy confirmation bias. Parent poster may be a more informed consumer of punditry than most, but regardless this seems like an incredibly poor replacement for factual reporting.
pvg 4y ago
Most of these people, in their current incarnations, are highly dependent on 'corporate news' to get actual news to comment on.
smt88 4y ago
Which of those people are investigative journalists? The names I know from the list are just writers of opinion pieces, even if they used to actually do their own investigative work. They wouldn't be a source on, for example, what is happening in Ukraine at the moment (which is the kind of thing I consider "news" rather than commentary).
- keewee7 4y ago
  >They wouldn't be a source on, for example, what is happening in Ukraine at the moment Unfortunately they pretend they are. Half of them make a living being contrarians so for the past few months they have been spewing pro-Russian lies and propaganda.
- drewcoo 4y ago
  I'm not going to read these for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Greenwald https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Greenwald https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hedges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hedges You can look up the others if you like. People like Jimmy Dore don't claim to be investigative journalists, fwiw. Then again, most "news" is fed to us by pretty actors, talking heads, and not active investigative journalists (who should not be judged on prime-time attractiveness). "What's happening in Ukraine" that most people are worried about is actually the geopolitical machinations that might lead to WWIII. The situation is so messed up that Chomsky and Kissinger are both publicly advising everyone to seek peace! When did you ever think you'd see those two on the same side of anything?
  - keewee7 4y ago
    >The situation is so messed up that Chomsky and Kissinger are both publicly advising everyone to seek peace! When did you ever think you'd see those two on the same side of anything? Kissinger was a hawkish warmonger in the 60s and 70s. But since 1982 he has been a lobbyist and his lobbying firm, Kissinger Associates, is currently owned by the U.S.-Russia Business Council. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kissinger_Associates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kissinger_Associates As for Chomsky, he will compulsively oppose whatever the West does. Is he still opposed to the Western interventions against genocidal Serbian forces in the 90s?
keewee7 4y ago
You don't like the mainstream media so you have decided to follow contrarians and "alternative" media. Half of the people you have listed have reduced themselves to unhinged pro-Russian propagandists in the past four months. They went from claiming that Russia would not invade Ukraine to "Here is why Putin is the good guy!" grifters.
- drewcoo 4y ago
  This knee-jerk slander really ought to stop. Especially here on HN. Just because someone doesn't hold mainstream views doesn't make them whatever your version of evil or insane or ____ is. I would hope that people here were attempting to be better informed instead of merely shouting down otherness.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
sydthrowaway 4y ago
root_axis 4y ago
I'm glad you have the freedom to choose your own news sources, but some of your listed sources are just as bad or worse information quality than CNN (e.g. Jimmy Dore, Viva Frei, Tucker Carlson). It's fine for all of us to have our own opinions about which news sources are reliable, but just because someone isn't on cable news doesn't mean they are reliable or free from the influence from "corrupt donors and establishment organizations".
- user3939382 4y ago
  I said Carlson on war issues. Show me where Jimmy Dore or Viva Frei have been wrong. Dore had one major mistake in years of coverage, that I’m aware of, and he posted an apology for it. In the same time span that he exposed dozens of unretracted flat-out lies and falsehoods from major media organizations.
  - kingTug 4y ago
    Jimmy Dore championed Ivermectin last year, to name one. Everyone on that list is a bit of a quack, imo.
    - user3939382 4y ago
      The NIH says that although it's not approved for COVID, more trials are needed for Ivermectin: https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapies/antiviral-therapy/ivermectin/ https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapies/ant... "[The] Panel recommends against the use of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19, except in a clinical trial (AIIa). Additional adequately powered, well-designed, and well-conducted trials are needed to evaluate the effect of ivermectin on COVID-19" So in other words, it has been approved for clinical trials, which are ongoing. So how does believing in its efficacy make him a "quack"? That characterization is more inline with the highly misleading, and in some cases outright false, stories about ivermectin being "horse dewormer".
      - scld 4y ago
muaytimbo 4y ago
I think just the fact that Glenn regularly exposes the government spy to corporate media talking head pipeline makes him have more credibility, to me, than all those networks. These "analysts" are literally trained liars with insane conflicts of interest but instead of noting that the networks instead frame them as experts. Nothing that is spoken by the majority of their guests or contributors is in any way uninfluenced by hidden agendas and, probably, secondary government salaries. I will also say that Tucker may or may not be good on war coverage but the rest of his show is so toxic I'll never know.
gaws 4y ago
> I get my news from Glenn Greenwald, Chris Hedges, Kim Iversen, Jimmy Dore, Max Blumenthal, Matt Tiabbi, Katie Halper, Viva Frei, Louis Rossmann, Alexander Mercouris, among others. My condolences.

havblue 4y ago

While I like a lot of the people you mentioned, I think an issue with them is they don't create enough original news and comment more on why existing news sucks. (Which it does) Greenwald might be an exception though.

dragonwriter 4y ago

> But the quality of the news from these sources makes all corporate news look like complete garbage, because it is I don't follow all of those, but the ones I have seen a lot from (especially Greenwald and Taibbi) seem to have abandoned even the pretense of doing news for pure commentary, and commentary that is usually pretty predictable in content from just the subject matter and the current alignment of political factions. I can understand finding them comforting if your ideological biases align with their approach but mistaking them for quality news sources is... surprising.

uoaei 4y ago
For many who are just getting comfortable with the concept of media criticism more broadly, the wordiness and detail of writers like Greenwald and Taibbi can be enchanting, but that's exactly how reactionaries drive engagement -- by seeming like the heady adult in the room, despite their very predictable arguments and abandonment of "journalism" per se, toward "political commentary".
- meowface 4y ago
  Who is a good independent journalist/blogger? (I'm not even going to ask "who are some" - I'd be happy with just a single person.) I've also found myself disappointed by those two, even if they're not as bad as CNN/Fox or whatever. They're "independent journalists" as a profession, rather than journalists who happen to be independent.
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    I think independence can be greatly overrated. Real news requires resources to investigate, gather, corroborate, etc. An truly independent blogger has little ability to do that.
- user3939382 4y ago
  That’s a very condescending position, that only those with a lack of exposure would find these sources compelling because they’ve been hoodwinked by their writing style. You go on to cite Glenn Greenwald as an example of not a real journalist, who has a Pulitzer Prize and founded a gigantic news organization. Glenn Greenwald doesn’t “seem like” the adult in the room, he is. The corporate media meanwhile almost exclusively provides commentary on stories from news wires, and where they do break stories, have many times turned out to be false, politically motivated, and never retracted. Chris Hedges spent years of his career in active conflict zones. Max Blumenthal, Aaron Mate, Matt Taibbi — these guys have done tons of original investigative journalism. Your criticism doesn’t land.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > You go on to cite Glenn Greenwald as an example of not a real journalist, who has a Pulitzer Prize and founded a gigantic news organization. Greenwald clearly was a real journalist, but also fairly overtly quit real journalism specifically over journalistic integrity standards (standards which, even prior to his departure, he had, somewhat unusually, left to others when founding a “gigantic news organization”, fairly overtly because while he at the time recognized their importance to journalism, they were not what interested him about it.) I would never accuse Greenwald of being incapable of real journalism, only as having, after building a career in it, decided his calling is in building a personal brand in ideological commentary unconstrained by the norms of journalistic integrity.
user3939382 4y ago
> finding them comforting if your ideological biases align Actually this group’s political positions are all over the map. The thread that connects them is a lack of influence from DC/Wall St/arms industry. So in other words the comfort is to the extent that I completely distrust those institutions. For someone who does trust those institutions, corporate media is probably fantastic.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Actually this group’s political positions are all over the map So? What I said is I understand finding them comforting if your ideological biases align with their approach, not if you happen to share their exact (especially superficial) ideological position. > The thread that connects them is a lack of influence from DC/Wall St/arms industry. That (substantively or superficially) is certainly an angle that can appeal to a particular set of ideological biases, yes.
  - user3939382 4y ago
    > What I said is I understand finding them comforting if your ideological biases align with their approach I apologize for being argumentative, but originally you didn't say "approach" you said "ideological biases" which I interpret on its own as a synonym for political views. > mistaking them for quality news sources is... surprising This statement you didn't really support with anything, though of course you're not obligated to. In the absence of that I'm not sure why you would find it surprising that people with Pulitzer prizes for their work in journalism are considered quality sources. I'd be very curious what you consider a quality source to be.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > > What I said is I understand finding them comforting if your ideological biases align with their approach > I apologize for being argumentative, but originally you didn't say "approach" you said "ideological biases" which I interpret on its own as a synonym for political views. No, I said both (one referring the the reader and the other to the writer) the first time [0], exactly as I did the second time [1]. “I can understand finding them comforting if your ideological biases align with their approach.” I can forgive being argumentative, but a selective quote of a partial sentence in one response followed by a straight-out lie about the same material excluded from that quote in the next is... more than just argumentative. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31599240 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31599240 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31600009 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31600009
JeremyNT 4y ago
> I don't follow all of those, but the ones I have seen a lot from (especially Greenwald and Taibbi) seem to have abandoned even the pretense of doing news for pure commentary, and commentary that is usually pretty predictable in content from just the subject matter and the current alignment of political factions. The parent post seems to be conflating punditry with news. Ironically, the very issue CNN et al are so incredibly guilty of... Pundits can be interesting, entertaining, and at times even informative, but using them as a primary source of information seems suspect to me. Their worldviews are (usually, not subtly) skewed towards their ideologies, and they market and sell themselves to people who enjoy confirmation bias. Parent poster may be a more informed consumer of punditry than most, but regardless this seems like an incredibly poor replacement for factual reporting.

pvg 4y ago

Most of these people, in their current incarnations, are highly dependent on 'corporate news' to get actual news to comment on.

smt88 4y ago

Which of those people are investigative journalists? The names I know from the list are just writers of opinion pieces, even if they used to actually do their own investigative work. They wouldn't be a source on, for example, what is happening in Ukraine at the moment (which is the kind of thing I consider "news" rather than commentary).

keewee7 4y ago
>They wouldn't be a source on, for example, what is happening in Ukraine at the moment Unfortunately they pretend they are. Half of them make a living being contrarians so for the past few months they have been spewing pro-Russian lies and propaganda.
drewcoo 4y ago
I'm not going to read these for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Greenwald https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Greenwald https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hedges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hedges You can look up the others if you like. People like Jimmy Dore don't claim to be investigative journalists, fwiw. Then again, most "news" is fed to us by pretty actors, talking heads, and not active investigative journalists (who should not be judged on prime-time attractiveness). "What's happening in Ukraine" that most people are worried about is actually the geopolitical machinations that might lead to WWIII. The situation is so messed up that Chomsky and Kissinger are both publicly advising everyone to seek peace! When did you ever think you'd see those two on the same side of anything?
- keewee7 4y ago
  >The situation is so messed up that Chomsky and Kissinger are both publicly advising everyone to seek peace! When did you ever think you'd see those two on the same side of anything? Kissinger was a hawkish warmonger in the 60s and 70s. But since 1982 he has been a lobbyist and his lobbying firm, Kissinger Associates, is currently owned by the U.S.-Russia Business Council. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kissinger_Associates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kissinger_Associates As for Chomsky, he will compulsively oppose whatever the West does. Is he still opposed to the Western interventions against genocidal Serbian forces in the 90s?

keewee7 4y ago

You don't like the mainstream media so you have decided to follow contrarians and "alternative" media. Half of the people you have listed have reduced themselves to unhinged pro-Russian propagandists in the past four months. They went from claiming that Russia would not invade Ukraine to "Here is why Putin is the good guy!" grifters.

drewcoo 4y ago
This knee-jerk slander really ought to stop. Especially here on HN. Just because someone doesn't hold mainstream views doesn't make them whatever your version of evil or insane or ____ is. I would hope that people here were attempting to be better informed instead of merely shouting down otherness.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

sydthrowaway 4y ago

root_axis 4y ago

I'm glad you have the freedom to choose your own news sources, but some of your listed sources are just as bad or worse information quality than CNN (e.g. Jimmy Dore, Viva Frei, Tucker Carlson). It's fine for all of us to have our own opinions about which news sources are reliable, but just because someone isn't on cable news doesn't mean they are reliable or free from the influence from "corrupt donors and establishment organizations".

user3939382 4y ago
I said Carlson on war issues. Show me where Jimmy Dore or Viva Frei have been wrong. Dore had one major mistake in years of coverage, that I’m aware of, and he posted an apology for it. In the same time span that he exposed dozens of unretracted flat-out lies and falsehoods from major media organizations.
- kingTug 4y ago
  Jimmy Dore championed Ivermectin last year, to name one. Everyone on that list is a bit of a quack, imo.
  - user3939382 4y ago
    The NIH says that although it's not approved for COVID, more trials are needed for Ivermectin: https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapies/antiviral-therapy/ivermectin/ https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapies/ant... "[The] Panel recommends against the use of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19, except in a clinical trial (AIIa). Additional adequately powered, well-designed, and well-conducted trials are needed to evaluate the effect of ivermectin on COVID-19" So in other words, it has been approved for clinical trials, which are ongoing. So how does believing in its efficacy make him a "quack"? That characterization is more inline with the highly misleading, and in some cases outright false, stories about ivermectin being "horse dewormer".
    - scld 4y ago

muaytimbo 4y ago

I think just the fact that Glenn regularly exposes the government spy to corporate media talking head pipeline makes him have more credibility, to me, than all those networks. These "analysts" are literally trained liars with insane conflicts of interest but instead of noting that the networks instead frame them as experts. Nothing that is spoken by the majority of their guests or contributors is in any way uninfluenced by hidden agendas and, probably, secondary government salaries. I will also say that Tucker may or may not be good on war coverage but the rest of his show is so toxic I'll never know.

gaws 4y ago

> I get my news from Glenn Greenwald, Chris Hedges, Kim Iversen, Jimmy Dore, Max Blumenthal, Matt Tiabbi, Katie Halper, Viva Frei, Louis Rossmann, Alexander Mercouris, among others. My condolences.