The NYT, most of the press, and various social media empires are partisan hacks? I'm shocked.
This is why there is so much distrust of the media landscape. This is why conspiracy theorists can get away with fabrications: the media we use to check their claims is often just as dishonest.
The Golden Age of the Global Internet is officially over now resulting not from Russia closing itself off (as you would have suspected earlier) but by censorship and exclusion by Western and the social media platforms and the internet fixtures they control - because they don't trust their own people to hear alternate perspectives and narratives and judge on their own. The world's internet will now break down into regional spheres with limited connectivity. It will be a new, much smaller, less connected, more localized and divisive world.
Mach nur weiter... deine Glaubwürdigkeit is eh hin.
In the beginning, there were ABC, NBC, and CBS, and they were good. Midcentury American man could come home after eight hours of work and turn on his television and know where he stood in relation to his wife, and his children, and his neighbors, and his town, and his country, and his world. And that was good. Or he could open the local paper in the morning in the ritual fashion, taking his civic communion with his coffee, and know that identical scenes were unfolding in households across the country.
Over frequencies our American never tuned in to, red-baiting, ultra-right-wing radio preachers hyperventilated to millions. In magazines and books he didnât read, elites fretted at great length about the dislocating effects of television. And for people who didnât look like him, the media had hardly anything to say at all. But our man lived in an Eden, not because it was unspoiled, but because he hadnât considered any other state of affairs. For him, information was in its rightâthat is to say, unquestionedâplace. And that was good, too.
Today, we are lapsed. We understand the media through a metaphorââthe information ecosystemââwhich suggests to the American subject that she occupies a hopelessly denatured habitat. Every time she logs on to Facebook or YouTube or Twitter, she encounters the toxic byproducts of modernity as fast as her fingers can scroll. Here is hate speech, foreign interference, and trolling; there are lies about the sizes of inauguration crowds, the origins of pandemics, and the outcomes of elections.
She looks out at her fellow citizens and sees them as contaminated, like tufted coastal animals after an oil spill, with âdisinformationâ and âmisinformation.â She canât quite define these terms, but she feels that they define the world, online and, increasingly, off.
Everyone scrounges this wasteland for tainted morsels of content, and itâs impossible to know exactly what anyone else has found, in what condition, and in what order. Nevertheless, our American is sure that what her fellow citizens are reading and watching is bad. According to a 2019 Pew survey, half of Americans think that âmade-up news/infoâ is âa very big problem in the country today,â about on par with the âU.S. political system,â the âgap between rich and poor,â and âviolent crime.â But she is most worried about disinformation, because it seems so new, and because so new, so isolable, and because so isolable, so fixable. It has something to do, she knows, with the algorithm. (...)
Hereâs the thing: Smartmatic wasnât even used in the contested states. The company, now a major global player with over 300 employees, pulled out of the United States in 2007 after a controversy over its foundersâ Venezuelan roots, and its only involvement this November was with a contract to help Los Angeles County run its election.
In an era of brazen political lies, Mr. Mugica has emerged as an unlikely figure with the power to put the genie back in the bottle. Last week, his lawyer sent scathing letters to the Fox News Channel, Newsmax and OAN demanding that they immediately, forcefully clear his companyâs name â and that they retain documents for a planned defamation lawsuit. He has, legal experts say, an unusually strong case. And his new lawyer is J. Erik Connolly, who not coincidentally won the largest settlement in the history of American media defamation in 2017, at least $177 million, for a beef producer whose âlean finely textured beefâ was described by ABC News as âpink slime.â
Mr. Connollyâs target is a kind of red slime, the stream of preposterous lies coming from the White House and Republican officials around the country.
âWeâve gotten to this point where thereâs so much falsity that is being spread on certain platforms, and you may need an occasion where you send a message, and thatâs what punitive damages can do in a case like this,â Mr. Connolly said.
Mr. Mugica isnât the only potential plaintiff. Dominion Voting Systems has hired another high-powered libel lawyer, Tom Clare, who has threatened legal action against Ms. Powell and the Trump campaign. Mr. Clare said in an emailed statement that âwe are moving forward on the basis that she will not retract those false statements and that it will be necessary for Dominion to take aggressive legal action, both against Ms. Powell and the many others who have enabled and amplified her campaign of defamation by spreading damaging falsehoods about Dominion.â
These are legal threats any company, even a giant like Fox Corporation, would take seriously. And they could be fatal to the dream of a new âTrump TV,â a giant new media company in the presidentâs image, and perhaps contributing to his bottom line. Newsmax and OAN would each like to become that, and are both burning money to steal ratings from Fox, executives from both companies have acknowledged. They will need to raise significantly more money, or to sell quickly to investors, to build a Fox-style multibillion-dollar empire. But outstanding litigation with the potential of an enormous verdict will be enough to scare away most buyers.
I think the whole Murdoch empire is a bit of an enigma at present. Kind of startling how they pulled the plug on Trump. Maybe it's a succession issue in the family. Or maybe they have other plans about to unfold.
Rupert is pragmatic. He backs the side he thinks is going to win—within reasonable limits. He backed Labour when Tony Blair was on the rise. The WaPo piece below thinks that Fox will project itself as the underdog counterweight to Joe Biden and be even more successful as a result.
It wouldn't surprise me if Rupert is quietly horrified by the monster he helped create, though.
Shep Smith, I think, probably fits the description
The internal tensions at Fox News appear to have contributed to his resignation, according to multiple people at the network and those close to Smith who spoke to The Washington Post for this story. Smith was also in the middle of a long-term contract, making his resignation â and Foxâs agreement to release him â highly unusual.
So did a posse of reporters assemble and claim that Shepard Smith was a threat to their safety, and needed to be removed for his thoughtcrimes? If so they didn't publish a manifesto.
I think the whole Murdoch empire is a bit of an enigma at present. Kind of startling how they pulled the plug on Trump. Maybe it's a succession issue in the family. Or maybe they have other plans about to unfold.
I liked this a lot: "Cotton's op-ed was poorly argued, constitutionally unsound, morally questionable, and factually flawed. But Cotton is not some random right-wing kook. The fact that he is a key policy maker of the Trump era might suggest that publishing his authoritarian dictates is a better course of action than keeping Times readers in the dark about them."
To be fair, and I'm sure you agree, there is equal and opposite outrage when a Fox (e.g.) personality allows "wrong" thought to creep through. Not sure it's led to any resignations but someone here can probably confirm.
The point of the article wasn't that the editor resigned, but the internal lynch mob that assembled to force that—and that that mob was able to manipulate the paper's management.
I very much doubt that would happen at Fox.
Shep Smith, I think, probably fits the description
The internal tensions at Fox News appear to have contributed to his resignation, according to multiple people at the network and those close to Smith who spoke to The Washington Post for this story. Smith was also in the middle of a long-term contract, making his resignation — and Fox’s agreement to release him — highly unusual.
I think the whole Murdoch empire is a bit of an enigma at present. Kind of startling how they pulled the plug on Trump. Maybe it's a succession issue in the family. Or maybe they have other plans about to unfold.
I liked this a lot: "Cotton's op-ed was poorly argued, constitutionally unsound, morally questionable, and factually flawed. But Cotton is not some random right-wing kook. The fact that he is a key policy maker of the Trump era might suggest that publishing his authoritarian dictates is a better course of action than keeping Times readers in the dark about them."
To be fair, and I'm sure you agree, there is equal and opposite outrage when a Fox (e.g.) personality allows "wrong" thought to creep through. Not sure it's led to any resignations but someone here can probably confirm.
The point of the article wasn't that the editor resigned, but the internal lynch mob that assembled to force thatâand that that mob was able to manipulate the paper's management.
I very much doubt that would happen at Fox.
Shep Smith, I think, probably fits the description
The internal tensions at Fox News appear to have contributed to his resignation, according to multiple people at the network and those close to Smith who spoke to The Washington Post for this story. Smith was also in the middle of a long-term contract, making his resignation â and Foxâs agreement to release him â highly unusual.
I liked this a lot: "Cotton's op-ed was poorly argued, constitutionally unsound, morally questionable, and factually flawed. But Cotton is not some random right-wing kook. The fact that he is a key policy maker of the Trump era might suggest that publishing his authoritarian dictates is a better course of action than keeping Times readers in the dark about them."
To be fair, and I'm sure you agree, there is equal and opposite outrage when a Fox (e.g.) personality allows "wrong" thought to creep through. Not sure it's led to any resignations but someone here can probably confirm.
The point of the article wasn't that the editor resigned, but the internal lynch mob that assembled to force that—and that that mob was able to manipulate the paper's management.
Not worried about Tom Cotton finding a platform, I'm worried that the NYT media bubble so many people are in is getting bricked up. Here's a little more on the topic.
I liked this a lot: "Cotton's op-ed was poorly argued, constitutionally unsound, morally questionable, and factually flawed. But Cotton is not some random right-wing kook. The fact that he is a key policy maker of the Trump era might suggest that publishing his authoritarian dictates is a better course of action than keeping Times readers in the dark about them."
To be fair, and I'm sure you agree, there is equal and opposite outrage when a Fox (e.g.) personality allows "wrong" thought to creep through. Not sure it's led to any resignations but someone here can probably confirm.
"The NYT (as an institutionâthere a a few writers on staff who aren't completely comfortable with this, but it can't be long before they make the mob that seems to be running the place feel "unsafe") has no problem with concentration of power, it just wants it in the hands of people who think like they do."
I'm not even going to ask you to prove this because you love to make sweeping generalizations without backing them up. And then you *dodge* when asked to support your claims.
If libertarian politicians had more common sense than I think people and voters would pay more attention to them. No, letting the American public determine which companies should get Covid-related financial support/relief from the federal government is not a good ideaâsorry, Jo Jorgensen. And Jo, letting individuals determine whether to wear masks in public has not worked out well for the US.
I do hope this wasn't too long for you to read, Lazy8.
I don't think the NYT is particularly problematic or worrisome in that context. I can certainly see a centrist and establishmentarian streak as well.
and
haresfur wrote:
It's pretty hard to consider the staff as left-leaning anymore when the tea party and trump have shifted the right wing so far to the extreme that pretty much anyone, including true libertarians could be classified as left-leaning.
This is the problem with one-dimensional political thinking: it's left or it's right. The rainbow is reduced to shades of gray.
There is more than one way to be a fan of entrenched power. Left and right don't define it. Venezuela has an authoritarian regime, so does the Philippines. The NYT (as an institutionâthere a a few writers on staff who aren't completely comfortable with this, but it can't be long before they make the mob that seems to be running the place feel "unsafe") has no problem with concentration of power, it just wants it in the hands of people who think like they do.
If you can't figure out where libertarians belong on your map it's because you map needs more dimensions. Defining one's political identity based on what other people think is like setting your thermostat based on the temperatures in Jakarta and Moose Jaw.
"The NYT (as an institutionâthere a a few writers on staff who aren't completely comfortable with this, but it can't be long before they make the mob that seems to be running the place feel "unsafe") has no problem with concentration of power, it just wants it in the hands of people who think like they do."
I'm not even going to ask you to prove this because you love to make sweeping generalizations without backing them up. And then you *dodge* when asked to support your claims.
If libertarian politicians had more common sense than I think people and voters would pay more attention to them. No, letting the American public determine which companies should get Covid-related financial support/relief from the federal government is not a good idea—sorry, Jo Jorgensen. And Jo, letting individuals determine whether to wear masks in public has not worked out well for the US.
I do hope this wasn't too long for you to read, Lazy8.
(...) Perhaps the most influential media document of the last four years is a chart by a co-director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, Yochai Benkler. The study showed that a dense new right-wing media sphere had emerged â and that the mainstream news ârevolved around the agenda that the right-wing media sphere set.â
Mr. Bannon had known this, too. He described his strategy as âanchor left, pivot right,â and even as he ran Breitbart News, he worked to place attacks on Hillary Clinton in mainstream outlets. The validating power of those outlets was clear when The New York Times and Washington Post were given early access in the spring of 2015 to the book âClinton Cash,â an investigation of the Clinton familyâs blurring of business, philanthropic and political interests by the writer Peter Schweizer.
Mr. Schweizer is still around this cycle. But you wonât find his work in mainstream outlets. Heâs over on Breitbart, with a couple of Hunter Biden stories this month.
And the fact that Mr. Bobulinski emerged not in the pages of the widely respected Journal but in a statement to Breitbart was essentially Mr. Bannonâs nightmare, and Mr. Benklerâs fondest wish. And a broad array of mainstream outlets, unpersuaded that Hunter Bidenâs doings tie directly to the former vice president, have largely kept the story off their front pages, and confined to skeptical explanations of what Mr. Trump and his allies are claiming about his opponent.
âSO USA TODAY DIDNâT WANT TO RUN MY HUNTER BIDEN COLUMN THIS WEEK,â the conservative writer Glenn Reynolds complained Oct. 20, posting the article instead to his blog. President Trump himself hit a wall when he tried to push the Hunter Biden narrative onto CBS News.
âThis is â60 Minutes,â and we canât put on things we canât verify,â Lesley Stahl told him. Mr. Trump then did more or less the same thing as Mr. Reynolds, posting a video of his side of the interview to his own blog, Facebook.
The mediaâs control over information, of course, is not as total as it used to be. The people who own printing presses and broadcast towers canât actually stop you from reading leaked emails or unproven theories about Joe Bidenâs knowledge of his sonâs business. But what Mr. Benklerâs research showed was that the elite outletsâ ability to set the agenda endured in spite of social media.
We should have known it, of course. Many of our readers, screaming about headlines on Twitter, did. And Mr. Trump knew it all along â one way to read his endless attacks on the establishment media is as an expression of obsession, a form of love. This week, you can hear howls of betrayal from people who have for years said the legacy media was both utterly biased and totally irrelevant. (...)
I don't think the NYT is particularly problematic or worrisome in that context. I can certainly see a centrist and establishmentarian streak as well.
and
haresfur wrote:
It's pretty hard to consider the staff as left-leaning anymore when the tea party and trump have shifted the right wing so far to the extreme that pretty much anyone, including true libertarians could be classified as left-leaning.
This is the problem with one-dimensional political thinking: it's left or it's right. The rainbow is reduced to shades of gray.
There is more than one way to be a fan of entrenched power. Left and right don't define it. Venezuela has an authoritarian regime, so does the Philippines. The NYT (as an institution—there a a few writers on staff who aren't completely comfortable with this, but it can't be long before they make the mob that seems to be running the place feel "unsafe") has no problem with concentration of power, it just wants it in the hands of people who think like they do.
If you can't figure out where libertarians belong on your map it's because you map needs more dimensions. Defining one's political identity based on what other people think is like setting your thermostat based on the temperatures in Jakarta and Moose Jaw.
I don't think we need to worry too much about Mr. Cotton being deplatformed any time soon. I suspect he's a beloved regular on platforms that cater to the right.
As such, that makes it all a bit of a straw man, seeing how Mr. Cotton's screed still exists (now with NYT mea culpa) and how the criticism in the article is more nuanced than simply censoring a frothing law-and-order hawk. It could've used some editing...
Not worried about Tom Cotton finding a platform, I'm worried that the NYT media bubble so many people are in is getting bricked up. Here's a little more on the topic.
