You know the BEST thing about twitter? Like monkeys trying to recreate Shakespeare, you get enough people writing, and you'll see tons of great phrases like "bleakest sentence."
Why I have never voted - by Chris Cillizza - So What? https://t.co/ytPaQsUDOq— New York Times Pitchbot (@DougJBalloon) February 2, 2023
I'm aware or the pitchbot, but the substack is Cillizza's for real. Or at least a very good impersonation.
I thought they were posting his actual Substack (they sometimes post real links just to show how close to the mark they are).
That part of the tweet doesn't load on the device I use at home. My bad. You're right. So Cillizza is basically doing satirist's work for them. Very Trumpy of him.
Correct, as he writes: The reason — ostensibly — is because I have been a journalist my entire adult life. And I was raised, journalistically speaking, at the Washington Post, which, at the time, was run by a guy named Len Downie. Who has EVER called Chris Cillizza a "journalist"? Anyone who has should be beaten with sticks.
I blocked Cillizza on Twitter a while back. In my childhood years, the local columnist did not vote as he had to cover various local politicians. He was also a better journalist than Chris.
He pretends to be one, the MSM establishment considers him one, lots of other players act as if he was one. Now, his work is terrible and fails to meet the "standards" of "journalism", so there you go.
This is squarely on the US MSM....Massive failure. Biden may have been he most successful P[OTUS sine LBJ as far as accomplishments. This is simply shocking! “Two years into a presidency that the White House casts as the most effective in modern history, President Biden is set to deliver a State of the Union address Tuesday to a skeptical country with a majority of Americans saying they do not believe he has achieved much since taking office,” according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll. “The poll finds that 62 percent of Americans think Biden has accomplished ‘not very much’ or ‘little or nothing’ during his presidency, while 36 percent say he has accomplished ‘a great deal’ or ‘a good amount.’ On many of Biden’s signature initiatives — from improving the country’s infrastructure to making electric vehicles more affordable to creating jobs — majorities of Americans say they do not believe he has made progress.”
The kicker is that they're so damn smug about it. They don't just refuse to take any responsibility for how poorly informed the public is, they're downright arrogant about it.
See, it's the government's job to advertise their accomplishments when the Democrats are in charge. And it's the MSM's job to agree with conservatives in either case.
KAITLAN COLLINS: You asked on Fox News, "is it bioweapons in that balloon? Did that balloon take off from Wuhan?" But you don't have any evidence. JAMES COMER: I asked a question.COLLINS: But you don't have any evidence. COMER: I asked a question. pic.twitter.com/WGVkDXoNhs— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 7, 2023 Why is it so hard for reporters to say “Well….it’s a really ********ing stupid question.”
Or to respond "it's our job to ask questions and it's your job to provide answers based on factual evidence"
Nah…we’ve reached the point where swear words and condescension are required. So perhaps open with your comment then follow with mine?
https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-finish-line This is a brief account of how extraordinarily stupid Jim Vandehei is. Basically, it’s about how long it took him to realize that Roger Ailes wasn’t about journalism but about advocacy.
This is a great thread on what it means when red pilled people like Musk rage against the media in trumpian style. He doesn't mean that efforts should be made to reform media - which is how lefties will partly interpret it. He is stating a widely held belief amongst the silicon valley bro-vestor class that they should not be held accountable to the media at all. Only the markets matter. Media coverage is lies by default. Lots of people dunking on this but I just want to highlight one aspect. When reactionary choads like Musk say "don't trust the press," I think libs & cons hear it differently. Libs hear, "the press is failing to apply rigorous standards of factchecking, sourcing, review, etc." pic.twitter.com/lU5NLScjx5— David Roberts (@drvolts) February 11, 2023
I don't even think he is that stupid...I believe he is more a greedy, money-chasing SOB....He has zero values or principles.
This is an interesting article I came across on the state of media Richard Hanania argues that US liberal media is mostly good, if judged by realistic standards. Those who go full 'fake news' end up believing some real dumb things, and consuming bad info. In this essay, I’m going to argue that everyone is wrong, and the media is actually good and honest. You should be glad it exists, admire those who work in the industry, and hope for its continued influence and success. Scott Alexander recently said that the media very rarely tells explicit lies, a view he got a lot of pushback for. My position is more extreme than his. It’s that while the American media has serious flaws, it is one of the most honest, decent, and fair institutions designed for producing and spreading truth in human history. Like any institution, the press has to be judged according to realistic benchmarks, not simply criticized because it is imperfect or makes mistakes. And if you judge the mainstream media by historical standards, or compare it to anything that competes with it for influence – the right-wing press, popular influencers, social media, foreign sources of news, etc. – the institutions of American journalism come out looking extremely well. Blind hatred of the media is worse for conservatives than anyone else, feeding into the oppositional culture that I’ve criticized before. Most of my friends are high-IQ conservatives, and it is fascinating to watch the extent to which their brains have been optimized towards the goal of “owning the libs.” If you think this is just a problem of Hannity viewers and Turning Point USA types, you are wrong. https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/why-the-media-is-honest-and-good
What a bunch of left wing claptrap. Like here... To have a fair and accurate understanding of the NYT, or any other media outlet, one must start with expectations that are reasonable. Instead of comparing the MSM to some idealized standard of reporting, I prefer to judge it relative to other institutions. Conservatives have tried to build alternatives to the NYT and other major papers. This has been a failed experiment. The right-wing press is more biased, less honest, and simply less competent than those they wish to replace. We know this in part because, among smart people, even conservatives take reporting in the NYT more seriously than what’s said on right-wing news sites. The fact that people will read a book like The Gray Lady Winked is inadvertently telling. Try to imagine a book about all the lies and distortions of Rush Limbaugh’s radio show or Breitbart. No one would read it because we don’t even expect these outlets to even try to be fair or inform their audience beyond feeding them a few talking points and telling them who they’re supposed to hate. And the American right-wing press is probably good by historical standards! Something like Russia Today is probably closer to the norm. The problem with taking a nihilistic posture towards the MSM is that there’s nothing to replace it with. And THEN he goes on to write. . . If someone spends all their time complaining about capitalism without making the case for a realistic alternative, what they’re advocating for is chaos, or more likely, socialism, which is much worse. Likewise, simply trying to discredit the media when it’s in many ways the only means we have to acquire accurate information about the world should be understood as advocating for making society dumber. Intelligent conservatives in their revealed preference show that they largely agree with me. Every few weeks or so, I post links to what I’ve been reading. Probably 80% of the news reporting goes to liberal writers or institutions. Despite my readership being overwhelmingly right-leaning, no one ever questions why I link to so many left-wing sites when there’s all this great reporting being done by conservatives on paleoanthropology or the Ukraine War. No matter how conservative you are, if you want to know what’s happening in Myanmar, the latest news on nuclear fusion, or what researchers have been saying about the pace of scientific innovation, one has to seek out liberal reporters and institutions. Your choices are to rely on leftists to be an informed person, or to live in ignorance. Nothing is stopping conservatives from building their own media institutions, except for their own incompetence and lack of idealism. Even the few conservative institutions that people take seriously like The Wall Street Journal have to rely to a large extent on left-wing staff. There is no shortage of right-wing grifters though, and the movement should spend more time reflecting on this fact and less time criticizing others. Oh. Nevermind.