Timex
5586
Is there any suggestion that this is the case at all? I don’t think that there is. I don’t think there’s any rain to think that Rampell totally lacks any kind of journalistic integrity, as sirota baldly suggests.
Instead, I think that this is Jacobin doing the same thing as Fox news and far right outlets, where they attempt to suggest that everyone who isn’t them is lying to you, and being manipulated by shady forces.
WaPo is one of the most respected journalistic outlets on the world, and thinking that they are a mouthpiece for Bezos is literally what Fox tells it’s listeners to insulate then from fact checking. Sirota’s doing the same thing.
I’ll agree with you that Sirota is a shameless exaggerator, and that he’s perfectly happy to bring in shaky or unrelated data if seems to support his argument. E.g.
That being said, Sirota does usually have the seed of an argument, and I think he does in this case. The Washington Post has a viewpoint, just like Jacobin has a viewpoint and Tom Chick has a viewpoint. For the Washington Post, that viewpoint is generally Bezos friendly. E.g. when Rampell is reviewing options for decreasing inflation, she sees “increase immigration” as a potential option, but does not see “tax billionaires to decrease money supply” as an option.
Is this because Bezos is sending down memos each morning to the newsroom? Probably not. Is it because writers for the Washington Post recognize at some level which set of opinions are in-bounds, which opinions will gain attention & approval from their managers, and which opinions would get them black balled? Yeah, that is likely a factor. When the Washington Post is hiring or deciding what to publish, are the people making the decision likely to favor people who think like them & agree with them? Yep, that probably played a role.
It’s kind of like the Federalist Society; if you have people are in the same sort of cultural circle, who have spent decades going to the same schools and reading the same books and going to the same churches, then you don’t really need to send out policy directives since these people are going to organically come to similar decisions. Sirota is likely over-stating the direct link between Bezo’s tweet & Rampell’s article, but there is something there.
Or more pithily, It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
Just as a side note, I would add that if you went up to Sirota and called him a Liberal, he would probably spit in your eye. I know the thread title is more of a catch-all, but I thought it was a bit funny.
Aceris
5588
Yes, but the Jacobin’s viewpoint is evil.
I mean, maybe Zac Efron super-fans consider them evil. But I think that most people will agree that this is a fair and considered review:
Timex
5590
Hmm, I don’t know. Everyone involved with things at the WaPo has stated that Bezos doesn’t exert editorial influence on their paper, or at least I have not heard otherwise from actual staff there.
I feel like if Bezos was actually exerting that kind of influence, even in vaguely indirect ways, you would have at least SOME of WaPo’s staff revolt. They’ve got serious journalists there, and serious journalists take things like ethics very seriously. If there were even indirect suggestions to only write about stuff that Bezos agrees with, I cannot believe that all of WaPo’s staff would silently go along with it. It’s not like they only work for WaPo, and depend on Bezos for their meals.
Well, to be clear, Rampell has in the past specifically written about ways to increase the taxes on billionaires, and specifically about how Bezos didn’t pay any income taxes…and she wrote about that in the Washington Post.
On some level, I think that people are going to be doing themselves a disservice if they fall for extreme wings of the media telling them that they can only get their truth from their crackpottery, and that the mainstream media is all being manipulated by <insert enemy here>. Fox news and OAN tell their viewers that WaPo is dominated by the Democrats and Soros. Jacobin tells their readers that it’s dominated by billionaire bezos.
Nah man, neither of those things is true. WaPo is an awesome journalistic outfit, especially when it comes to their investigative and fact reporting. Even if they publish opinion pieces you might not like or agree with, that’s ok. Sometimes it’s good to read stuff you disagree with.
And by every metric I’ve ever seen, WaPo is generally seen as slightly left of center, credible news source. It’s only the crackpots who attack them.
I think there’s a bit of conflation going on here. The original tweet was from Sirota’s personal account. Sirota is an editor with Jacobin and publishes there, but he also publishes at the Guardian & works with Netflix, among other roles. So this tweet isn’t Jacobin taking a broadside at The Washington Post (though they have done so in the past!). If people want to talk about Jacobin, that’s fine, but it is a bit separate from Sirota and what he is currently tweeting. (for the record I like Jacobin & I think they have good bits that you would not find elsewhere, but I only agree with maybe ~30% of what they publish)
This is true, but she wrote about the subject in order to criticize direct wealth taxes, the sorts of taxes that would cost Bezos billions of dollars each year. She is ok with increased inheritance taxes, the kind that would, potentially, cost the Bezos estate in ~50 years. Again, she’s taking the more centrist liberal view over a more leftist liberal view. I don’t think this makes her evil; from what I’ve read she would fit in fine at Qt3.
I haven’t read it, but I hear it is good!
ShivaX
5592
This is so true it hurts.
I know a guy who does exactly this. Mainstream media can’t be trusted, so he trusts some fucking meme-guy on Youtube with an agenda. Jacobin isn’t much above said meme-guy at the end of the day.
People need to take data from multiple sources and understand where those sources are coming from. But that’s work, so they just latch onto something and assume it’s perfect. Above mentioned guy will compliment me on my variety of sources and methodology and then the next day basically call me a Communist, because opposing the talking point he got fed that day means you’re The Enemy.
All media serves an agenda of some sort.
You have to decide what that agenda is, and then decide if that agenda makes their reporting not credible.
ShivaX
5594
Exactly this.
But if you’ve predetermined that everything other than your favorite source is never credible, well…
Like people who say CNN only lies. That’s fucking stupid shit and it was stupid back in 2004 when people said it.
CNN has issues, mostly stemming from trying to be FIRST and allowing nitwit commentators on the air, but they aren’t Tucker Carlson or Hannity.
I believe CNN has bias politically towards latte liberalism (Pelosi’s wheelhouse), you can see it in their ads.
It infuriates me as someone who straddles the SocDem/DemSoc line, but I can look outside the slant and see they generally don’t go for outright lies.
Thrag
5598
Meh, we’re talking white house chief of staff here. Of course he’s going to pick someone he’s had a prior relationship with. It’s not exactly the position you bring new untested people into. Plus as the article states it is all pure speculation.
This tweet just comes off as desparation for democrats in disarray. Who does he think Biden should pick if he replaces his chief of staff?
Unless you’re Trump! MAGA!
True about that, but the problem is the trusted voices are the problem with the Dems.
I never post in this section of the forum unless I am drunk. So I drank, and drunk wisdom is key. I sort of want to object to the title of this thread. Because it assumes liberals are democrats or opposite of conservatives, which are both super false. Morons.
Liberals are not necessarily progressives, leftists, or democrat’s; and conservatives can also liberal, because it’s just people who believe that individual freedom is paramount, and it should be applied equality, even when freedom and equality often come into conflict with one another. There’s other aspects, but that’s the real tricksey part.
That is all for now milksops. Bye! hicc
Crackpot or Liberal? Both, for now. I’m surprised it took this long, frankly…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/08/kavanaugh-threat-arrest-justice/
We’ve seen this from the RW for awhile now. (See threats on Whitmer, others, esp. re: Pandemic). Heck, even the wisconsin shooter/kid was doing this after a fashion, but not too many from the Left lately.
But I suspect it may continue.
Everybody in this thread just posts using their own definition of “liberal”. I might post about a moderate using the classical definition of liberalism, and somebody else might post about a Twitter anarchist using the American “anything left” definition of liberal.
This allows us to not only mock the person but also argue about whether they’re a liberal.
Thanks, I hate it.
Moreover Liberalism just might be the most misunderstood term in America.
In the summer after my senior year in high school, I was working an office job, and told one of my colleagues I was going to a liberal arts college on the other side of the country, and she sneered and said, “uh oh, liberals” (or something to that effect). This was in the middle of the GWB administration, when the right-wing media was busy turning “liberal” into a dirty word; one of the middle managers had pictures of himself with W, iirc, as he’d done some fundraising, but I didn’t appreciate how much the rot had spread in the office. And this was in the Bay Area, too!
