Mainstream Media

Trump’s interest in buying Newsweek just skyrocketed.

NYTimes Publisher: We need to spice up our editorial page. Today the Post hired Megan McArdle. She’s young …

NYTimes Editor: She’s 44.

NYTimes Publisher: … and with-it. She’s a libertarian. All the kids today are libertarians. We need someone kind of like that. But here’s the twist - not a libertarian, someone familiar with technology. Whatayacallit, a hacker. But a woman! With attitude. And short hair.

NYTimes Editor: I see. Someone like a Wired magazine …

NYTimes Publisher: Exactly!

NYTimes Editor: … stereotype from 1996?

NYTimes Publisher: Sure. Someone who you’d say, “I can’t believe this person is writing for the Times!” Someone “extreme,” like the kids say. What’s that website that’s so big with the hackers, where all the mimes come from?

NYTimes Editor: Where all the … You mean 4Chan? Are you sure?

NYTimes Publisher: Sure, that’s it. Someone who writes like that.

NYTimes Editor: So. You want someone who constantly uses derogatory slurs, and when they get into a Twitter fight they say things like, “you are laying waste to your own fucking ideals, you shit eating hypersensitive little crybaby fag?”

NYTimes Publisher: That’s pretty good. But if she was in touch with today’s politics that would be even better.

NYTimes Editor: How about if she says that she’s perfectly aware they’re terrible people, but she’s nonethless friends with a bunch of Neo-Nazis?

NYTimes Publisher: Perfect! We’ll get her to write think pieces like … Underappreciated by the elites, Neo-Nazis are responsible for some of America’s greatest mimes. That sort of thing. So long as she’s young …

NYTimes Editor: She’s 44.

NYTimes Publisher: … she’ll do. Don’t bother with a background check or anything, hire her today. What’s her name?

NYTimes Editor: Quinn Norton.

And just like that, Quinn Norton appears to be out at the New York Times.

Sadly, this means there will be no one at the Times to teach their senior staff how to do the cyber and recover their Facebook passwords.

That the person that posted stuff like this:


ever got that far is fucking insanity.

It’s just unreal that a major paper can’t even vet their potential new hires even a tiny little bit.

If I was giving any money to the NYT, that would have stopped, today. But I’m not, so I don’t know whether to grab a pitchfork or torch. {insert Why not both? meme}

On the other hand, I guess they’re just taking cues from the White House. Wife abuse? What? Who knew?!

It’s too bad they don’t have anyone on staff who is able to conduct research or investigations prior to making a high-profile offer to a new hire.

Not to keep repeating myself, but fuck the New York Times.

Who knew googling someone’s background was so complicated???

Maybe they really do need someone to come over and hold grandma’s hand and explain how to do things on the internet?

Just to be clear, since I have no idea who that Quinn person is, that tweet is pointing out that the idea that God doesn’t want black people talking to kids is in fact wrong and stupid, right?

I mean, other than saying “Nigger”, which presumably is because that’s what some other person said, is it offensive somehow?

I may not be reading it right.

I think the idea is that white people aren’t ever allowed to use the N word, ironically or otherwise.

Bill Maher found that out in a hurry.

So Quinn does not profess to believe in any white supremacy BS. She in fact has said she disagrees with them. However, she asserts that she uses “their language” to talk with them (hence the usage of numerous slurs). While I can understand the theoretical basis behind this approach, it’s literally being tone deaf for the sake of being tone deaf. That seems to be the opposite kind of person to have on an editorial board.

There’s a thoughtful piece about the Quinn Norton thing over on Wonkette (no really!) It’s by Robyn Pennacchia:

Norton has defended her “friendship” with [weev] by noting that she doesn’t share his politics and thinks that “white folks need to engage with the racists in their life.” … It’s also clear from [weev’s] behavior that his “friendship” with Norton has not, in any way, tempered his views. They’ve been friends for years, so whatever she’s supposedly doing to “engage” him is clearly not working. That, however, didn’t matter to her because he and all the other neo-Nazis she hangs with wouldn’t want to throw her into the ovens anyway. Because they are friends. … Having an opinion column in a major paper like that is a big freaking deal. Having a job where you give your opinion, in general, is a big freaking deal. It’s a reward, really. Not everyone in the world can have that job. The choices a newspaper or other media outlet makes in giving that platform to people must be responsible, and not just done in the name of some “both-sides-ism.” Surely there are tech columnists who are not actual friends with Nazis.

Yeah this is really key.

If you think, say, ‘I’m friends with this white supremacist who wants to put the Jews in ovens’ while at the same time knowing that a Jew cannot be friends with that person, you are in a sense tacitly acknowledging some immanent difference between yourself and a Jew. And I am not sure how that can be consistent with a non-racist, or even aspirationally non-racist, worldview that says ‘we are all humans.’

Of course there probably are Jewish Nazis just as there were black slave owners. It’s a weird world we live in…

Engaging with white supremacists can be beneficial… like that black musician who essentially dismantled the KKK in Maryland simply by talking with them so they could understand that black people aren’t the animals the KKK suggests. That was hugely beneficial.

But saying that you excuse their beliefs because they don’t specifically target you? That makes you part of the problem.

“WE ARE HIRING MORE DIPSHITS.”
(A small twitter story. Scrolling impaired can ignore.)

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