3635

Which is why the argument of “I bet you didn’t read the article” is a poor one. No, I didn’t - I’m not giving them the click that justifies publishing a poorly framed article with a bad headline that is completely ignoring the current situation. It’s not much but it’s all I’m able to do to have my voice heard, as it were.

3636

Have you read the piece?

I mean, a screenshot of the tile, and a tweet from some random is certainly powerful, but maybe not indicative of a complete view of what the article says.

If you really want to know, I suggested what the “point” of such a piece might be. It presents things that were fine during Trump’s administration, which the writers don’t actually think are bad (a note here, assume of them are things that I actually do think are bad, but many of those on the left would agree with).

The idea here would be to negate the idea that everything trump did is inherently bad, and must be reversed. Some of the subsections talk about how Trump, by being so incredibly awful, actually highlighted how awful a good chunk of America is.

Now, maybe someone here could read that as being an authoritarian apologist, but I don’t see how.

Then you don’t fucking know anything, dude.

It’s fine if you don’t want to read it, but your opinion of the article based on a tweet isn’t worth shit.

This is a huge part of the problem with things these days. Tons of people retweeting stuff without any direct understanding of anything. Indeed, people tweeting and retweeting screenshots of a title, with the intention that most people won’t read the article that the tweet is talking about anyway. They don’t want you to actually think about the subject at all. They just want you to have the specific thought that they are implanting into your head.

3637

It’s a good thing I didn’t offer an opinion of the article then, isn’t it? But you know, keep up the condescending, I-know-better-than-you shtick, dude.

3638

I have, yes. To be totally upfront, I did so more in a speedread fashion but I did hit each point they raised.

Is this a policy stance by the Democratic leadership? If Biden, Pelosi, or someone else in the party is pushing to reverse a particular policy that Trump got right (even if in the fashion of a stopped clock), I think it would be fair to point out that it’s the correct policy and that we shouldn’t eliminate it just because Trump was the one who initiated it. But that’s not what this piece is.

3639

Who advances that idea? What real and practical purchase does it have on the public consciousness, that it must be negated?

Yes, that’s a better way of putting it.

3640

“I think an article highlighting what Mussolini got right is unnecessary and problematic.”

“How do you know if you don’t read it hmmmm?”

3641

EDIT: Post removed because it is besides the point and I can see the derail already. :)

3642

I mean, if you kill everyone, some of them will probably have deserved it.

3643

It literally is what that piece is.

You can say, “oh, well I don’t think that’s necessary,” but who gives a shit?

You have people here who are literally saying that they are going to cancel their subscription to the WaPo, because they dared to publish this one piece.

This one article, which is in no way complimentary of Trump.

Folks in this forum are sounding like my parents these days, thinking that the WaPo is somehow evil because… They said something you didn’t like once?

That view is going to lead people down the road to consuming totally insane trash. That’s what leads people to reading crazy Marxist garbage, and thinking it’s real and reasonable.

Sometimes, you need to read stuff that says things you don’t already believe. That’s good for us.

This idea that a piece like this will somehow make everyone think trump is cool, is nonsense on it’s face. Especially since virtually everyone here didn’t even read it.

3644

Damn, that is one slippery slope!

You’re right, slippery slope arguments like that are silly.

3645

It’s literally not. What Biden policy is it pushing back against? Are they trying to resurrect Soleimani? What Democratic policies is this pushing back against? Specifically. Let’s talk about and argue against those that don’t make sense and would in turn be bad policy!

I 100% am in agreement with you but that’s not what my issue with the article is, which I’ve tried to explain. On fundamental principles I think you and I are very often on the same page, but I often feel like I’m viewing things with a… context that you’re not seeing or sharing? I’m not saying that my view is the correct one, just that without that context I find it difficult to communicate on the same wavelength. Talking past each other a little bit, is what I mean. I remember having a similar problem in one of the cop shooting threads, I just couldn’t figure out how to build that bridge before the thread got locked. :)

3646

It’s not pushing back against any actual policy… But who cares? Since when is that a requirement to publish an article?

When you read this article, since you are one of the few who has, does it read as trump apologism to you?

Because it definitely does not, to me. And yet, that’s what people here are saying. Despite the fact that none of the authors in that piece were able to avoid directly criticizing trump in their subsections.

3647

The individual contributions don’t read like apologism, no. The fact that the various contributors had to preface each of their sections with “Look, this was pretty shit of Trump but if you look at it in the right light, it maybe has a silver lining?” is telling but also reinforced my “What is the point of this piece?” reaction.

Let me try explaining my issue in this way. While of course it’s important, lets put aside the actual content of the article aside for a moment and just look at the editorial side of things. In July 2021, someone or a group of someones at the Washington Post pitched an idea that the paper should write a piece about all the “good” Trump did. I know a paper can walk and chew bubblegum at the same time so it’s not like they ceased other coverage, but what were the motivations to write that piece now? Why would it be newsworthy or important at this point in time? In the context of July 2021 where the Trump-led GOP is doing everything they can to make sure that 2020 was our last fair election?

EDIT: To spell it out, my issues with the piece aren’t that it’s an opinion or view I disagree with. My issues are:

  1. I feel like the piece was motivated by wanting to generate clicks, not reporting relevant or important news.
  2. I feel like in their drive to get those clicks, they put out a headline (intentionally, see point 1) that looks to whitewash and rehabilitate Trump. An authoritarian who today is driving his party to destroy free elections in this country.

Now let’s not be absurd. A single article in a single paper is not going to end Democracy or install Trump in the White House again. But what if they and other media outlets want to get stuff like this out every day, every week, because dang if it doesn’t drive traffic from everyone! That to me is irresponsible and a harm to our society. Totally legal of course, but not something I’m super keen to be supporting, you know? Look at all the normalization of Trump during his campaign and his four years in office. All the thousands of hours of coverage CNN and others gave him while simultaneously “but her Benghazi emails”, how it all contributed to him ending up in the White House and how catastrophic that was for our country. I see this sort of thing in the same way.

3648

Honestly, irresponsible clickbait has been trending upward from WaPo in general lately:

image

That’s a horrifying misrepresentation of the facts practically custom-built to justify vaccine “resistance.”

3649

…and…

So, the public good in the article is to negate the idea that everything Trump did was inherently bad and must be reversed, but no one is actually espousing that idea? That’s very clear, thanks.

3650

If it wasn’t just routine shitty clickbait then it wouldn’t have had such a routine shitty clickbait headline.

3651

Sure.

Firstly, the question builds on a framing device, an implicit and false assumption. The implied idea is that all news media (or maybe, all good news media) weighs (or should weigh) every news story based on whether it possess “public service value” and only publishes that story if it does. Of course this is completely untrue! It’s never been true in the history of the United States.

In the commercial news media, the number of words of factual reporting, cogent analysis and good investigative journalism has always been a small fraction of the number of words spent on editorial, think pieces and the simplistic hot takes of the day. There have always been pages to fill, deadlines to meet and ads to sell, and this is what gets that done.

So your question holds The Washington Post to a standard that doesn’t exist and has never existed.

Secondly, having said that, the main point of that article - as is true of nearly all news media content - is to drive clicks and eyeballs. It pays the rent. If it helps keep The Washington Post in business, it’s a public service in itself.

Thirdly, the traditional news media has a powerful platform that often sets the agenda for public discussion and day-to-day political events. Less powerful than it used to be of course, but the nature of it hasn’t really changed. What the TV and newspapers choose to talk about and write about is what politicians and the public end up thinking about. A news media that self-censors, that limits itself to a narrow ideological view and is never willing to publish ideas or thoughts from multiple and sometimes contradictory points of view is a news media that is providing a poor public service. This is why we say Fox News is terrible, right? It is a public service that The Washington Post is not like Fox News. It is a public service that The Washington Post does not choose to merely act as the official mouthpiece of our political team (even if there are some for whom that might feel enjoyable or emotionally rewarding at the time.)

Fourthly, it seems, from the evidence of this forum, that there are a bunch of people who can’t hold the two thoughts in their head - that Trump was an evil, terrible authoritarian as President, and that Trump might have made at least one good decision - without losing their shit. Or for that matter, losing their shit because someone else might manage to hold those two thoughts in their heads and say them out loud. So it’s probably a public service that The Washington Post is from time to time pricking those ideological bubbles and testing peoples’ ability to engage with disagreeable points of view.

3652

Yes, I suppose that a free press need play no role whatsoever in helping to maintain civil society and democracy, and we should not try to hold them to standards is an answer I hadn’t considered. Agreeing with me that it’s a bad, stupid article only intended as clickbait is another answer I hadn’t considered.

This strikes me as unfair, if not dishonest. There is no person in this thread who can’t grasp the possibility that Trump did one thing right. There is no person in this thread ‘losing their shit’ because someone else thinks so or says so. There is no person in this thread ‘losing their shit’ about anything at all. Criticizing editorial decisions isn’t ‘losing their shit’. Saying I’m not going to fund crappy journalism isn’t ‘losing their shit’.

3653

That’s so obviously not what I wrote that your complaints about unfairness and dishonesty just come across as ridiculous. Come back and complain when you can be bothered to respond to what I wrote, not whatever one-line dismissal sounded cool in your head.

3654

Your response is to a straw man [“that all news media (or maybe, all good news media) weighs (or should weigh) every news story based on whether it possess “public service value” and only publishes that story if it does”.] It can be true both that media often doesn’t live up to any public charge, and that they ought to and when they don’t criticism of that failure is fair.

The short form of your response, absent the nonsense and hostility, would be you’re right, that article doesn’t advance any public good, and the WaPo only published it for clickbait.