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There’s a certain equivalence now between news media and mere commentariat writers like me. Greenwald is now on Substack like me. Substack is now full of news media refugees. Several levels of influence up from me, but we can at least stop pretending they are a saintly priesthood
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One way to view this exodus is: the upside of shit stirring itself is gone now. It’s now flushing itself down the toilet. What’s left has to compete with no special status. We’re now at the starting line of the real new media. Everybody has the same tech stack, nobody is special.
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So this is the “be somebody or do something” moment for news media people. The title “journalist” means nothing. Writing (or audio/video broadcasting) for a brand-name outlet means nothing. You might still get “press pass” access to places I can’t but they’re worth nothing.
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If you still think you’re better than anyone else with a laptop, you’ll have to show it through what you do. You can no longer ride the cred of a distinguished class that in hindsight was distinguished only by unearned access to high capex Heidelberg presses and telecom equipment
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I sometimes wonder if I’m more moral than the average journalist 🤔 It’s not as academic as the comparison upthread to politicians. I have no interest in being a politician. But I’m clearly adjacent to news media. The main difference being unwillingness to do fieldwork.
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Laziness has saved my soul, but... Under the incentives journalists operate under, would I succumb to clickbait? Access-journalism deals with the devil? Epstein-Weinstein enablement circuses? Fox-level mad-crowd-fu? Probably not tbh. I differ in ways besides laziness.
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I lack a certain sense of moral self-importance I think all journalists who consider themselves “good” seem to share. Something that infuses the pompous phrase “the public has a right to know.” A tendency towards public-interest inquisitorial self appointment.
Spanish Inquisi GIF
GIF
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I think “the public” is an ass, like the law, that I’m a part of it, and that it has no more right to anything than elites. The only reason the public doesn’t do self-dealing is that it lacks the opportunity and cunning. You get no halo from representing it.
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Self-appointing yourself to represent its interests doesn’t lend you any sort of halo. You’re basically no better than Trump spokespersons representing Trump’s right to not be held accountable. Or a neoliberal corporate shill like me representing corporations right to profit 🤣
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Another thing I wonder is: when everything across the board has been going to hell, why has news media been going there double quick? Is it because Trump has been attacking and undermining them with extra vigor as the Red Resentment Revenge Emissary in Chief? No, that’s too easy
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I think it’s because they’ve been the only institution truly above judgment and accountability so far. To the point it took a populist near-coup to make them even notice there were issues beyond the internet eating their lavish 3-martini lunch.
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While most of my own personal interactions with journalists have been positive, a few times yeah... the sense of being judged by a priest themselves above judgment. And unaware of their own distinct lack of saintliness.
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Real journalism isn't cheap, much less free, and probably not for You in the larger sense. I think the real story is the slow death of bourgeois knowledge institutions. The middle always gets crushed. Always.