Mad about the Media: The Media and Media Criticism Megathread

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Mad about the Media: The Media and Media Criticism Megathread

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Can anyone explain why NYT op-ed is so bad? It's National Review bad.

Lightning Knight posted:

I think if you’re unironically quoting the Protocols even if you sincerely believe in actual lizard people, you’re still spreading propaganda of fascists and should be considered as such.

The thing is, the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory is the template for almost all of the others. I don't keep up with Icke but from what I've seen, in his "introductory" work he says basically unobjectionable stuff about corporate greed, endless war, and climate change for like 45 minutes before he starts going off on his TimeCube stuff.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2018 15:18

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 12:58

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

whats a good op-ed page supposed to look like?

Do you really need me to go on a tear about what a pack of freaks and ghouls they have their now? Their op-ed would be more informative, enlightened, and in touch with actual American life and politics if it were written by randomly selected people from across the country who rotated out every month.

Edit: If what you're driving at is that op-ed writing is glorified blogging and obsolete, I'm at a loss to disagree.

Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Dec 18, 2018

# ¿ Dec 18, 2018 16:00

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

SickZip posted:

The NYTimes makes sense when you realize it's a paper thats deeply rooted in a certain upper-class New York Jewish perspective and milieu and that, while it has risen to national/world prominence as a result of the rise of New York as a global capital, it has never really outgrown that.

selec posted:

Buddy this isn�t a Jewish thing so stop making it weird. It�s a navel-gazing coastal elite thing, and a finance capitalism thing.

True, but neither of these explain how a loving weirdo Catholic fascist like Douthat got in.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2018 16:20

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

selec posted:

It�s just like...dummy, just read some loving Marx. Do a little pattern recognition: are the Kochs Jewish? The Mercers? No? Then maybe the rules for who is in the Secretly Running the World Club aren�t what you think they are?

I wonder what�s so repellent to the idea that it�s just rich people except that it�s far too clear and simple a heuristic and robs the problem of inequality and suffering of all mysticism.

Conspiracy theories are for people who only understand injustice in terms of bad actors, not systemic problems.

Silver2195 posted:

I honestly prefer this to an op-ed page 1/3 full of Trump sycophants.

I don't. Give me some raving psychopaths instead of somebody like Friedman or Brooks, who will take the same sentiments and coat them in a thick layer of Being The Serious Responsible Adults In The Room.

Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Dec 18, 2018

# ¿ Dec 18, 2018 16:35

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Tab8715 posted:

The problem with having Republicans on media is that they well not only agree but are much more outspoken now that Trump is in office with things like women's rights, the metoo movement and occasionally having slight alt-right tendencies which is freaking disturbing.

That doesn't sell but a Republican who doesn't is a unicorn and worth a ton.

The default stance of the Republican Party is to express dismay at Trump's personality but say that his critics are a bunch of hysterical, triggered libs. The Never Trumper "Unicorns" agree with Trump's policies like 90% of the time.

quote:

As for left-leaning commentators. Does Paul Krugman not count? He might not be a socialist but he sure as hell leans left.

Krugman is a self-identified liberal Keynesian economist whose default stance is being appalled at whatever the Republican Party is doing. He's a raging leftist relative to the likes of Brooks and Friedman, but that's not saying much.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2018 17:07

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Tab8715 posted:

I agree, whats your point exactly?

That there's no reason for Never Trump Conservatism to carry any special intellectual currency entitling it to a great deal of representation in a major newspaper.

quote:

He's a self-identified liberal Keynesian Economist which in itself is clearly left-leaning

Nah.

"Left-leaning" does a whole lot of work covering everyone and everything that isn't free-market absolutism and paranoid conservatism.

Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Dec 18, 2018

# ¿ Dec 18, 2018 18:48

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Volkerball posted:

lefties and fascists finding a lot of common ground

When, where, and how is this happening?

# ¿ Dec 18, 2018 19:12

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Volkerball posted:

I couldn't tell you where it started, but when I first noticed it was during the course of the uprising in Syria, and I do tend to think it rose to a pretty high level throughout it. There's been a number of pieces out since then that outline what has since been dubbed red-brown convergence, but I'll illustrate it this way. If I speak to someone who tells me that Bashar al-Assad is fighting terrorism, and that we need to support him and Russia because the alternate is people like Hillary Clinton and the American center/liberals who would risk or want to start world war 3 regime changing him. That the only Syrians worth mentioning are terrorists, and that ISIS is backed by US democrats who are in the pockets of the 9/11 committing Saudi royal jihadists. That reports of Assad's human rights abuses are overblown or flat out lies perpetrated by the mainstream media and the American establishment that has lied to us before, and by Syrian jihadist networks that fabricate evidence and stories to try to get support for an American invasion. I would have no loving clue what ideology that person subscribed to, I would just know that it starts with "far."

I don't even know where to begin with this. You think there's a high level of support for Assad among leftists? "Assad is bae" tankies are a social media laughingstock. My definition of "finding common ground" includes more than having some similar criticisms of the establishment that get voiced in social media. Are leftists and fascists having meaningful dialogue? Are they cooperating and organizing together?

With regard to that last sentence, you could say the same thing about wackos who think that The X-Files was a documentary series, but that's not representative of the American radical Left or Right.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2018 19:45

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Tab8715 posted:

It's not about "Never Trumpers" it's about respect and dignity. People don't want to read column how yet another Republican thinks that #metoo is a false flag or other garbage nor does the NY Times want give them a platform.

How is this so hard to understand?

I'm not the one who has issues with understanding. I'm arguing that it's a bad thing that NYT and similar op-ed consists of right-wing viewpoints coated in a veneer of urbane sophistication. It's intellectually bankrupt and reinforces the vanities of an increasingly deluded petit-bourgeois audience.

quote:

Is there a way to describe the phenomenon where people believe something sucks, can't prove it but aren't able to offer any alternatives or solutions?

I already did. NYT op-ed would be more intellectually vivacious if it was written by the people who call in to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter radio show.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2018 20:00

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Well that's it, then. We can either give a columnist position to someone like David Frum or someone like Alex Jones; there are no other conceivable alternatives on this plane of existence.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2018 04:35

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Volkerball posted:

Where was the mocking, I must have missed it.

quote:

the American left exists solely on these forums and twitter

# ¿ Dec 19, 2018 15:48

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Tab8715 posted:

Or I don't know Republicans that don't spew blatant conspiracies, outright lies or at least try to participate in discussions?

You've lost the plot, mate. Never Trump Republicans are vastly overrepresented in mainstream media precisely because those outlets want civil, "honorable" Republicans. Turns out there's remarkably little daylight between "intellectual" conservatism and the Ku Klux Klan, and what passes for Mainstream Respectable Intellectual Conservatism is a pack of propagandists for forever war.

I have no idea what you want or why you're so angry.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2018 22:21

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

No, you didn't ask me for anything. You're too preoccupied with being appropriately self-righteous and smug to actually ask a direct question. What's the problem you want solved?

# ¿ Dec 20, 2018 05:07

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

GoluboiOgon posted:

this is a terrible arguement. the arguments that saddam was building nuclear weapons in 2002-3 were patently absurd, even at the time. instead of actual evidence of WMD development, there were pictures of trailers in the desert, vials of powder of uncertain origins, and aluminum tubes. even more damning at the time was the way that most of the media implied that saddam was behind 9/11, something that contradicted everything they said in 2001. if they had had honest evidence, there would have been no need for any of this charade.

This, by the way, is why I'm skeptical of the idee fixe that we need to replace the cowboy hat wearing genocidal maniacs at Breitbart and Fox with the boat shoe wearing genocidal maniacs at the National Review and Tablet. The goal for a sane media should be to push these people out of the Overton Window, preferably onto a pile of dung.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2018 14:57

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Halloween Jack posted:

You're too preoccupied with being appropriately self-righteous and smug to actually ask a direct question. What's the problem you want solved?

Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Dec 20, 2018

# ¿ Dec 20, 2018 16:19

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

The problem is not just that they don't conduct editorial oversight over Bret Stephens, it's that their idea of "truth" and exposing their readership to "diverse opinions" is hiring Bret loving Stephens.

Providing "alternatives" and "solutions" for the NYT to better fulfill its mission statement feels like explaining that successful doctors don't douse their patients in gasoline and set them on fire.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2018 17:29

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

What is the point of having an op-ed page

Indeed!

# ¿ Dec 20, 2018 17:54

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

I guess, but like, people reading things in the op-ed page then going "did the editors not fact check this!?" are kinda missing the point of what page they are reading. It's like going to the comics page and being mad it's comics.

I don't think the problem is fact-checking, but when the editors aggressively curate it to fall along what is really a very narrow band of opinion. In the NYT's case, it's pretty obvious that they are courtiers for the rich and powerful cosmopolitan set in NYC, comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted. Op-ed is by its nature an obsolete institution that's just glorified blogging. But if the NYT editors actually wanted to use their platform to make the world a better place by presenting "diverse opinions," they could, well, actually do that. (Stephens stands out for being a walking list of Xes on a diversity checklist.)

# ¿ Dec 20, 2018 18:36

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

They're not separate institutions. The idea that it's fine and dandy for a newspaper doing climate change reporting to hire a climate change denier is pretty ridiculous.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2018 18:38

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Stewart is like the Founding Father for smug liberal boobs carrying around stickers that say stuff like "Any Reasonable Adult 2020."

# ¿ Dec 20, 2018 19:15

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 12:58

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

axeil posted:

I was also there. It was cold and not that great but did have some funny moments.

Sadly it failed to avert the Tea Party wave, which is why I think they set it up initially before it morphed into both-sidesism.

And to be fair, pre-Tea Party in 2010 that didn't seem like that ridiculous a message as the Republicans hadn't weaponized yet.

Fortunately, Stewart managed to thwart those "dangerous Marxists subverting our Constitution."

# ¿ Dec 20, 2018 21:49

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Mad about the Media: The Media and Media Criticism Megathread