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The [American Political Media]: The People Who Shape The Political Landscape
AngelHedgie
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Ah, the American political media. Especially in a Presidential election year, this group helps to shape and define what happens in politics, by pushing or not pushing stories. At worst, this can wind up causing important stories to be concealed, hiding important facts from the polity. But at their best, they can bring to light the truth, and help the American people to make more informed decisions about their government. And in some cases, that push can go to some dark places, as with the ratfucking campaign the Kochs waged against investigative journalist Jane Mayer:
And in some cases, they can go from telling the story to being it, like with the implosion of Politico:
This stuff matters, which is why we need to keep a critical eye on them.
Now, this thread has been given permission by @ElJeffe, provided that we don't ruin this thread. So:
Ms. Mayer began to take the rumored investigation seriously when she heard from her New Yorker editor that she was going to be accused—falsely—of plagiarism, stealing the work of other writers. A dossier of her supposed plagiarism had been provided to reporters at The New York Post and The Daily Caller, but the smears collapsed when the writers who were the purported victims made statements saying that it was nonsense, and that there had been no plagiarism whatsoever. Indeed, as one noted, Ms. Mayer had plainly credited his writing—though this was not mentioned in the bill of particulars that was passed around.
...Who was behind this? Figuring that out took three years, Ms. Mayer said, and she writes that she traced it to a "boiler room" operation involving several people who have worked closely with Koch business concerns. But the private investigation firm may be of particular interest to New Yorkers. "The firm, it appears, was Vigilant Resources International, whose founder and chairman, Howard Safir, had been New York City's police commissioner under the former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani," she writes in "Dark Money." Mr. Safir served as both the fire commissioner and the police commissioner during the Giuliani mayoralty. He left public office in 2000, a year before the end of Mr. Giuliani's term, and went to work in the kind of all-purpose consultancy in security and investigations that thrived after the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. Safir and his son, Adam, and daughter, Jennifer, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, work at Vigilant. The former commissioner could not be reached on Tuesday to discuss his role in the investigation into Ms. Mayer. Adam Safir, however, did speak cordially, briefly and unilluminatingly. "I subscribe to The New Yorker and I read it," Adam Safir said. "As far as what we do, we don't talk about clients, whether we have them or don't have them. Even answering the question would violate the policy of our business." Two other Washington figures identified by Ms. Mayer in the operation, Philip Ellender, who heads Koch's government affairs arm, and Nancy Pfotenhauer, who has served as president of a nonprofit advocacy group funded by the Kochs, did not respond to messages requesting comment.
And in some cases, they can go from telling the story to being it, like with the implosion of Politico:
In what can be described only as a cataclysm in Beltway media, CEO Jim VandeHei is leaving Politico, the eight-year-old politics website that shook up Washington journalism, according to sources and reports by Huffington Postand CNNMoney.
And in what can be described only as a mega-cataclysm, Politico Chief White House correspondent Mike Allen is joining VandeHei in rushing toward the exits of Politico’s Rosslyn headquarters. Allen writes the daily franchise newsletter “Politico Playbook.” A bearer of occasional scoops, Allen is the driver of very frequent revenue. Weekly sponsorships for “Playbook” run in the $50,000 to $60,000 range this year, depending on the news cycle. And that’s not even rolling in the big money that comes from “Politico Playbook” conferences/interviews anchored by Allen. His work alone — complete with ethical issues — subsidized a platoon of Politico reporters.
It doesn’t end there: Kim Kingsley, the Chief Operating Officer is leaving as well. Kingsley has provided the glue that bridged Politico’s newsroom and its business side as the site sprinted to revenues approaching $20 million just years after launching. She headed the colonization of radio and cable-news airwaves that helped establish Politico as a preferred Washington source both for readers and advertisers. The company’s successful events business was also an obsession of Kingsley’s. Other departures are Danielle Jones and Chief Revenue Officer Roy Schwartz.
VandeHei, Allen and Schwartz will stay through the 2016 election; the others will leave on earlier timetables. Editor-in-Chief John Harris will say on board and take on the additional title of publisher.
Politico as we’ve come to know it is no longer.
This stuff matters, which is why we need to keep a critical eye on them.
Now, this thread has been given permission by @ElJeffe, provided that we don't ruin this thread. So:
- This is not the "lolFox", "lolMSNBC", or "lolCNN" thread. Let's have a somewhat serious discussion of the political media.
- This is about the political media. So CNN getting distracted by a shiny missing plane is out of scope.
- On the same note, anything about the campaigns is also out of scope (and belongs in the appropriate thread.)
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pleasepaypreacher.net
Honestly, this is a long time coming. Unmoderated comments are the cesspools of the internet.
To say that Greenwald et al crossed over from reporter or journalist to full on activist a while ago is an understatement. During the Bush Administration he claimed he wasn't even ideological but as time passed he seemed to spin farther and farther out of the mainstream. Or perhaps hyperbolic criticisms of the Bush Administration were just kept at the same volume independent of whether the underlying policies justified it any more. I am unsurprised that there was insufficient oversight to overcome the confirmation bias an organization led by him.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
A moderation policy is great, but if you don't have the staff to enforce it, it isn't worth the electrons it's printed on. A lot of news sites would be best served by removing their comments sections entirely. Unfortunately, they're to good for ad revenue.
Honestly, I feel the best thing any news site could do, is to straight up kill the comments section. It's one of the dumbest ideas anyone has come up with for news sites. I'm at a news site reading up on the story, I don't want to see some inane comments from some random fucker that is almost brain dead. Worse, we know there are groups that intentionally go to news sites with the intent of dropping a bunch of misleading shit in the comment section, to further their rat fucking agendas. At least now someone is attempting to moderate their shitty comments section, maybe they'll make that last mental leap and nuke the thing altogether.
I mean, if they want people to interact and comment on stuff. Put together a forum and moderated to the point that it can't become a cesspool. If a company can't do that, they shouldn't bother with a forum. I mean people can't go elsewhere on the internet to discuss things and I think a company is irresponsible if they allow a cesspool to masquerade as a comments section.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Yeah, I'm completely unshocked that something run by Greenwald had dubious ties to reality.
For instance - the BBC's website has no comments on anything, anywhere.
On the other hand, there are sites that have a good community (the comments on ArsTechnica for instance are fairly well moderated and responses from staff common).
But any comments without moderation are going straight to shit. I'd actually argue that there's a point where a site is too big to have comments anymore because the potential volume on a new story overwhelms the ability to moderate or carry on a discussion.
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Doesn't BBC read comments on the air, which is at least as dumb, if not moreso?
Well, on some stuff like the Breakfast Show, which is just morning television, sure. They don't read out comments on actual news bulletins. And even on Breakfast it's not like they start scrolling and read out every WAKE UP SHEEPLE comment from the start. It's annoying and nothing intelligent has ever been read out, but it's not like Huw Edwards turns to a correspondent in Homs and asks if she knows what JizzLord1978555 has seen fit to text in from the town of UrButt.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
CNN's comment section fit this description precisely, before they finally got rid of it.
And its not even the fact that the audience is obviously right-leaning... its that there are trolls there who go even further right by miles into land that you hope and pray is parody (but its not), and oh god the pain
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
That's funny, comment sections (not just on Fox News) are my stay-away-from.
I'm with Mill. Either moderate your comment sections with an iron fist or don't have them. Forums are vastly preferable to me because there are fewer people shitting out an awful one-off post and then leaving.
And even at their best...with a major news story the site is either going to crash, or the comments will come so fast they will be literally impossible to read.
I find the degree of Cloak and dagger here fascinating. Apparently the current editor (Michael Schroeder) published fake news stories with made up quotes from inexplicably real people about the Judge in Sheldon's trial under a fake name in a local CT paper he ran before coming over to run the LVRJ.
This article aggregates all the relevant news stories.
https://www.slantnews.com/story/2015-12-26-the-crazy-story-behind-a-casino-magnates-shady-purchase-of-a-las-vegas-newspaper-company
This one has the quotes from the people who he fake quoted. (Also linked in the above )
http://www.courant.com/community/new-britain/hc-new-britain-herald-edward-clarkin-1223-20151223-story.html
Apart from being a vain, petty dickhead, Adelson’s interest in the paper may stem from the fact the wrongful termination lawsuit he is embroiled in could cost him his gaming license. Which is a pretty big deal for a Casino magnate, and something else I didn't know!
Every time the name Moon pops up in that quote, I think of the Washington Times.
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
That was definitely actually the best one.
While it certainly made me laugh, I think Time eeks by with the better description since they too basically call him a pussy.
In this case they can either report on it out in the open and trust the audience is mature enough to deal with it. Or just call it 'an insult' without getting into the moral editorialising they love so...
I basically just answered my own question, right?
Not that this was a hard prediction to make right, but still. Don't be such a cliche of yourself, Ron.
I like you was just happy Mark Halperin is just taking GOP talking points and running with them.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Let us all appreciate Colbert's contribution here.
They get into why that was - the Longform banner was Stout's personal playground, and was given a degree of autonomy that, in retrospect, was unwise.
I do have a good amount of respect for Hall in light of his decision to recuse himself from the investigation and hand it over to the other Vox chiefs.
Yeah I read the story you linked, but he saw the piece beforehand and I'm surprised it didn't read as a mistake to him.
He is generally a good dude, his day job before sbnation was working at a refugee settlement center, which he still raises money for every year via EDSBS. Also ran/runs a prominent college football blog and probably has more pieces by women than any other.
It sounds like he was on vacation for part of the run-up, so he might not have been as engaged as he should have been. His comment after the emergency meeting has him sounding pissed, though.
McCormack's son Noah is the publisher of The Baffler and is going to be involved with TNR, so "cautious optimism" is where I'm standing on this.
How is this a thing?
MSNBC has been circling the drain. Even Chris Hayes did some bullshit with a Bill Clinton statement and then nonpologized for it. Honestly Rachel Maddow would be smart to leave the network and do some blogging or something.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Though if we are being honest chasing Keith Olbermann away from the network was probably the first step. Sure he was an asshole, and a bit of firebrand, but he was also a voice for the left they silenced.
pleasepaypreacher.net
They got a new conservative boss years ago leading this change who wants the conservative audience, that's why we're seeing this.
Though from an ethics standpoint, yeah. And they just let Scarborough do whatever the fuck he wants.
I loved that brief period when newspapers thought that tying the comments to Facebook accounts would improve the quality and tone of discourse. Turns out that, nope, plenty of people are willing to be shitheels on Facebook too.