I’m honestly not sure whether you are serious or what you’re trying to say with the edit. Are you saying that Joe Rogan is the same caliber interviewer for political or policy topics as Matt Yglesias?

I don't really think Yglesias does much interviewing actually. He'll occasionally interview someone on The Weeds, but it is usually just Vox staff talking about politics and policy. Ezra Klein's podcast is more interview-oriented. I'd describe Matthew Yglesias as a political analyst and commentator.

Guess its not clear it wasn't a real suggestion with all the wackiness so far.

Oh, damn, I meant Ezra Klein. They are like the same person in my head. Thanks.

The bolded seems debatable and other than stuff like the Trump dossier and buzzfeed, I can't think of many examples that support that--and none recently.

What you're asking for is a fantasy. There are no papers currently known for speaking truth to power. The Guardian had a reputation for that but that is a tough sell now. You had San Jose Mercury News in the 90s with their stories about CIA/cocaine smuggling. Possibly you have some current examples and I do also want to get to the Russian part of your post, although I don't consider that qualifying.
And there are plenty of small independent local papers. I know a girl who is an editor for one. She definitely isn't a "controlled" person. From what I understand they were blackballed by the governor after a critical story--so they will go after politicians. But it seems like papers are concerned about maintaining their access and this is why cops accused of crimes are usually treated with kid gloves by local press.
The bolded is a bit of a strawman. The argument isn't that you can never trust media or that it is difficult to learn truth. It is more like the media shouldn't be seen as the arbiters of it. It is also a rather normative position to take on something that should be more evidence based. If you know you've been fed a pile of manure you can't just keep eating because you don't know where else to find food.

Really? I look around and see many large national papers that compete against each other. I also see many partisan websites and magazines that do reporting on government scandals. There are lots of blogs, radio and tv shows, YT channels, and social media accounts that are willing to publish scandalous material.

Yes, I'd appreciate a response to the Russian part - that is the most concrete area where we've disagreed so far. As for speaking truth to power - I'm not sure what you mean by this, but it seems to me that there have been many stories that are heavily critical of Trump, the Trump administration, and the policies of the Trump administration. Can you be more specific about what you mean here? Stories specifically about the intelligence services? Because right now the FBI is being investigated specifically for interference in the 2016 campaign. Perhaps you mean internationally? I would say that much of the reporting I've read on eg Iran has been skeptical of US claims that it is breaking the nuclear agreement it signed with the US (even though the US has itself broken it) or of Bolton's recent claims about its threatening posture towards the US.

I don't want to strawman you, so perhaps you could tell me how you gain information about current events. I'll agree with you that we should always be aware of the perspective of the news sources we rely on. The main claim that I would put forward is that reporting in good newspapers - eg Financial Times, Guardian, WaPo, Economist - are our most reliable source for news about current events around the world. This of course is not to say that they aren't sometimes wrong or don't have a POV, just that they are more likely to give us good information than any other source publicly available. I wouldn't say that they are arbiters of truth, but I would say that their reporting provide good prima facie reason to accept a claim as true.

Five is quite a lot, so there is that.

I get my current events from a variety of mostly mainstream sources (or even 2p2/the old Politics forum which was good for that stuff) probably the same as most everybody and I agree with you that the publications you mention--particularly FT--can be quite good on some issues.
My main claim isn't that the media is constantly lying, but more that they seek to guide and control the narrative and are generally obsequious to the state. Sometimes this will involve outright getting a story wrong, and other times it can be an issue of framing.
Staying informed on current events or thinking that if only get your news from the most objective sources (while still understanding that is impossible, etc etc) will only get you so far. Narrative > Facts and the media is in the narrative business not the fact business (imo). Yes the two are obviously related, but it's for this reason that I don't think you should separate out opinion makers vs real journalists vs cable news--at least not if you are aiming for a critique of the media or looking for an overarching view of them. They are all different branches of the same system and I don't think the dividing lines between them are as sharp as you perhaps think.

It isn't my claim that information isn't out there. After some really controversial event the first place I'm going is to twitter to search whatever the appropriate hashtag is to see as many different perspectives I can find. I believe that you have to use this sort of gestalt like approach for most everything really. The claim that I'm making though is that the controversial stuff isn't making it into the mainstream press any more now than 30 years ago.

Certainly you see stories critical of Trump but it's important to understand that the argument which led to this thread is that what we see between Trump and the media is more like a choreographed dance than actual "opposition". And I can develop that argument further and there is plenty involving Mueller/Russia to tie into that. I read a pretty decent Matt Taibbi piece* last night on the topic but have a little patience with me here before I address stuff related to Trump again.
But as I said in my other post--the relationship between media and government is more like hand to mouth. The media too often relies on the government and on "sources" for information then adopts an obsequious stance towards them. Even in whatever stories you are referring to about the FBI--those likely involve anonymous sources and can be seen more as government infighting (or perhaps theater there too) then the press actually out breaking stories involving bad actors. So when I say "truth to power" I mean more taking a position that is critical of the government and it's actions and trying to take a bigger picture view. The Guardian had a reputation for that 10+ years ago and the joke was if you wanted to know what was going on in the US you had to read a British paper.
Well certainly with the Iran deal it looks like there is infighting amongst the ruling class. It was approved by the Obama administration and Europe is behind it and Trump isn't. That the press is critical of Trump administration claims is expected in most cases due to the antagonistic role the press has taken on with Trump, but in particular here.
In general though I would say that with foriegn policy that the press is generally very weak when it comes to challenging government and that this is where you can start to view them more as a propaganda arm than as anything resembling journalism.
*and Taibbi is an interesting figure and I used to consider him the absolute worst kind of propagandist (and he still might be) because he would give 95% great truth and then the other 5% would be steaming bull****, and there are things he wrote for the The Nation 10+ years ago that I'm not inclined to forgive him for, but he has done a decent job of being critical of stuff related to Mueller/Russia.

Lockbox,

I have said this before but I think where I diverge with you is you attribute conscious, deliberate agency by human actors; where I believe the forces you are talking about are memes that have taken a life of their own, and have outgrown human control.

The media and Trump aren’t playing us. They are both slaves of the same memes which have become “living” entities in themselves, that propagate for their own purposes.

Curious here; could you please let us know the specific stories or reporting that Maddow did that you feel were erroneous and thus made her 'the worst'?


Curious as to why you believe this. Could you post some evidence to the contrary?

There are some good articles on the subject. Perhaps not all of it is fair to Maddow. Ratings were apparently great when she focused on it, but there are some shark jumping episodes along the way outlined in this article and in the Taibbi piece I posted in my previous post. I think especially you can be critical of her for her extreme Russia fearmongering that has characterized a lot of the "anti-Trump media".

I don't know how Mueller was able to determine that Russia hacked the DNC without ever examining the server, since aiui that was never released and only examined by Crowdstrike. William Binny who is a NSA whistleblower/disinformation agent has various things to say about it.
Article here . I just read this now and this is a 2017 article so there are probably more recent ones. It's not something I have looked at much. I also just looked at the Mueller report and a lot of the pertinent technical information is redacted (around p.40) with some still to ongoing investigations. But Binny's argument is that the NSA would have captured everything and that that information isn't being presented. Again though that is an old article but the Mueller report is referencing stuff like information being transfered to a computer inside in the US and with the amount of redactions it is hard to know what is going on.

Meme theory is interesting but I always thought the idea was that memes are units of information that spread because they served a function and were good at encapsulating ideas. I'm not sure how that could apply to the relationship between Trump and the media.
As far as forces in general or ideas as forces vs individuals--I think that is a always a classic debate and a matter of perspective usually. Although in this specific case I disagree.
I think the approach to this thing whole thing has to be through the relationship between the media and the two party system and a better thread title would be something like "Trump, the Media, and the Two-party System", because it is they nexus that I'm trying to get at more than anything. And as long as I'm dealing with mostly partisans that isn't an easy task. I.e, you can't see the artificial nature of media until you see the artificial nature of the political process first.*
I assume that you agree that polarization has increased with Trump but why do you think that is happening? Do you perceive the media as more biased against Trump than with any recent presidents and if so what do you think is driving that? Thoughts on whether the Russia investigation was a Mueller/media witch hunt?
*this message sponsored by Republican billionaires.

Here is the article you're looking for: Why the DNC was not hacked by the Russians.

I don't want to get too much into the weeds point by point. I will say I believe that the media, like pretty much all people at the group and individual level, are rationale actors for the environmental they are in. And I think their extreme antagonism towards Trump, while not good for the country at large, is rationale for the incentive system they operate in.

Eric Weinsten had a pretty good take on this in one of his podcasts. And his take is that the main problem is technology has put a tremendous stress on the media as far as finding a way to make a profit, and a lot of the problems we see are a result of this. He postulated that if every journalists salary doubled from what it currently is, and traditional media like newspapers/news shows/magazines had models to achieve the profitability they once did, a lot of the problems would be eased.

I should point out that I believe Trump himself is a complete wildcard, and does not follow the laws of rationale actors due to his narcissistic pathology disorder. Shandrax tried to argue this unpredictability is a good things, as it makes Trump harder to manipulate. But I think history will show, that the variance he creates will have been a negative thing in the end, as most variance is.

And I do believe the meme of capitalism is the engine fueling this crazy train we are all on, with a momentum that transcends the individual actors operating within it.

Hate Inc
Another Matt Taibbi article and this one is pretty relevant for this thread. Like I said, I consider Matt Taibbi the worst sort of propagandist but this one is worth a read. Taibbi talks about his coming of age in journalism:
Now if Matt Taibbi is the worst sort of propagandist them Noam Chomsky is the 2nd worst. I've never read Manufacturing Consent but it sounds like I don't need to. In a throwaway comment Taibbi says that it was written as in "insider's guide" which I can believe.
Here is what Taibbi has to say about it:
Sounds familiar enough. Taibbi goes on to talk about how Fox News shifted the things from being a tone-neutral (he is careful not to say objective) to more slanted and the resulting polarization that occurred.
Above is the section relevant to my discussion with Original Position that perhaps also represents just exactly why Matt Taibbi is the worst sort of propagandist, because he comes really close to explaining a lot and then leaves it all up to processes and forces. Perhaps he is getting there and isn't quite ready to dive into the weeds, but the press is required to lie and repeat lies.
Again I have lots of issues with Taibbi but this should be some good food for thought for people who think these sorts of ideas are a result of my defective brain.

Ok. I read all those sections and agree with a lot of it. But when do we get to the evidence of deliberate conspiracy?

This sort of feels like the Mueller report, where we just keep waiting and waiting for the smoking gun, and it just isn't there.

This doesn't sound like a very well thought out theory. Media companies (again there are 5 that cover 90% of the US market) are multi billion dollar companies. They don't generate their income because their journalists feel like they need to work twice as hard to get by. Weinstein is one of the IDW I know little about but I was reading about his brother and the evergreen thing earlier. But I can see why he might be a member if this is his media critique.
It's definitely a big part. (Still not a meme)

Multibillion dollar company does not = profitable. And it doesn't mean journalists are paid what they should be paid for journalism to function in an efficient, non-corrupt fashion. Maybe if the pie wasn't so small 5 companies wouldn't own everything. There has been serious contraction in mainstream journalism over the years, both in quantity and quality, and that matters. Or at least that is more or less what Weinstein was arguing.

What is your take on Brett Weinstein if you don't mind me asking? Just because I am curious. I am going to bed now so no hurry. Just whenever you get around to it.

Weinstein himself I don't really have one. I think he knew what he was doing when he appeared on Tucker and his colleagues had a right to be mad at him for that but that he wanted out. I think his reaction to being asked to not go to campus that day is fine. Interesting story though.

Ok. I will point out a lot happened between him sending out his memo that basically said “racism is bad” and him going on Tuxker. And that included him being told not to bother to ever go back to work, and the MSM refusing to give him any voice, but giving the Evergreen spin machine the latitude to portray the incident like they wanted. He didn’t turn down Maddow, she wasn’t interested.

Think about it for a second. There was a riot on a college campus and a professor (and the campus police force) got run off and no one knew about it until the Tucker interview much later. Talk about the MSM suppressing a story for (IMO) ideological reasons.

Seems sketchy. Their argument is basically that the emails were given to WikiLeaks via thumbdrive rather than by email. Except assuming their data is true and were I the hacker there's no way in hell I'd send WL anything by email when I know they're under constant surveillance by the NSA and GCHQ. The Russian team could've easily transferred the emails to a thumb drive and sent it to a WikiLeaks agent by courier, or even regular mail for that matter.

And further they're only speculating about this because the actual part of the report listing how Mueller knows it was Guccifer is redacted.

And that's before even pointing out that the two authors are regular Infowars and RT contributors that literally nobody takes seriously. Except you, for some reason. Which I suppose is because they say the things you want to hear.

I agree that the FAT stuff is the weakest part of their case and they acknlowdge that, but there are other arguments made as well--like how the NSA will only give the assessment that Russia hacked the DNC 'moderate confidence' and then the argument about file-transfer rates. The argument that the NSA would have the exact trace-route information seems strong.
But you are correct about people believing what they want to believe.
But as far as whether the authors have credibility--Binny was the former technical director of the NSA and I haven't seen that challenged anywhere.

Yeah I reached the same conclusion after reading the article, which was somewhat interesting but really doesn't get into any of the many specifics which were outlined in the indictments against the Russians (search results, crypto transfers, software usage, etc..

https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download
Its extremely difficult for me to believe all these specifics are just complete fabrications.

But what I really should have done was wiki the authors before reading piece. That way I could have instantly dismissed them as rabid conspiritards and I wouldn't have had to waste my time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_C._Johnson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willia...ence_official)