After being a decades-long subscriber to the Times, this entire sordid incident with McNeil was the straw that caused me to cancel my subscription. I recently wrote a letter to the Washington Post, whose new editor has very noticeably made the paper more "woke," and said I would be cancelling that subscription as well if the paper continued to overtly push an agenda.
I feel like I am in a vise between two horrible extremes. Where do people get their news?
Agreed re feeling like I'm in a vise between two extremes. I cancelled my support for NPR after I heard an unquestioniong Sunday interview with an academic who was pushing her invention of "discriminatory gaslighting" to explain why people were mean to her in college.
I am in the same boat, and I like the Economist for my news. They have a real center-left disposition the way we would have thought of that 6 years ago, and I think the fact that they don't include bylines reduces all the nonsense woke-posturing so reporters can impress their twitter friends.
Also, being based in the UK means they seems a less susceptible to overly emotional outbursts in their publications and they have much more well done international coverage.
Also, the Dispatch if you want a center right option as well.
Adrienne, I've been a fan of Sarah Smarsh since three years ago. Partly because of her childhood and adolescent experiences similar to mine, and partly because of her efforts to support local news. That's where you'll most likely find the facts and events that pertain to the concerns that affect your livelihood, your family, and your community.
That said, local communities have declined due to urban sprawl. Growth and expansion can lead to a homogenization effect, in which the biggest retailers with the biggest channels limit their focus on meeting people's basic desires and instincts along the most efficient economies of scale. Homogenization happens as:
• a handful of distributors narrow their offerings to only what gets their brand the most clicks and nets them the highest level of engagement
• the population becomes remade in the image of like-minded consumers and focus groups - often willingly and unwittingly - pursuing the same satisfactions that can only be fulfilled by the handful of choices available to them
I like that Zaid's piece namechecks Fox News and The Daily Beast, because those two are great examples of consumer-oriented news-media outlets. They and others are committed first and foremost to capturing a demographic that the value proposition metrics have pinpointed and the user feedback platforms will suggest ways of cultivating brand loyalty.
I listen to Democracy Now’s daily news podcast - which I believe is an audio version of a television news show - for current events and international news. I’m regularly exposed to stories that get very little, if not no attention elsewhere in American news media.
In case anyone wonders what mass hysteria and subsequent witch hunts is like to live through - here you go. The idea that any white person is already a racist and waiting to be discovered/unmasked is the panic. We went through the same thing during the Me Too era only people could not recognize it. Suddenly every man seemed like a rapist. Every gesture, evidence of it. Now, it's about racism - which has all but consumed the entire left of this country because they are deathly afraid of being called a racist. I can only put this down to the idea that we were building a utopian vision of America under Obama (Miranda's Hamilton for example) and that was disrupted by Trump who not only refused to obey the new rules of the utopia (no one should ever be offended, no person is marginalized for any reason) but spat in its face. Now, however, we are destroying ourselves. It won't end until enough people start speaking out against it. You can feel the tide turning but it's not turning fast enough. The fear is still there.
Sasha, I question the effectiveness of spittle politics. Isn't a rejection of oppressive groupthink and cancel culture better served in the long run with "going higher" behavior (please excuse the Michelle Obama reference) instead of d*ck-waving cultural revenge theater that's often for its own sake?
My apologies for not being clear. You mentioned Trump spitting in the face of the Obama socialist utopia, and that's what I was referring to. That's a great way of describing it, by the way.
To me, the Trump Administration overdid it on the "hit 'em back ten times harder" approach that was out to avenge the America being left behind. The ugly rhetoric and crass gibes started out as a welcome relief from a President who "speaks his mind" and "tells it like it is," and it certainly got short-term results. Once the Administration began doubling and tripling down on that approach in each and every policy matter, its prospects for long-term success dimmed. Rote repetition of the same grievance song-and-dance makes it hard for a political leader to develop and sustain a coalition and expand beyond their loyal base.
To be fair, the Democrats overdid it as well. The Russia probe and the impeachments wasn't the silver bullet they were counting on. You could even say they played into Trump's hands by going along with the whole us vs. them framing of the political landscape where the two sides regard each other as the enemy that must be beaten, humiliated, and left for dead in the war for the soul of our nation. Again, not much of a chance to appeal past the militant zealots in your camp with that kind of approach. At that point, all you can do is evangelize the message in the hopes of converting the majority to the way, the truth, and the life of being a zealot.
Bringing all this back to the news media, the same zero-sum pitting of one side against the other has taken over. It's driven by ideology as much as it is by big profits, and the only way of succeeding in the news cycle game is by insuring ideological purity after you insist upon it of your readership and viewership. Like you, I'm glad to see the tide turning a little bit.
Woke is broke. But it is a struggling, drowning, dangerous beast as it slips slowly beneath the waves of history, and it will drag any near it down with it as it disappears. The engine of woke is not at all to eliminate American racism, in fact by their own definition woke and CRT are racism. Woke is a manifestation of the need of white assistant professors to remain relevant by publishing what is now the only thing white untenured academics are allowed to publish. Woke and CRT are "things," not because they help defeat our racist heritage, but because young white ambitious assistant professors want tenure in an academic environment where tenure is becoming more rare, and woke is the gauntlet they are required to run. If you do not do a little sincere "woking" you do not get tenure. If you are untenured and do not at least give a believable nod to woke, you will lose your teaching post. Period. So my recommendation is "wake up" my tenured colleagues, model courage, and help our children survive the woke gauntlet. It will not last. Be wise, but also be brave.
Reading between the lines, I suspect you have a somewhat arrogant, somewhat grumpy, old-school guy who thinks students should be humble in the presence of their teachers/mentors, and somewhat arrogant, somewhat touchy students who think they should be applauded when questioning and challenging expertise. The mentor-student relationships went south on this particular trip, and they spent too much time together. McNeil is probably not good with kids, and the students were savvy enough to pick out some things he said that (in and out of context) seem inappropriate. But, instead of leaving it there and taking the reasonable action of not choosing to send McNeil on any more field trips, the NYT staff mob, driven by a sense of moral superiority, felt justified to stick it to McNeil. Even though they weren’t a party to the happenings, they saw an opening to be outraged and pounced. The NYT Times leadership took the path of least resistance and kicked McNeil out. The fact that they stood up for him with the Pulitzer committee when they could benefit is not surprising – his dismissal was all about calming the mob not about any real consternation with his behavior or character.
The lesson learned is that (a) you should be very careful about what you say in informal contexts, especially if you might be talking to people who don’t like you and (b) if you want to “get someone”, organize a mob and signify your actions are for a higher purpose (e.g., to make the workplace a safe place for everyone!).
A warning to those who join in or tolerate the mob approach to personnel decisions, remember the same tactics can be used against you or someone you love in the future. When it happens, your pleas that “This is really not a good way to handle conflicts and workplace employment decisions” will be met with the same level of sympathy that was received by McNeil. Administrators and supervisors are not going to protect you in the current environment– they are going to protect themselves and their organization.
Nice piece. We should treat the NYTs as an ideological organ, nothing more. The fact that some good journalists still work there does not absolve them. As for Pulitzers, they have become meaningless as well. Nikole Hannah-Jones just won one.
I was a little appalled when the Times ran their piece on page 2 yesterday about how many hands it takes to produce Pulitzer prize winning journalism -- patting yourself on the back for being a big family after having pushed out one of the main contributors is not a good look. And it seems like the fact that McNeil was someone who was apt to win Pulitzers made him a bigger target for younger writers, and that makes that newsroom seem a little too Hunger Gamesish in orientation.
I am reminded of an old Lenny Bruce routine whereby he used every racial slur against blacks, Jews, Hispanics, Italians, etc in an attempt to show that by using them more we can take away their power. While I don't think I am totally comfortable with that, we have certainly gone the other way where the use of certain words even in an educational manner is too much. What a species...
We had a similar situation happen here in Canada with the National Post and two opinion writers, Rex Murphy and Barbra Kay. Thankfully the paper backed both writers but for how long. More and more of the media is going woke. Into the void has stepped the Post Millennial, TNC and Rebel News. Each has foind an audience for a conservative point of view!
I'm not at all surprised.
After being a decades-long subscriber to the Times, this entire sordid incident with McNeil was the straw that caused me to cancel my subscription. I recently wrote a letter to the Washington Post, whose new editor has very noticeably made the paper more "woke," and said I would be cancelling that subscription as well if the paper continued to overtly push an agenda.
I feel like I am in a vise between two horrible extremes. Where do people get their news?
Agreed re feeling like I'm in a vise between two extremes. I cancelled my support for NPR after I heard an unquestioniong Sunday interview with an academic who was pushing her invention of "discriminatory gaslighting" to explain why people were mean to her in college.
I also stopped supporting NPR (forgot to mention that). :-(
That interview was the breaking point for me too. I'd subscribed for 20 years or so.
I am in the same boat, and I like the Economist for my news. They have a real center-left disposition the way we would have thought of that 6 years ago, and I think the fact that they don't include bylines reduces all the nonsense woke-posturing so reporters can impress their twitter friends.
Also, being based in the UK means they seems a less susceptible to overly emotional outbursts in their publications and they have much more well done international coverage.
Also, the Dispatch if you want a center right option as well.
I agree: The Economist is an excellent option for those of us in, as Adrienne Scott puts it, "a vise between two horrible extremes."
Oldthinkers unbellyfeel Ingsoc.
Adrienne, I've been a fan of Sarah Smarsh since three years ago. Partly because of her childhood and adolescent experiences similar to mine, and partly because of her efforts to support local news. That's where you'll most likely find the facts and events that pertain to the concerns that affect your livelihood, your family, and your community.
That said, local communities have declined due to urban sprawl. Growth and expansion can lead to a homogenization effect, in which the biggest retailers with the biggest channels limit their focus on meeting people's basic desires and instincts along the most efficient economies of scale. Homogenization happens as:
• a handful of distributors narrow their offerings to only what gets their brand the most clicks and nets them the highest level of engagement
• the population becomes remade in the image of like-minded consumers and focus groups - often willingly and unwittingly - pursuing the same satisfactions that can only be fulfilled by the handful of choices available to them
I like that Zaid's piece namechecks Fox News and The Daily Beast, because those two are great examples of consumer-oriented news-media outlets. They and others are committed first and foremost to capturing a demographic that the value proposition metrics have pinpointed and the user feedback platforms will suggest ways of cultivating brand loyalty.
I've settled on Reuters as the least susceptible to The Woken. Canceled my subscriptions to NYTs and WaPo a couple of years ago.
I listen to Democracy Now’s daily news podcast - which I believe is an audio version of a television news show - for current events and international news. I’m regularly exposed to stories that get very little, if not no attention elsewhere in American news media.
In case anyone wonders what mass hysteria and subsequent witch hunts is like to live through - here you go. The idea that any white person is already a racist and waiting to be discovered/unmasked is the panic. We went through the same thing during the Me Too era only people could not recognize it. Suddenly every man seemed like a rapist. Every gesture, evidence of it. Now, it's about racism - which has all but consumed the entire left of this country because they are deathly afraid of being called a racist. I can only put this down to the idea that we were building a utopian vision of America under Obama (Miranda's Hamilton for example) and that was disrupted by Trump who not only refused to obey the new rules of the utopia (no one should ever be offended, no person is marginalized for any reason) but spat in its face. Now, however, we are destroying ourselves. It won't end until enough people start speaking out against it. You can feel the tide turning but it's not turning fast enough. The fear is still there.
Sasha, I question the effectiveness of spittle politics. Isn't a rejection of oppressive groupthink and cancel culture better served in the long run with "going higher" behavior (please excuse the Michelle Obama reference) instead of d*ck-waving cultural revenge theater that's often for its own sake?
I'm not sure what you mean by spittle politics.
My apologies for not being clear. You mentioned Trump spitting in the face of the Obama socialist utopia, and that's what I was referring to. That's a great way of describing it, by the way.
To me, the Trump Administration overdid it on the "hit 'em back ten times harder" approach that was out to avenge the America being left behind. The ugly rhetoric and crass gibes started out as a welcome relief from a President who "speaks his mind" and "tells it like it is," and it certainly got short-term results. Once the Administration began doubling and tripling down on that approach in each and every policy matter, its prospects for long-term success dimmed. Rote repetition of the same grievance song-and-dance makes it hard for a political leader to develop and sustain a coalition and expand beyond their loyal base.
To be fair, the Democrats overdid it as well. The Russia probe and the impeachments wasn't the silver bullet they were counting on. You could even say they played into Trump's hands by going along with the whole us vs. them framing of the political landscape where the two sides regard each other as the enemy that must be beaten, humiliated, and left for dead in the war for the soul of our nation. Again, not much of a chance to appeal past the militant zealots in your camp with that kind of approach. At that point, all you can do is evangelize the message in the hopes of converting the majority to the way, the truth, and the life of being a zealot.
Bringing all this back to the news media, the same zero-sum pitting of one side against the other has taken over. It's driven by ideology as much as it is by big profits, and the only way of succeeding in the news cycle game is by insuring ideological purity after you insist upon it of your readership and viewership. Like you, I'm glad to see the tide turning a little bit.
Woke is broke. But it is a struggling, drowning, dangerous beast as it slips slowly beneath the waves of history, and it will drag any near it down with it as it disappears. The engine of woke is not at all to eliminate American racism, in fact by their own definition woke and CRT are racism. Woke is a manifestation of the need of white assistant professors to remain relevant by publishing what is now the only thing white untenured academics are allowed to publish. Woke and CRT are "things," not because they help defeat our racist heritage, but because young white ambitious assistant professors want tenure in an academic environment where tenure is becoming more rare, and woke is the gauntlet they are required to run. If you do not do a little sincere "woking" you do not get tenure. If you are untenured and do not at least give a believable nod to woke, you will lose your teaching post. Period. So my recommendation is "wake up" my tenured colleagues, model courage, and help our children survive the woke gauntlet. It will not last. Be wise, but also be brave.
Reading between the lines, I suspect you have a somewhat arrogant, somewhat grumpy, old-school guy who thinks students should be humble in the presence of their teachers/mentors, and somewhat arrogant, somewhat touchy students who think they should be applauded when questioning and challenging expertise. The mentor-student relationships went south on this particular trip, and they spent too much time together. McNeil is probably not good with kids, and the students were savvy enough to pick out some things he said that (in and out of context) seem inappropriate. But, instead of leaving it there and taking the reasonable action of not choosing to send McNeil on any more field trips, the NYT staff mob, driven by a sense of moral superiority, felt justified to stick it to McNeil. Even though they weren’t a party to the happenings, they saw an opening to be outraged and pounced. The NYT Times leadership took the path of least resistance and kicked McNeil out. The fact that they stood up for him with the Pulitzer committee when they could benefit is not surprising – his dismissal was all about calming the mob not about any real consternation with his behavior or character.
The lesson learned is that (a) you should be very careful about what you say in informal contexts, especially if you might be talking to people who don’t like you and (b) if you want to “get someone”, organize a mob and signify your actions are for a higher purpose (e.g., to make the workplace a safe place for everyone!).
A warning to those who join in or tolerate the mob approach to personnel decisions, remember the same tactics can be used against you or someone you love in the future. When it happens, your pleas that “This is really not a good way to handle conflicts and workplace employment decisions” will be met with the same level of sympathy that was received by McNeil. Administrators and supervisors are not going to protect you in the current environment– they are going to protect themselves and their organization.
Nice piece. We should treat the NYTs as an ideological organ, nothing more. The fact that some good journalists still work there does not absolve them. As for Pulitzers, they have become meaningless as well. Nikole Hannah-Jones just won one.
I was a little appalled when the Times ran their piece on page 2 yesterday about how many hands it takes to produce Pulitzer prize winning journalism -- patting yourself on the back for being a big family after having pushed out one of the main contributors is not a good look. And it seems like the fact that McNeil was someone who was apt to win Pulitzers made him a bigger target for younger writers, and that makes that newsroom seem a little too Hunger Gamesish in orientation.
I am reminded of an old Lenny Bruce routine whereby he used every racial slur against blacks, Jews, Hispanics, Italians, etc in an attempt to show that by using them more we can take away their power. While I don't think I am totally comfortable with that, we have certainly gone the other way where the use of certain words even in an educational manner is too much. What a species...
We had a similar situation happen here in Canada with the National Post and two opinion writers, Rex Murphy and Barbra Kay. Thankfully the paper backed both writers but for how long. More and more of the media is going woke. Into the void has stepped the Post Millennial, TNC and Rebel News. Each has foind an audience for a conservative point of view!