Chris Lehmann at The Baffler writes—Neutering the News—Here’s why The Times hired the wrong kind of public editor
It was pretty much obvious at the outset of Liz Spayd’s tenure as New York Times public editor that the paper had elevated a dangerous simpleton into a position of influence. And now, with Spayd’s tone-deaf chiding of Times reporters for mostly anodyne comments on the empty spectacle of the Trump transition and call-outs to critics of President-elect Trump (another dangerous simpleton recently elevated into a position of influence), we’re seeing all the tell-tale signs of a full-fledged intellectual meltdown.
To recap: Spayd was pulling talking-head duty on Tucker Carlson’s latest Fox News brand-extension, and Carlson, like any Fox-trained grievance merchant, went into high dudgeon over a smattering of Trump-themed tweets drafted by Times hands. (Sample outrage fodder: A tweet from Times investigative reporter Eric Lipton on the rampant merchandizing of Trump-branded swag that read in full “White House as QVC. It has started”; a tweet from Jerusalem bureau chief Peter Baker linking to—horrors!—a Brookings Institution breakdown of failed election coverage by (his wife) Susan Glasser, former editor of that notorious left-wing rag Politico; and a tweet from reporter Liam Stack that merely repeated a headline about the Electoral College that ran in that other scurrilous journal of radical opinion, The Atlantic.)
Now, any intelligent human versed in the basics of the Fox brand of cable hectoring might have noted that this is the sort of non-controversy that the phrase “tempest in a teapot” was coined to describe. A minimally prepared guest might even note that far rougher sentiments had been aired in a recent Twitter feud between Bret Stephens, an editor at the Wall Street Journal, and counter-journalistic Trump shill Sean Hannity—but maybe that wasn’t deemed suitable red meat for Fox’s bow-tied, Trump-osculating hellion because all the principals in that dust-up were paid by Rupert Murdoch, just like Tucker Carlson is.
Did Liz Spayd rouse herself to this basic level of media literacy? Ha, of course not! Instead, she blathered awkwardly in Carlson’s own chosen register of vacuous affrontedness. “Yes, I think that’s outrageous,” she obligingly burbled. “They shouldn’t be tweeted.” Later on in the segment, Carlson, no doubt delighted to have such a pliant Tweedle Dum on the set, raised the rhetorical stakes, suggesting that Times editors should threaten to fire the offending tweeters. And sure enough, Spayd seemed game for some sort of managerial discipline: “I don’t know that any of these people should be fired, but I do think that when people go over the line like that, and I think some of those are over the line, that there ought to be some kind of a consequence for that.”
When Spayd’s idiot musings touched off an entirely predictable social-media furor, she tried a semi-walkback of her comments. “In retrospect, I should have held back more, not knowing what the context was for the tweets” she told Politico media reporter Joe Pompeo. “But I stand by my view that journalists should be careful, sometimes more careful than they are, with what they say on social media. That includes how it can be interpreted.”
That includes how it can be interpreted. Let us linger a moment on this particular passive effusion of patrician management-speak. In this case, of course, the only “interpretation” being floated for this inoffensive array of comments was the nakedly ideological tantrum that Carlson was cynically staging to advance his own Fox career.[...]
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At Daily Kos on this date in 2004—Powell: won't seek political office:
While yesterday's Q-poll showed Colin Powell polling decently in hypothetical NY governor and senate races, the integrity-free outgoing secretary of state says he's not interested.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday he won't seek political office, dismissing suggestions that he run for governor or senator in New York.
Asked about a poll that shows him favored in a hypothetical matchup for the governor's race, Powell said, "I'm not going to be running for office even in my beloved home state of New York, as flattering as that poll might be." [...]
"I don't think I've ever said I wouldn't be interested in public life again," Powell said. "I think I've repeatedly said over the course of nine-plus years that I've had no interest in political office."
The GOP bench in NY is exactly one man deep without a Powell candidacy—Giuliani. Expect state Republicans to keep talking up a Powell candidacy over the next two years as they grow increasingly desperate in their efforts to take on HIllary and hold the governorship.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Even more bigly conflicted & leveraged. But, whatevs! New frontiers in bribery: inaugural committees. Armando called it: Trump’s not really rich? Josie Duffy Rice highlights a report saying some 40% of our prison population could & should really be released.
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