The 4th Estate Thread Has Surrendered

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malchior
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by malchior »

David Karpf the Professor from ^^^^^ that insulted Bret Stephens drops some wisdom on Bret.
As luck would have it, I have little to fear from Bret Stephens. I am a tenured academic, with the support of my university of administration and my disciplinary peers. I am also, like Stephens, a white guy. If either of us was a woman or person of color, we would endure far worse insults online every day. My life will go on and so will his. He will have a new nickname that he doesn’t care for; I will have some new Twitter followers who will soon learn that I am less funny than they had hoped.

But here’s what still bothers me as this strange episode recedes from the news cycle: Bret Stephens seems to think that his social status should render him immune from criticism from people like me. I think that the rewards of his social status come with an understanding that lesser-known people will say mean things about him online.

Stephens reached out to me in the mistaken belief that I would feel ashamed. He reached out believing my university would chastise me for provoking the ire of a writer at The New York Times. That’s an abuse of his social station. It cost me nothing, but it is an abuse of his power that would carry a real penalty for a younger or less privileged academic. The Times should expect more of its writers. Stephens should expect more of himself.

No one has freer speech than a public intellectual with a regular column in the paper of record. Stephens is free to say whatever he wants. With that freedom comes the discomfort that people will disagree with you. If Stephens is going to have this social power, he is going to have to learn to wield it more responsibly.
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by Holman »

Bret Stephens Triple Godwins down.



Tl;dr:
Calling Bret Stephens a "bedbug" in a low-exposure tweet is literally The Holocaust.
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malchior
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by malchior »

Latest episode in Bret Stephens loses his mind. Interesting note -- the NY Times usually publishes him on Thursday but this dropped fairly late on a Friday of a holiday weekend. They perhaps realized this massive, massive hilariously overwrought overreaction was incredibly unwise. Yet they probably couldn't stop him since he likely has editorial control over his own column within some limits.

Funnily in a different context this article would just be graded at the 'Cillizza level' if measured for insightful analysis. However, in light of the brouhaha this week and the fact that he made this point so seriously on MSNBC the next day...it makes the link too strong to ignore...and really notches up the butt hurt level. What a crybaby. It has a picture of Goebbels on it. Goebbels. The NY Times should be ashamed of this.

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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by hepcat »

This is epic level meltdown material. :shock:
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by Jaymann »

That's a an insulting comparison - to the bedbug.
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by AWS260 »

In other NY Times columnist news, Jamelle Bouie's weekly newsletter is reliably great. I highly recommend it. Each one has a mini-column--this week's is on Thomas Paine--followed by a sample of Bouie's photography and a recipe.
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by Exodor »

Browsing and went to CNN to check the news - saw just the beginning of this breaking news banner and assumed the worst:

Image


Turns out...

Image


WHY CNN WHY


Fuck you, CNN.
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El Guapo
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by El Guapo »

So this is incredibly alarming (thread):

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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by ImLawBoy »

You'll likely be surprised to know that Trump doesn't have all the facts right about ratings and profitability. I'm sure he's just made an innocent mistake and will correct it soon, of course.

Also, the activist shareholder in question here took something like a $3.2B stake in AT&T, but that's still only 1.2% of AT&T. I think some of the stuff he's advocating is likely to happen anyway (or was already in the works), but I'd be surprised if he has any real substantive impact.
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El Guapo
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by El Guapo »

ImLawBoy wrote: Thu Sep 12, 2019 11:20 am You'll likely be surprised to know that Trump doesn't have all the facts right about ratings and profitability. I'm sure he's just made an innocent mistake and will correct it soon, of course.

Also, the activist shareholder in question here took something like a $3.2B stake in AT&T, but that's still only 1.2% of AT&T. I think some of the stuff he's advocating is likely to happen anyway (or was already in the works), but I'd be surprised if he has any real substantive impact.
I agree that the impact of this is likely to be minimal, if Trump stops here. The concern is that Trump is unlikely to stop here - he's clearly trying to make the press less critical of him by leaning on corporate ownership of the press. He hasn't had much success to date, but the more time that Trump is given to do this, the more likely it is that he'll start to succeed eventually.
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by ImLawBoy »

I was meaning the impact of the activist shareholder on AT&T specifically, and not on Trump's plans to piss on the 1st Amendment generally.
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El Guapo
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by El Guapo »

ImLawBoy wrote: Thu Sep 12, 2019 11:27 am I was meaning the impact of the activist shareholder on AT&T specifically, and not on Trump's plans to piss on the 1st Amendment generally.
That's fair.

Besides, we all know that you're de facto running AT&T (and indirectly CNN) regardless.
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by ImLawBoy »

We're having our annual legal conference next month in Dallas (900+ AT&T attorneys in one place - scary), and Jim Acosta is scheduled to be one of the speakers. My worlds colliding!
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El Guapo
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by El Guapo »

ImLawBoy wrote: Thu Sep 12, 2019 11:37 am We're having our annual legal conference next month in Dallas (900+ AT&T attorneys in one place - scary), and Jim Acosta is scheduled to be one of the speakers. My worlds colliding!
So are you going to go out in a blaze of glory by standing up and asking him about Epstein?
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by ImLawBoy »

That sounds like a good way to stand out in a crowd of 900+.
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El Guapo
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by El Guapo »

No doubt Acosta would respect your gumption.
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by coopasonic »

ImLawBoy wrote: Thu Sep 12, 2019 11:47 am That sounds like a good way to stand out in a crowd of 900+.
...and standing out is *always* a good thing!
-Coop
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malchior
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by malchior »

This is related to the NY Times piece on the Yale Kavanaugh sexual assault allegations in the SCOTUS Watch thread. The NY Times went with a monstrously inappropriate tweet headline for the story. You can see one example of a reaction to it below. There are *many*. NYT took it down and called it 'poorly phrased' which set off a second firestorm. They then deleted that and posted an apology. There is someone seriously wrong in the Opinion section social media function there since this is not too far away in time from the Stephens bed bug incident.

There is another angle as well to consider, the piece is essentially the report of an investigation. However, they positioned this in the opinion section and it has a ridiculous headline all its own.
Brett Kavanaugh Fit In With the Privileged Kids. She Did Not.
Deborah Ramirez’s Yale experience says much about the college’s efforts to diversify its student body in the 1980s.
What? The headline misleads away from the meat of the story. Turning a sexual assault into a 'fish out of water story'? Awful. In any case, it sounds like the investigation is a pretty significant story all its own. They found out the FBI investigation was held up by Republican Senators. They uncovered another allegation of sexual assault. Yet it is dumped out Saturday night in the opinion section as 'News Analysis'? What the hell is going on at the NY Times?





malchior
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by malchior »

Is there a support group for news channel suffering from abuse out there?

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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by Pyperkub »

Trump's war on the 4th Estate is getting dangerous (as well as other Authoritarians) for American Journalists:
Two years ago, we got a call from a United States government official warning us of the imminent arrest of a New York Times reporter based in Egypt named Declan Walsh. Though the news was alarming, the call was actually fairly standard. Over the years, we’ve received countless such warnings from American diplomats, military leaders and national security officials.

But this particular call took a surprising and distressing turn. We learned the official was passing along this warning without the knowledge or permission of the Trump administration. Rather than trying to stop the Egyptian government or assist the reporter, the official believed, the Trump administration intended to sit on the information and let the arrest be carried out. The official feared being punished for even alerting us to the danger.

Unable to count on our own government to prevent the arrest or help free Declan if he were imprisoned, we turned to his native country, Ireland, for help. Within an hour, Irish diplomats traveled to his house and safely escorted him to the airport before Egyptian forces could detain him.

We hate to imagine what would have happened had that brave official not risked their career to alert us to the threat.
Eighteen months later, another of our reporters, David Kirkpatrick, arrived in Egypt and was detained and deported in apparent retaliation for exposing information that was embarrassing to the Egyptian government. When we protested the move, a senior official at the United States Embassy in Cairo openly voiced the cynical worldview behind the Trump administration’s tolerance for such crackdowns. “What did you expect would happen to him?” he said. “His reporting made the government look bad.”
In light of the Jamal Khashoggi murder by Saudi Arabia in Turkey, I'm left to wonder if the Trump Administration had intelligence that he was going to be arrested/interrogated/murdered and the Washington Post just didn't have the same insiders to get the information as the NYT.

It is conceivable that the Trump Administration is perfectly ok with American Journalists being murdered abroad by totalitarian governments, if their News Organization has been critical of the Trump Administration.
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by pr0ner »

Oh, so we want to be MORE like China now?

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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by Kraken »

Circus Trump: What that WH press conference looked like to the Finns
Wednesday’s roller coaster news conference with President Trump and Finnish President Sauli Niinisto elicited ridicule and some concern in Finland, where many celebrated their leader on Thursday for enduring with dignity what they largely described as a Trump monologue.

Coming from a nation that ranks second on the World Press Freedom Index — compared to the United States, which ranks 48th — stunned Finnish reporters described to their readers back home a ‘‘circus’’ and parallel reality in the White House.

Finnish newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet offered a blunt summary of the meeting: ‘‘Niinisto’s visit was overshadowed by Circus Trump — Finnish president asked Trump to safeguard USA’s democracy.’’

‘‘It was a very typical Trump press conference with a foreign leader. [Trump talks] and the foreign leader is just a prop, who basically watches and tries to keep a straight face,’’ Jussi Hanhimaki, a Finnish researcher focusing on transatlantic relations, told The Washington Post.
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malchior
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by malchior »

Washington Post

Nothing to worry about here. Just Federal agents harassing journalists at the Border.
Watson had just told the Customs and Border Protection staffer reviewing his passport that he works in journalism. Then the seemingly routine Thursday encounter at the Washington Dulles International Airport got tense.

“So you write propaganda, right?” Watson, the news editor at the national security site Defense One, recalled the CBP officer asking.

“No,” Watson says he replied. He affirmed again that he was a journalist.

The officer repeated his propaganda question, said Watson, who was returning from a reporting trip in Denmark.

“With his tone, and he’s looking me in the eye — I very much realized this is not a joke,” Watson told The Washington Post on Friday. Watson said he got his passport back only after agreeing with the “propaganda” charge.
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by hepcat »

Trump is Fox bashing again.



Fox needs to end this abusive relationship. Fox and Friends shovels the snow on his driveway each winter. Hannity helps Eric with big words. Carlson lets Don Jr. hunt him whenever he's in town. And Lou Dobbs keeps the pool boys at Mar-a-Lago from speaking to the press. And this is the thanks they get?
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by Daehawk »

He has all those cute names for everyone but himself. He must feel left out. I suggest he use Moron Orange.
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by LawBeefaroni »

hepcat wrote: Thu Oct 10, 2019 1:29 pm Trump is Fox bashing again.



Fox needs to end this abusive relationship. Fox and Friends shovels the snow on his driveway each winter. Hannity helps Eric with big words. Carlson lets Don Jr. hunt him whenever he's in town. And Lou Dobbs keeps the pool boys at Mar-a-Lago from speaking to the press. And this is the thanks they get?
He's like a vindictive 14-year-old mean girl, with all apologies to 14-year-old mean girls. I mean they grow out of it. He's still shitty at 73 years old.
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by $iljanus »

hepcat wrote:Trump is Fox bashing again.



Fox needs to end this abusive relationship. Fox and Friends shovels the snow on his driveway each winter. Hannity helps Eric with big words. Carlson lets Don Jr. hunt him whenever he's in town. And Lou Dobbs keeps the pool boys at Mar-a-Lago from speaking to the press. And this is the thanks they get?
If the thanks they get are great ratings then it's a winning formula. Voices of dissent by day and sycophants by night!
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by Skinypupy »

And now Shep Smith is out at Fox.



Can't have anyone disrupting the echo chamber, now can we?

I'm sure it's purely coincidence that Barr met with Murdoch recently as well.
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by Isgrimnur »

It will be interesting to see where he lands.
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by Alefroth »

He deserves better than Fox News.
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by pr0ner »

Isgrimnur wrote: Fri Oct 11, 2019 4:41 pm It will be interesting to see where he lands.
Any network that gets him will immediately be better for it.
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by LordMortis »

pr0ner wrote: Fri Oct 11, 2019 4:50 pm
Isgrimnur wrote: Fri Oct 11, 2019 4:41 pm It will be interesting to see where he lands.
Any network that gets him will immediately be better for it.
+1, though he was probably doing the absolute most good where he was at.
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by Skinypupy »

LordMortis wrote: Fri Oct 11, 2019 4:51 pm
pr0ner wrote: Fri Oct 11, 2019 4:50 pm
Isgrimnur wrote: Fri Oct 11, 2019 4:41 pm It will be interesting to see where he lands.
Any network that gets him will immediately be better for it.
+1, though he was probably doing the absolute most good where he was at.
That was my first thought as well.

However, after remembering the reaction he typically gets from the Trumper crowd, it seemed he was mostly just screaming into the void.
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malchior
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by malchior »

Reports are that he was escorted out by security. You can't have a state media with a traitor telling the actual truth on it.
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by Skinypupy »

Here's his final message

An interesting note:
Meanwhile, it seems a non-compete means Smith won’t be anchoring anywhere else yet. No word on how long has to sit it out.
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by Holman »

malchior wrote: Fri Oct 11, 2019 5:07 pm Reports are that he was escorted out by security. You can't have a state media with a traitor telling the actual truth on it.
There's pushback on that, even from Smith's spokesperson. They're saying it was a normal departure.

The timing is certainly sudden, though, especially since Barr for some reason met with Murdoch on Wednesday.
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by malchior »

I just watched his departure video. Doesn't seem acrimonious. He simply might not have wanted to work through another election season on the anchor desk.
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Est

Post by hepcat »

Holman wrote: Fri Oct 11, 2019 5:28 pm
malchior wrote: Fri Oct 11, 2019 5:07 pm Reports are that he was escorted out by security. You can't have a state media with a traitor telling the actual truth on it.
There's pushback on that, even from Smith's spokesperson. They're saying it was a normal departure.
I doubt Fox did anything like that. Shep was just tired of Fox. They probably begged him to stay as he was one of the few who gave any semblance of credibility to Fox News. But it had to be trying for him to work with assholes like Carlson and Hannity.
Covfefe!
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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by malchior »

At an event last week including Don Jr. at Trump National Doral Miami -- they showed a mock video of Trump massacring the news media and political opponents in a church shooting. The organizer and several attendees denounced it naturally but you can't help but feel it is because they got caught. People have to wake up. It is almost too late.

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Re: The Semi-Official Death Watch of the 4th Estate Thread

Post by hepcat »

And Kathy Griffin got in trouble why?

edit: it's even worse than I initially thought:



So much for the claim that African Americans love Trump, I guess.
Covfefe!
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