Key detail in this @NYMag story on the pro-censorship movem…

The role that mainstream **journalists** have played, of all people, in taking the lead to demand that Silicon Valley oligarchs more aggressively control and censor the internet -- the greatest threat to a free and open internet after mass surveillance -- cannot be overstated.

Just ponder the warped mentality of someone who chooses journalism as a career, then devotes themselves to trying to silence the ability of others to be heard by converting themselves into petulant tattletales who demand that Facebook, Twitter & Google censor dissenting voices.

This is absolutely the key fact to understand about media trends over the last 4 years: most corporate & "independent" outlets explicitly aligned themselves with one political faction -- out of both conviction and profit -- and it contaminated everything, principally the "news."

The stat that tells it all: NYT is now every bit as partisan and ideologically insular as Fox and MSNBC, talking only to hard-core Democrats, with CNN and NPR very close behind, leaving these institutions financially dependent on never reporting things that anger their audience:

Isn't this the exact generational divide over censorship and related issues at the NYT and other papers that @BariWeiss infamously noted, for which she was roundly accused of lying by her former colleagues? Now, they're the ones anonymously telling the NY Mag that this is true:

Note how these post-2016 efforts to diversify the NYT newsroom when they realized they were completely out of touch have no mention of class. Were these new reporters also from wealthy & professional backgrounds with Ivy League or similar pedigrees? Is NYT now more in touch??

A key fact about the national media, which efforts at maximizing diversity -- at least the ones with which I'm familiar -- are not geared toward rectifying. Until it is, the "out-of-touch" problem will never be improved:

https://t.co/EHnIAPjPn5

The class divide has never been so apparent in media. Many journalists grew up rich, went to $20k a year prep schools, are obsessed with fights over vocabulary, symbols, fringe boogeymen -- ignore crumbling public schools, unsafe streets, rampant poverty as secondary concerns.
— Lee Fang (@lhfang) October 12, 2020

"It is difficult to think of many businesses that have benefited more from Donald Trump’s presidency — aside from the Trump-family empire — than the Times."

True - only competitors are MSNBC and @ProjectLincoln.

Huh - you don't say? Too bad none of them were brave enough to speak up when she was being hung out to dry for saying what everyone knows is true: huge number of newsroom employees abuse HR and union processes to try to censor & control journalism. They say it explicitly:

Anyway, definitely read the NY Mag article. Wittingly or otherwise, it reveals the internal fights plaguing not just most newsrooms like the NYT but political groups all over the country about what can and cannot be said, for what reasons and by whom:

https://t.co/EGbfEVuTSZ

Key detail in this @NYMag story on the pro-censorship movement inside NYT by its own employees: NYT tech reporters were angry that the anti-censorship posture of NYT editors would impede their campaign to pressure Silicon Valley to censor more robustly:

https://t.co/EGbfEVuTSZ

You May Also Like

Key detail in this @NYMag story on the pro-censorship movement inside NYT by its own employees: NYT tech reporters were angry that the anti-censorship posture of NYT editors would impede their campaign to pressure Silicon Valley to censor more robustly:https://t.co/EGbfEVuTSZ

You May Also Like

Key detail in this @NYMag story on the pro-censorship movement inside NYT by its own employees: NYT tech reporters were angry that the anti-censorship posture of NYT editors would impede their campaign to pressure Silicon Valley to censor more robustly:

https://t.co/EGbfEVuTSZ