{"id":207706,"date":"2022-03-28T12:00:07","date_gmt":"2022-03-28T11:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=207706"},"modified":"2022-03-24T05:01:51","modified_gmt":"2022-03-24T05:01:51","slug":"worlds-dullest-editorial-launches-panic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/03\/worlds-dullest-editorial-launches-panic\/","title":{"rendered":"World\u2019s Dullest Editorial Launches Panic"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote>\n<div class=\"entry-summary hentry-wrapper th-highlighted-summary th-text-primary-dark th-text-xl th-w-single-view md:th-px-4xl sm:th-px-lg th-px-base\"><em>In an inane sequel to the Harper&#8217;s Letter fiasco, a New York Times editorial ignites a fury proving its anodyne thesis.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div><em>23 Mar 2022 &#8211; <\/em>The <em>New York Times\u00a0<\/em>ran a tepid house editorial in favor of free speech last week. A sober reaction:<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Arguably the worst day in the history of the New York Times. <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/sY9PJGrAot\" >pic.twitter.com\/sY9PJGrAot<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Tom Watson (@tomwatson) <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tomwatson\/status\/1504906349490098177?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" >March 18, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<div>One might think running botched WMD reports that got us into the Iraq war or <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytco.com\/company\/prizes-awards\/new-york-times-statement-about-1932-pulitzer-prize-awarded-to-walter-durant\" >getting a Pulitzer<\/a>\u00a0for lauding Stalin\u2019s liquidation of five million\u00a0<em>kulaks<\/em>\u00a0might have constituted worse days \u2014 who knew? Pundits, academics, and politicians across the cultural mainstream seemed to agree with Watson, plunging into a days-long freakout over a\u00a0<em>meh\u00a0<\/em>editorial that shows little sign of abating.<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>\u201cAppalling,\u201d\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jeffjarvis\/status\/1504786865261588602\" >barked<\/a>\u00a0J-school professor Jeff Jarvis. \u201cBy the time the\u00a0<em>Times<\/em>\u00a0finally realizes what side it\u2019s on, it may be too late,\u201d\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/By the time the Times finally realizes what side it\u2019s on, it may be too late.\" >screeched<\/a>\u00a0<em>Philadelphia Inquirer\u00a0<\/em>columnist Will Bunch. \u201cThe board should retract and resign,\u201d\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/adamdavidson\/status\/1504872885835468812?s=11\" >said<\/a>\u00a0journalist and former\u00a0<em>Planet Money\u00a0<\/em>of NPR fame founder Adam Davidson. \u201cToxic, brain-deadening bothsidesism,\u201d railed Dan Froomkin of\u00a0<em>Press Watch,\u00a0<\/em>who<em>\u00a0<\/em>went on to\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/presswatchers.org\/2022\/03\/the-new-york-times-editorial-board-should-retract-and-resign\/\" >demand<\/a>\u00a0a retraction\u00a0<em>and\u00a0<\/em>a \u201cmass resignation.\u201d The aforementioned Watson agreed, saying \u201cthe NYT should retract this insanity, and replace the entire editorial board.\u201d Not terribly relevant, but amusing still, was the reaction of actor George Takei, who\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/georgetakei\/status\/1504924117795024905?s=11\" >said<\/a>, \u201cIt\u2019s like Bill Maher is now on the\u00a0<em>New York Times<\/em>\u00a0Editorial board.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The main objection of most of the pilers-on involved the lede of the\u00a0<em>Times\u00a0<\/em>piece, which really was a maladroit piece of writing:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p><em>For all the tolerance and enlightenment that modern society claims, Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There\u2019s obviously no legal right in America to voice an opinion without being criticized, so this line is indeed an error and an embarrassing one, for a labored-over first line of a major\u00a0<em>New York Times<\/em>\u00a0editorial. On the other hand, a lot of great liberal thinkers decried shaming tactics as utterly opposite to the spirit of free speech, with John Stuart Mill\u2019s warning of a \u201csocial tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression\u201d being just one example. So, while the\u00a0<em>Times\u00a0<\/em>technically screwed up, cheering shaming and shunning as normal and healthy elements of life in free societies is a pretty weird gotcha. In any case, this bollocksed lede introduced a piece that had been in the works for a while, and came complete with a poll the paper commissioned in conjunction with Siena College.<\/p>\n<p>Its premise, tied to the uncontroversial observation that America has become dangerously polarized, is that \u201cthe political left and the right are caught in a destructive loop of condemnation and recrimination.\u201d Citing a poll that 84% of Americans (including 84% of black Americans) who said it was either a \u201cvery serious\u201d or \u201csomewhat serious\u201d problem that people are now afraid to voice opinions out of fear of \u201cretaliation or harsh criticism,\u201d the\u00a0<em>Times\u00a0<\/em>said \u201cwhen speech is stifled or when dissenters are shut out,\u201d that \u201ca society also loses its ability to resolve conflict, and\u2026 faces the risk of political violence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0<em>Times\u00a0<\/em>piece is pretty transparently a marketing ploy, designed to regain a foothold with the slew of demographics lost to the paper in recent years. It\u2019s a campaign that deserves to fail if it somehow doesn\u2019t. The internal\u00a0<em>Times<\/em>\u00a0debate over whether or not to broaden its ideological horizons has for years run along humorously obnoxious lines, like \u201cShould we hire one never-Trump Republican columnist, or none?\u201d Even this latest offering wringing hands about America\u2019s lack of ideological tolerance doesn\u2019t wonder at the paper\u2019s own near-total absence of columnists and reporters positively disposed (or even just indifferent) to Bernie Sanders, or really any political viewpoint outside the two dominant theologies.<\/p>\n<p>Still, the\u00a0<em>Times\u00a0<\/em>was careful \u2014 conspicuously, agonizingly, excessively careful \u2014 to point out that the speech issue was not exclusive to one political side or another. They wrote that Republicans, \u201cfor all their braying about cancel culture, have embraced an even more extreme version of censoriousness\u201d in the form of official bans on certain books or classroom ideas. Their approach here was similar to the now-infamous\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/harpers.org\/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate\/\" >open letter in support of free speech<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0<em>Harper\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>from two summers ago, in which a handful of academics, authors, artists, and journalists, including Noam Chomsky, Salman Rushdie, J.K. Rowling, Wynton Marsalis, and others decried \u201ca new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In an effort to head off blowback, the\u00a0<em>Harper\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>letter<em>\u00a0<\/em>authors went to absurd lengths to create the most inoffensive conceivable statement in support of free expression, to the point where more than a dozen mainstream outlets ranging from\u00a0<em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/harpers-magazines-cancel-culture-letter-kicks-off-circular-firing-squad-in-media\" >The Daily Beast<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>to the\u00a0<em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2020\/07\/10\/real-problem-with-cancel-culture\/\" >Washington Post<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>to\u00a0<em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/q-and-a\/noam-chomsky-believes-trump-is-the-worst-criminal-in-human-history\" >The New Yorker<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>and beyond (as well as\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.co.uk\/article\/a-gag-is-no-cure-for-this-cancel-culture-mcnpkhk5b\" >at least one<\/a>\u00a0of the signatories) used the term \u201canodyne\u201d to describe it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe went through dozens and dozens of drafts with a lot of input from various signatories to strike as nuanced a balance as possible,\u201d says Thomas Chatterton Williams, one of the authors of the \u201c<em>Harper\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0letter.\u201d This was done, he said, \u201cto make it clear that it wasn\u2019t a one-sided attack on the left but an attempt to call attention to a problem that transcends the political binary.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The caution not only didn\u2019t help, but made things worse. The letter stimulated a host of bizarre controversies, including\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/media\/tensions-vox-employees-journalist-cancel-culture\" >complaints from\u00a0<\/a><em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/media\/tensions-vox-employees-journalist-cancel-culture\" >Vox\u00a0<\/a><\/em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/media\/tensions-vox-employees-journalist-cancel-culture\" >staffers<\/a>\u00a0that kinda-sorta led to the exit of signatory\/co-founder Matt Yglesias, whose crime was co-appearing on the\u00a0<em>Harper\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>letter with people whose views on trans issues were deemed objectionable. Several signatories withdrew when they found out who else was signing (seeming to defeat the purpose of making a statement in favor of tolerating differing views, as signatories like Malcolm Gladwell\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/gladwell\/status\/1280853862916648960\" >pointed out<\/a>). There were so many freakouts in the letter\u2019s wake that\u00a0<em>Guardian\u00a0<\/em>columnist Jonathan Freedland\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2020\/jul\/08\/is-free-speech-under-threat-cancel-culture-writers-respond\" >commented<\/a>\u00a0it \u201cmight be a rare example of the reaction to a text making the text\u2019s case rather better than the text itself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This\u00a0<em>Times\u00a0<\/em>editorial is watered down almost to the level of a public service announcement written for the Cartoon Network<em>,\u00a0<\/em>or maybe a fortune cookie (\u201c<em>Free speech is a process, not a destination. Winning numbers 4, 9, 11, 32, 46\u2026\u201d).\u00a0<\/em>It made the\u00a0<em>Harper\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>letter read like a bin Laden fatwa, but it\u2019s somehow arousing a bigger panic. Its critics view the mention of Republican legislative bans in conjunction with canceling as a monstrous affront, a felony case of both-sidesism. Obviously any implication that there\u2019s any moral comparison between Republicans banning speech by law and Democrats doing it by way of informal backroom deals with unaccountable tech monopolies is unacceptable. Beyond that now, much of the commentariat seems to believe the op-ed page has outlived its usefulness unless it\u2019s engaged in fulsome denunciations of correct targets:<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/adamdavidson\/status\/1505239481321992194?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1505239481321992194%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&#038;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fscheerpost.com%2F2022%2F03%2F23%2Fmatt-taibbi-worlds-dullest-editorial-launches-panic%2F<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe need more shaming and shunning, not less,\u201d is how Froomkin put it, putting the names of opinion editor Kathleen Kingsbury and deputy opinion editor Patrick Healy up near the top of his piece \u201cfor the record,\u201d in case anyone wanted to know who needs teeing up for the next #FireARandomPerson campaign.<\/p>\n<p>It would be ironic if Kingsbury were forced out for running a lukewarm editorial in support of free speech, since she replaced the last\u00a0<em>Times\u00a0<\/em>opinion editor\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2020\/06\/07\/media\/james-bennet-new-york-times-resigns\/index.html\" >beheaded<\/a>\u00a0in the wake of a social media and staff meltdown, James Bennet. The latter\u2019s offense two years ago was running an editorial by Republican Senator Tom Cotton that called for invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy troops during the George Floyd protests.<\/p>\n<p>When I asked Froomkin if the idea was to keep cycling through\u00a0<em>Times\u00a0<\/em>opinion editors \u201cuntil you get one who\u2019s appropriately focused in the direction you like,\u201d he replied: \u201cYes, I would like them replaced with people who stake out bold, defensible, not-brainless positions, while publishing a very wide range of perspectives from others.\u201d He then linked to an essay of his\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/presswatchers.org\/2020\/06\/theres-a-better-way-to-present-opinions-online-with-radical-transparency-and-the-new-york-times-should-lead-the-way\/\" >arguing<\/a>\u00a0that publishing \u201cwide perspectives\u201d would essentially entail coating any articles with which the \u201cbold\u201d op-ed board disagreed all over with warnings pointing out where they\u2019re wrong, arguing in bad faith, or are \u201cmorally abhorrent.\u201d (This incidentally is how the Cotton piece\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/06\/03\/opinion\/tom-cotton-protests-military.html\" >looks online now<\/a>, a 970-word op-ed preceded by a 300-word Editor\u2019s Note explaining why it sucks and shouldn\u2019t have been published).<\/p>\n<p>This is the same terror of uncontextualized thought that\u2019s spurred everything from the campaigns to place more controls on Joe Rogan to the mountains of flags and warning labels platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube pile on all kinds of content now (\u201cAre you sure you want to read this debunked wrongthinker? Click yes\/no\u201d) to the bizarre new \u201cfact-checking\u201d movement that takes factually true statements and objects to them at length for \u201c<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/factcheck\/2020\/10\/01\/fact-check-post-joe-biden-green-new-deal-missing-context\/5887079002\/\" >missing context<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The underlying premise of all these formats is the conviction that the ordinary schlub media consumer will make the wrong decision if the correct message isn\u2019t hammered out everywhere for him or her in all caps by mental superiors. This idea isn\u2019t just insulting but usually incorrect, like thinking Lord Haw Haw broadcasts would make English soldiers bayonet each other rather than laugh or fight harder. Even just on the level of commercial self-preservation, one would think media people would eventually realize there\u2019s a limit to how many times you can tell people they\u2019re too dumb to be trusted with controversial ideas, and still keep any audience. But they never do.<\/p>\n<p>There may be plenty of reasons to roll eyes at the\u00a0<em>Times\u00a0<\/em>piece, but the poll numbers in there speak to this exhaustion, with what Chatterton Williams calls the \u201cconsensus enforcers who feverishly insist there\u2019s no problem, and the fact that you disagree is evidence that you should resign your position.\u201d It was crazy enough when jobs were lost over the\u00a0<em>Harper\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>letter. But calling for firings over\u00a0<em>this?<\/em>\u00a0An editorial that drives two miles an hour down the middle of the middle of the middle of the road? If this is anybody\u2019s idea of a taboo, we really have lost it.<\/p>\n<p>______________________________________________<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/matt-taibbi-e1647234324368.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-207043\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/matt-taibbi-e1647234324368.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"75\" \/><\/a> <em>Matthew C. Taibbi is an American author, journalist, and podcaster. He has reported on finance, media, politics, and sports. He is a contributing editor for <\/em>Rolling Stone<em>, author of several books, a winner of the National Magazine Award for commentary<\/em>,<em> co-host of <\/em>Useful Idiots<em>, and publisher of a newsletter on <\/em>Substack.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/scheerpost.com\/2022\/03\/23\/matt-taibbi-worlds-dullest-editorial-launches-panic\/\" >Go to Original \u2013 scheerpost.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>23 Mar 2022 &#8211; In an inane sequel to the Harper&#8217;s Letter fiasco, a New York Times editorial ignites a fury proving its anodyne thesis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":207043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}