Facebook Founder Presents Vision For The New Republic, Many Resign In Protest 346
SkiTee94 writes: Chris Hughes, one of the original founders of Facebook, is in damage control mode to save his recently acquired, century-old publication The New Republic. In response to Hughes' vision to turn the highly respected, and most would say old school, publication into a "digital media company," about a dozen senior editors and writers simply quit (out of a 54-person staff). One of the editors who quit said, "The narrative that they are putting out there is that it is the 21st century and we have to innovate and adapt. ... We don’t know what their vision is. It is Silicon Valley mumbo jumbo buzzwords that don’t mean anything." Is Hughes a visionary cleaning out dead wood or a clueless tech star leaving destruction in his wake?
I love it! (Score:5, Insightful)
"....It is Silicon Valley mumbo jumbo buzzwords that don’t mean anything."
That made my day!
Re:I love it! (Score:4, Informative)
Re. buzzwords, I'm guessing the editor is referring to a quote [mhpbooks.com] from the new CEO, Guy Vidra:
Mr. Vidra said in a memo to the staff on Thursday that he wanted to reimagine the publication “as a vertically integrated digital media company.”
Vidra also wrote [mhpbooks.com],
As we restructure The New Republic, we will be making significant investments in creating a more effective and efficient newsroom as well as improved products across all platforms. This will require a recalibration of our resources in order to deliver the best product possible. In order to do so, we’ve made the decision to reduce the frequency of our print publication from 20 to 10 issues a year and will be making improvements to the magazine itself.
Given the frequency reduction, we will also be making some changes to staff structure.
That probably didn't go over too well, either.
Re:I love it! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Of all people to promote a 'don't like' button ...
Yes, I'm sure you hear your share of dislikes. Still, I agree. People need an outlet for anger or whatever. Don't Like does it, and recipients need feedback that can guide them as they grow and progress. 'Don't Like' does that.
As a writer/artist I need feedback on my work. Positive feedback is gratuitous and useless for the most part. Give me your criticism!
Thanks Barbie! (I expect you will find that annoying.)
Re:I love it! (Score:5, Funny)
"My sister was in hospital recently and posted it on Facebook. Most of her friends, family and myself hit the like button."
I wouldn't advise doing that when someone posts "My spouse/parent/child died" or "I just lost my job today" or "I think I'm being cheated on."
Re:Buzzwords (Score:5, Insightful)
The Latter. (Score:5, Interesting)
I've heard Hughes speak. He enjoys pushing new things simply because they're new, not because they'll actually improve the product.
Sad to see this happen to TNR.
Re:The Latter. (Score:4, Insightful)
He's Both (Score:4, Insightful)
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Exactly how is he a visionary? Seems more like he was in the right place at the right time. Facebook wasn't even the first social media site; it just had access to the Harvard student body which helped it position itself as an upscale alternative to MySpace, and from their it was just a case of network effect fueled growth. Had Zuckerberg attended UMass Boston across town, Facebook would never have gone anywhere.
There was smart marketing along the way, but it was hardly a *transformative* vision. It was
Hard to say (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe the staff overreacted to some BS corporate email?
Maybe the publication was being turned into something with typical clickbait articles, because it makes more profits?
Re:Hard to say (Score:5, Insightful)
Hard to believe 20% of the staff, including some senior writers, would all quit as an overreaction to some email. But as you say we don't know the details.
Imagine working for years at a small well-regarded tech company (assuming you're more familiar with tech companies) with 56 employees that gets bought out. What kind of actions would cause 12 of your long time valued employees to up and quit?
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I am skeptical that they left over anything involving format or distribution or even use of tech, but something involving changing the target or intellegence level of their reporting.
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Re:Hard to say (Score:5, Informative)
The report I read elsewhere [independent.co.uk] suggested that it was, at least in part, a reaction to the new owner sacking the editor.
Re:Hard to say (Score:5, Insightful)
Firing the editor who had at least made some progress in recovering the publication (the "franchise" or "brand" is corpro-speak) from the disastrous Peretz/Sullivan era via press release - without the courtesy of even calling said editor before he saw the news on Twitter - was not considered auspicious.
sPh
Re:Hard to say (Score:5, Interesting)
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In general, management can't learn. If you quit, they just assume the problem is with you.
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that'd be nice, have you seen some of those tables they have upstairs?? I saw one in 2010 while I was having a wander through, ticket said £85,000. Then I saw why. It was a slice of a geode sandwiched in shaped glass, eight feet wide and four inches thick, with amethyst crystals the size of my fist and a platinum edge. I very nearly came on the spot.
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Does anybody know what "digital media company" really means?
It means that in addition to the old business model of manipulating your thoughts, they also spy on you.
Is Hughes clearing dead wood? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd say that Hughes didn't do a damn thing.
You had a bunch of journalists who didn't identify with the pablum the new owner was puking. So, to send a CLEAR message, they quit.
An unusually direct show of integrity in today's era of spineless, jellyfish-like hack wannabes.
Can they stop calling it "New" Republic? (Score:2)
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It's newer than the original.
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in Old York you used to be able to shoot a Scot found within the city wall on a Sunday before church.
(way back when Englishmen had backbones and used their own femoral arteries to string their bows)
Newsroom? (Score:2)
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I think the Newsroom story was written last year, so maybe this new owner wasn't watching?
*sigh* (Score:2)
Hughes was involved in online organizing for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign on My.BarackObama.com, the campaign's online social networking website.[7]
Look how that turned out.
He is also an invitee of the Bilderberg Group and attended the Swiss 2011 Bilderberg conference at the Suvretta House in St. Moritz, Switzerland.[12]
Laugh
In March 2012, he purchased a majority stake in The New Republic Magazine. He is now the publisher and editor-in-chief of the magazine.[13]
Money makes you an expert in everything.
Under Hughes, the magazine has become less focused on "The Beltway," with more cultural coverage and attention to visuals. It also stopped running an editorial in every issue. There has also been attention to what media observers have described as a less uniformly pro-Israel tone in its coverage (which was a hallmark of Marty Peretz's ownership).[24]
On December 4, 2014, it was announced that Gabriel Snyder, previously of Bloomberg, would replace Franklin Foer as editor, and that the print edition of TNR would be reduced to ten issues a year. At the same time, a letter of resignation was signed by ten contributing editors, Paul Berman, Jonathan Chait, William Deresiewicz, Ruth Franklin, Anthony Grafton, Enrique Krauze, Ryan Lizza, Sacha Z. Scoblic, Helen Vendler, Sean Wilentz, and sent to Chris Hughes. Longtime contributor and the current literary editor of TNR, Leon Wieseltier, also resigned in protest to the changes being made at the magazine by Hughes and CEO Guy Vidra.[25]
My personal opinion is anyone involved in growing Facebook is scum, the antithesis of what the World needs.
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Hughes was involved in online organizing for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign on My.BarackObama.com, the campaign's online social networking website.[7]
Look how that turned out.
didn't he win?
He is also an invitee of the Bilderberg Group and attended the Swiss 2011 Bilderberg conference at the Suvretta House in St. Moritz, Switzerland.[12]
Laugh
Why laugh? This puts him in a great position to steer the publication in the direction the Bilderberg Group wants.
In March 2012, he purchased a majority stake in The New Republic Magazine. He is now the publisher and editor-in-chief of the magazine.[13]
Money makes you an expert in everything.
Under Hughes, the magazine has become less focused on "The Beltway," with more cultural coverage and attention to visuals. It also stopped running an editorial in every issue. There has also been attention to what media observers have described as a less uniformly pro-Israel tone in its coverage (which was a hallmark of Marty Peretz's ownership).[24]
On December 4, 2014, it was announced that Gabriel Snyder, previously of Bloomberg, would replace Franklin Foer as editor, and that the print edition of TNR would be reduced to ten issues a year. At the same time, a letter of resignation was signed by ten contributing editors, Paul Berman, Jonathan Chait, William Deresiewicz, Ruth Franklin, Anthony Grafton, Enrique Krauze, Ryan Lizza, Sacha Z. Scoblic, Helen Vendler, Sean Wilentz, and sent to Chris Hughes. Longtime contributor and the current literary editor of TNR, Leon Wieseltier, also resigned in protest to the changes being made at the magazine by Hughes and CEO Guy Vidra.[25]
My personal opinion is anyone involved in growing Facebook is scum, the antithesis of what the World needs.
Facebook, like any other ad-supported social media website, is nothing more than an advertising machine. With the added bonus that every man and his dog now knows your bank's safety answer (Mother's maiden name?? Look it up on Facebook, for fuck's sake!)
Chris Hughes Can Always Sell (Score:3)
Not an "or" question (Score:2)
Is Hughes a visionary cleaning out dead wood or a clueless tech star leaving destruction in his wake?
Why on earth would you think those are mutually exclusive?
Okay just stop (Score:2)
I've read the comments and even, blasphemously, the article, and I still have no clear idea what's going on here.
Leftists quit because the publication was going right wing?
Talented editors quit because whatever (gawker?) wanted to turn into clickbait?
Nobody seems to talk about what actually happened here.
Comment removed (Score:3)
Re:Who cares... (Score:4, Insightful)
Heh, only someone whose politics is on the extreme right would consider TNR a "far left wing liberal rag".
Its own editors said so (Score:2, Informative)
The open letter from the long-time editors who quit says:
> It is a sad irony that at this perilous moment, with a reactionary variant of conservatism in the ascendancy, liberalismâ(TM)s central journal should be scuttled with flagrant and frivolous abandon.
The very people who make the magazine are very clear that their intention has been that it is "liberalism's central journal". Elsewhere you'll see they honestly and clearly state their intention to promote left-wing liberalism. They aren't pr
Re:Its own editors said so (Score:5, Insightful)
Elsewhere you'll see they honestly and clearly state their intention to promote left-wing liberalism. They aren't pretending to be objective, balanced, or factual.
Holding a set of beliefs doesn't disqualify you from being objective, balanced or factual.
Everyone has beliefs - some subscribe to a classifiable set of beliefs. This journal is a collection of people who share some beliefs around liberalism - and they declare it.
Of course this means that they'll tend to see things through the prism of their beliefs - but everyone does this. At least in this case, they're honest and upfront about their beliefs, so you can take those into account.
They're going to pick stories of interest to liberals, and they're going to give liberal insights into events - but that doesn't mean they can't be reasonably objective, balanced of factual.
I say 'reasonably' because nobody can be completely objective, balanced or factual. Everyone is influenced by their preconceptions, experience, and by their imperfect knowledge.
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Elsewhere you'll see they honestly and clearly state their intention to promote left-wing liberalism. They aren't pretending to be objective, balanced, or factual.
Holding a set of beliefs doesn't disqualify you from being objective, balanced or factual.
Maybe not, but making it your intention to promote a set of beliefs disqualifies you.
could, but they SAY they are taking positions. Quo (Score:2)
A liberal editor COULD try to keep his personal beliefs out of it, so the publication doesn't espouse one position or the other. They could, but New Republic has explicitly chosen to avoid objectivity, they TELL US that the magazine is used to advocate certain positions. Consider what their owner and editor-in-chief says the magazine stands for:
"The New Republic is very much against the Bush tax programs, against Bush Social Security 'reform,' against cutting the inheritance tax, for radical health care c
Re:Its own editors said so (Score:5, Insightful)
A couple problems. The first is that no one is truly objective except someone studying an isolated system. The second is that we have this misbegotten notion that "balance" is that we must give both sides of a story equal billing. When one side is flagrantly wrong, it deserves to be dismissed and ignored. The third is on you to show how they omit facts. I know the extreme right wing of this country loves to manufacture "facts" or omit actual facts when it suits them, there's a whole TV network that excels in such shitflinging.
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Couldn't agree more that's why balance is such crap when the left is getting equal footing.
Oh perhaps you meant the viewpoint you dislike should be squelched ?
Re:Its own editors said so (Score:5, Insightful)
The second is that we have this misbegotten notion that "balance" is that we must give both sides of a story equal billing. When one side is flagrantly wrong, it deserves to be dismissed and ignored.
I absolutely agree with you that there's no need to present ideas that are demonstrably false. But "liberalism" is not something that is easily proved "true" or "false." A group stating that they are promoting "liberalism" could mean many things, but a political ideology is NOT a synonym for "truth."
The third is on you to show how they omit facts. I know the extreme right wing of this country loves to manufacture "facts" or omit actual facts when it suits them, there's a whole TV network that excels in such shitflinging.
I know many "conservatives" who use misunderstandings (intentional or not) or outright lying to promote their ideas, but I also know "liberals" who have done the same. And there are people who have fundamental ideas about what they think good policies might be on both sides who try to stick to the truth.
In any case, getting stuck in one's own ideological bubble means that it can be difficult to see the truth -- not always because you're deliberately lying or because any of your ideological buddies are lying. Often the sides talk past each other -- so you always get your "talking points" and never really have to seriously consider rebuttals from the other side... or if they occur, you just laugh and dismiss them, and your group of ideological friends laughs along with you, because it's easier than confronting real philosophical fundamental inconsistencies that are present in any real-world political ideology.
Whether you're a fan of the Rush Limbaugh show or NPR or Fox News or DemocracyNow! or whatever, you get the slice of "news" that best represents what the producers/editors think is important.
"Balance" is an issue not so much about truth, but about making sure that opposing opinions are considered in cases where there are real, actual conflicts with no one "truth." And it's also about running a variety of stories that sometimes might bring up "inconvenient" problems with your pet ideology.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with a magazine or whatever saying, "We're going to slant toward liberalism." But "facts" can always be selected, even if they are all true. Magazines and newspapers have to figure out what stories to run, and they will select them in ways that will promote or emphasize their ideology. For people who don't ever step outside that "ideological bubble," though, they could end up with a pretty skewed perception of the world... even if every single sentence in the magazine is "verifiably true."
That's why "balance" -- in general -- is important. Even more important is diversity of opinions, diversity of experiences, and diversity of ideologies. If you don't have those things, you can still up distorting things to adhere to your chosen ideology... even unintentionally.
(P.S. In case anyone's making assumptions and gearing up for ad hominem, let me be clear that I would never identify myself as a "conservative" (whatever that means). I believe that the one-dimensional idea of a political spectrum that encompasses all possible ideas is fundamentally flawed and leads to distortions, groupthink, and doublethink -- because all possible issues have to be crammed into some space along the spectrum, despite many underlying inconsistencies that arise.)
Fox News radio tagline says it's conservative (Score:2)
Fox News is conservative, of course. The Fox News Radio tagline is something like "the latest news and conservative perspectives". Similarly, New Republic calls itself a liberal journal. To pretend that either is objective would be silly.
Fox used to have one good show, Hannity and Coomes, co-anchored by a liberal and a conservative who would both acknowledge when the other made a good point.
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That's not the kind of "imbalance" I often see in the media nowadays. What I see is more like liberal sources heavily reporting cases of police brutality, and conservative sources heavily reporting cases of black looting, and each side failing to report on events that don't fit its narrative. To some extent, i
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Re:Who cares... (Score:5, Informative)
From about 1975 forward TNR was in the vanguard of "neoliberalism", which basically amounts to packaging hard right Republican ideas + hippie punching and selling in to "moderate" Democratic politicians and DC insiders who think they need to "move right" to get re-elected. Classifying TNR (cf Andrew Sullivan) as a 'liberal rag' is a bit, oh, silly.
sPh
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The liberal TNR has been packaging "hard right Republican ideas + hippie punching"? And "Classifying TNR (cf Andrew Sullivan) as a 'liberal rag' is a bit, oh, silly"? That's just nuts. TNR is Liberal. You're heading deep into the fringe left if you want to claim they're "right wing" in some fashion.
Re:Who cares... (Score:5, Informative)
Until Hughes bought it, for the previous few decades it had been controlled by Marty Peretz [wikipedia.org], and was to some extent reflective of his views, which are an odd idiosyncratic mix of left-wing and right-wing ideas. He's socially liberal but a defense hawk, among other positions. Which explains why TNR was liberal on things like gay marriage, but neoconservative on things like the Iraq War.
Re:Who cares... (Score:5, Insightful)
Supporting Excellent Iraq War II, pumping the _Bell Curve_, publishing the racist fantasies of Stephen Glass, joining the anti-public education movement, and also publishing the "No Exit" hatchet job on Bill Clinton's health care reform proposal isn't in any way shape or form liberal. And that's not even taking into account Martin Perez' racism and ethnic hatred which is of a variety that is a bit harder to criticize in US society but which most liberals reject.
Representative quote from Andrew Sullivan: "The middle part of the country—the great red zone that voted for Bush—is clearly ready for war. The decadent Left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead—and may well mount what amounts to a fifth column." [note that he later altered that essay as published on his blog to make it less self-damning; this is the original wording]. Yes, he's gay. No, he's not liberal.
sPh
Re:Who cares... (Score:5, Informative)
You don't have a single left wing outlet in the US. Even the most left leaning is way into the political right everywhere else on the planet. You've got so used to extreme right as central, you cannot see you're a fascist state.
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They consider "liberal" to be "left". It really boggles the mind.
I'd really love to see where they'd put the average European center-left party.
Re:Who cares... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing to do with totalitarianism. Outside of a few social issues, the U.S. has almost no liberal politicians, and the U.S. also has essentially no fiscally conservative politicians. Instead, both parties are fiscally liberal, with the Republicans being the most fiscally liberal (spend money and don't worry about raising taxes to pay for it). Both parties are socially fairly conservative, with very few progressives or socialists even on the Democrat side of the aisle. The only real differences between the two parties are that:
In short, the differences are mostly a lot of empty rhetoric, full of sound and fury....
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That's true, but that's a special case of the more general:
The only difference between almost any person involved in governing and a totalitarian is that the former says, "You are free to do whatever you want, as long as what you want is what I think you should want."
Despite the lofty goals claimed by almost any person of any party, whether running for office or just voting, the main reason that people get involved in government is to assert control over others. There are positive and negative outcomes of t
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"The Democrats tend to create social programs, then forget to check up on them to see if they're actually working as intended, and just assume that they are. The Republicans also tend to not check up on them, but complain that they're not working as intended, even if they are."
I don't mind social programs. But they need to be checked. There are a lot of unintended consequences that happen with them and they can both be abused or micromanaged. I tend t
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> See also #3.
Sorry, you wanted the numbers rendered on your ordered list? Wrong site.
Yeah, I can't imagine why they did that, either.
Slashdot incompetence (Score:3)
What is going on here with the lists? Who at Slashdot thought that non-list lists made any kind of sense? How do Slashcode devs not understand the effects of list-style-type: none;? Why does this persist?
Perhaps more salient, why are we, as ostensible tech geeks, not raising more of a fuss about a site that many think represents computer geek-ness, and yet that cannot
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Perhaps more salient, why are we, as ostensible tech geeks, not raising more of a fuss about a site that many think represents computer geek-ness, and yet that cannot implement sane (and relatively simple) CSS?
Fatigue has set in. You've been here long enough to know that we have made a fuss throughout the years. Nothing at all has ever come of it, so we gave up complaining. Relatively simple it is, too. Many of the gripes about SlashCode of old have been fixed over at SoylentNews.
Anyway, asking for improvements now is dangerous... we might end up with Beta!
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Mostly right on, but the rich are largely Democrat voters and Democrat policies highly favor them. That's why 90% of the "recovery" over the last 6 years went to the top 10%. You read that correctly. Upper middle class tend to be Republican, and Democrat policies hurt them. When Democrats tax "the rich" Warren Buffett doesn't feel it but the upper middle class does.
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Could you give me the address for this Ms. U.S. person whose beliefs you are presenting to us? I'd like to get in touch with her and learn more about her ideology. I find it interesting.
What? Who in the US favors totalitarianism? Do you??
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...
You don't have a single right wing outlet in Europe. Even the most right leaning is way into the political left in the US. You've got so used to extreme left as central, you cannot see you're living in a fascist state.
If you think Europe is facist, you don't know what the word means. And as I've pointed out elsewhere, Obama is to the right of Nixon. The GP is correct, there is no significant "left" in the US. The Republicans and Democrats have everyone fighting over wedge issues and the oligarchs are laughing all the way to the bank.
Re:Who cares... (Score:5, Interesting)
For the past 40 years TNR has apparently been owned by a incredibly bigoted person who used the liberal credibility of the magazine to push his white supremacists ideas. Certainly these ideals are accepted in some circles, but not the target audience of the TNR. As a new generation who was not raised on overt bigotry came into being, a generation that pretty uniformly saw the assassination of MLK through history books, not newscasts, and were not raised on magazine subscriptions, the new century saw the circulation of the new republic cut in half. The white supremacy could no longer be covered with the inertia of the respect of the magazine.
In this way we see the problems of TNR firmly rooted in old ideas and the destruction of the brand by the previous owner. If the brand is to be rehabilitated it is going to require the jettison of the previous ideas that are not consistent with far left ideology, and those who think that white supremacy is consistent with anything real in the US were free to leave with the editors.
TNR is only going to be saved by re branding as an online source of liberal news and analysis. While the editors did not promote any kind of white supremacy, they were complicit in the past, and that may have been a problem in the present.
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Right, Left -- actual life is more complicated than that.
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Right, Left -- actual life is more complicated than that.
It only seems complicated because both sides use the same tactics: Each has a group of followers that are convinced the [left / right] is the only ideas that help the common people, and they use those followers to promote ideas that end up, once implemented to always be bad for the common people and provide more power and money to the elites in control. It's all a game to them, and they each have one color of pawns or another.
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You are absolutely correct. We need real right-wing media not lapdogs of FedGov like Fox News.
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What you mean is that conservatives are Right.
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There are a lot of the smaller ones that are very conservative.
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Promise me you don't take a look at Europe. You'd probably go blind and deaf with all those deep red socialist news networks littering the airwaves with their leftist propaganda.
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Other than FOX on TV, which national media outlets are there that aren't left wing liberal biased? In Canada all of our media was left biased and so a new newspaper had to be created to give balance for the other 50% who aren't lefties. We now have The National Post. Conservatives also now have The SUN and Sun News Network TV channel.
It's ironic that if news networks simply reported the news instead of editorializing it, they wouldn't be liberal or conservative, they would just be news.
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Thats just severe crazy pretending to be right wing.
I prefer to think that they have researched the market and are offering a product that is desired by a large segment of the population. And that their commentary is very well crafted in order to increase the moral outrage in their audience and hence increase ratings.
Whether or not they are "pretending" is only something that is known to them.
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LOL
Hows Obama's position on those H1-B visas treating you and just how much income have you lost.
Or how's that UVA rape thing going for you ? Fake but Accurate again ?
come 2016 let me know how you feel Hillary is working out for you.
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Re: Who cares... (Score:5, Insightful)
Fleecing conservatives of their money is in fact a market. Those guys will open up their wallets if you say all the right sweet things. Even better they'll go around repeating it. There is an entire eco-system in right wing political systems doing this. Since a lot of these people trend to being older, they are both susceptible to fear and they have money. The young, can also be susceptible, but they don't have money so there is no market.
They need to create an index for conservatives.
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You seem to be making a number of mistakes, including thinking that people serving a market don't have convictions, and that liberals are necessarily young or don't have money. Do you think David Korn's only interest is the check he picks up for writing? Keith Oberman pursued his political mania until it ruined him. Slashdot is often innudated by howls about whatever "outrage" the Koch brothers are claimed to have engaged in while practically nobody acknowledges their spending is dwarfed by that of rich liberals and progressives. Being liberal is a state of mind, not an indicator of either wealth or age.
I'm not sure you've addressed anything I'm even talking about. We're like talking about two completely different things. I made the point that conservatives are a market and that businesses like to cater to them because they are generally older and have money. (they also have more free time) All of those are quite intuitively true. I never talked about spending by liberals or koch brothers or whatever. So I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. They may all be true. I'm just telling you what
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Every news outlet has programming for conservative viewers.
I'm a conservative. What MSNBC show should I be watching.
Combined Audience (Score:2)
You cannot add figures up like that in radio statistics; if 5-million people listened to ten shows a week each, the "cumulative total" would be 50 million per week, etc.
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Your center detector needs re-calibration (travel anywhere in the world outside the US)
Yes, the US, once the last, best hope for freedom and liberty, is moving further to the left where all the countries that have already lost are now positioned. Central Banks (rah rah), central control (yippee ECB), and soul-crushing austerity rules while the ECB spends 1.6 Billion Euros (that's Billion with a "B") on its luxurious building, built for kings. Of course, they are the new kings and priests all rolled into one, while the obedient zombies of Europe cheer on their own enslavement.
That's great - l
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not to worry, you've still got TTAP and the PTA to deal with. Except, you don't, as it's all done behind closed doors, to Chatham House Rules under the guise of State dinners and defence deals. You ain't getting the detail until the ink's dry.
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uh.... so the Washington Post doesn't count then (moderate left)? How about the Detroit Free Press (hard left)? What about the New York Times or MSNBC? And stop pulling your information (and quoting verbatim!) from Yahoo Answers.
By the way, Barack Obama is hard left which is why the American media fucking love him.
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"Your center detector needs re-calibration (travel anywhere in the world outside the US). All media in the US is right to far-right."
Your rest-of-the-world detector also needs some recalibration: that's old school. The rest of the world is getting significantly more right-wing at the moment, while pubilications such as Slate thrive in the US.
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That's because we've created a bunker mentality on both sides. One side has gotten so extreme that every one of these things has turned into a war of ideas. The media has encouraged this because it drives people to watch and watch their ads. The media is neither right wing or left wing, they are simply people interested in peddling fear, uncertainty and doubt as a business model. That is exactly what Fox is. They picked the conservative part because you know that's where the money is.
Stop watching 24
Re:yea no (Score:4, Insightful)
Which admittedly is darkly amusing as from 1980 forward TNR - under multiple editors - was as engaged as any neoliberal [*] entity in destroying economic security for the majority of US citizens. Now they get re-engineering/outsourced/disrupted and it is a tragedy.
Also, the failure of any of these people to resign during TNR's era of deep racism under Peretz/Sullivan should disqualify them from uttering even a peep.
sPh
[*] neoliberal = hard right Republican with a prettier face
Re: yea no (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It can be both a 'Trust' and a business. The two are not incompatible.
For a decent magazine to survive in the modern media environment. It has to make a choice:
1 Regurgitate the cheapest possible copy and content you can scrape up from the cheapest possible source to get your advertising costs as low as possible so you can undercut the price of any other magazine. Race to the bottom.
2 Be a distinct and unique voice that attracts readers for your unique writing and insight.
Guess which one the editors want
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Boomers (Score:5, Insightful)
One big problem with focusing solely on skill is that there will always be someone younger, who has more energy. The older you get, the more crucial job security and stability become. So policies that don't take into account seniority tend to attract that younger crowd. Unfortunately, young people are fickle. When you're in your early twenties, most folks are willing to drop a job and pick up a new one like it's a hat. It is difficult to maintain a consistent voice and a consistent style when the people keep changing, and worse, lots of institutional knowledge simply disappears when that happens.
The only way to be successful in the long term is to keep a decent percentage of your senior people around. If you don't do this, your organization is screwed. Unfortunately, the self destruction usually doesn't happen immediately; it is a slow rot that progressively degrades the quality of the final product, resulting in a gradual decline of sales. As a result, the people who promote such shortsighted thinking rarely get the blame that they deserve.
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The older you get, the more crucial job security and stability become.
Uh, what? When I was young, I either had to have a job, or move back in with my parents, because I had no savings. Now I could quit on a whim, knowing I can live for ten years before I have to work again.
Or did you mean 'when you've blown your next ten years income on a $1,000,000 house that should cost $200,000 in a sane world, and a Porsche you bought on credit, job security and stability is crucial'?
Ah, but then it's all about metrics! (Score:5, Insightful)
Performance pay--- how do you measure performance? It is NOT a simple problem and no matter what you come up with humans are naturally talented at adaptation, they will survive and many will thrive by gaming your system. Seniority is the least hackable metric of all and so simple everybody knows it's inherent flaws - but EVERY metric is going to be flawed.
Online performance is largely measured by CLICKS. The result is the trashy click bait we have today. An earth shattering investigative report which might take a year of a senior journalist's time (a REAL journalist) puts them at the bottom of the scale while some twit pushing rumors/gossip who can't spell has tons of clicked of trash gets to the top (and has the nerve to call what they do journalism.)
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This. QUALITY isn't measured by clicks. That's QUANTITY, as in the quantity of money that can be leeched out of corporate sponsorship. When you move away from the subscription-based model to the sponsored model of operating, you become beholden to those corporates and your cashflow depends on you pushing their ageenda for them rather than what journalism's supposed to do - report the facts to an interested audience.
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That some of the adaptations were things like rewarding skill not seniority.
And you're going to do that how, exactly? Skill is not as easy to measure as your average MMORPG makes you believe. And almost every way to take a measurement can be gamed. Skill is also a very vague word. Skill in what, exactly, just for starters.
There's a lot that goes into making a successful magazine, and the recipe is so unknown that the best publishing houses have come up with in the past 50 years is to simply do field-tests - start the magazine and after some months decide whether to continue or pull
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Already done 25 years ago on Murphy Brown: Radical new set without an anchor desk. Turned out to be prophetic.
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as long as the RSC sticks to Shakespeare as it was written and doesn't do what they did in the National Theatre Wales - ditched all the usual programming and stacked up two years worth of blatant devil worship. Some truly sick as fucking fuck stuff in there now. We're in full-on "Carrie" with the buckets of real pigs blood mode, there.