In each case, with Lee Fang, with the fired data analyst and at the NY Times, you have accusations of racism used to push people out of their jobs (or in Fang’s case come very close).”It’s this mechanism that’s being repeated over and over again.”At the end of this interview, Krystal Ball asked Taibbi where to draw the line between ideas that belong in a paper like the NY Times and ideas that you wouldn’t want to see given space anywhere. Share on Twitter. These people are thinking that. Where has Taibbi been all these years when conservatives were branded racist for opposing racial quotas and taxpayer-funded abortion. Matt Taibbi Verified account @mtaibbi. Matt Taibbi: False accusations of racism are destroying the media. “It was not Lee’s opinion. Where was Taibbi when Republican support for Voter ID was was likened to Jim Crow laws? We’re not going to permit that.’ So you have to go to Fox News now to see that argument made.“I don’t think that’s helpful. It’s very illiberal in its conception of the world.”He cited the battle within the NY Times newsroom over the Sen. Cotton op-ed as another example. Taibbi conceded there are some arguments that are simply beyond the pale, but he said the debate about where to draw the line was happening because there were two different worldviews in conflict about how to draw that line. John Sexton Posted at 6:41 pm on June 18, 2020. He continued, “What ends up happening is that people just sort of shrink back from wherever they perceive the boundaries are and don’t say anything. Fox after that?”Taibbi made clear in his piece and in the interview with the Hill that he sees the Fang incident as just one example of a more widespread change taking place in journalism. Lacy to her credit publicly thanked Fang for his statement and expressed willingness to have a conversation; unfortunately, the throng of Intercept co-workers who piled on her initial accusation did not join her in this…Lacy says she never intended for Fang to be “fired, ‘canceled,’ or deplatformed,” but appeared irritated by questions on the subject, which she says suggest, “there is more concern about naming racism than letting it persist.”Max himself was stunned to find out that his comments on all this had created a Twitter firestorm. Author of THE DIVIDE, GRIFTOPIA, THE BUSINESS SECRETS OF DRUG DEALING, and HATE INC. This kind of outrage politics is not new or limited to the Black Lives Matter movement. He said the new “style of thought” had originated on college campuses but was now finding a home in many newsrooms. The right has been repeatedly targeted by the outrage mob for years—decades, actually. It was inevitable that the hunters would ultimately become the hunted when the left became so consumed with their own self-proclaimed righteousness that they’d compete with each other for who won the medal for the most un-racist. We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. He was mobbed on Twitter and then fired because he’d said something that appeared to be critical of riots and, by extension, could be seen as critical of Black Lives Matter protesters. His view is that the Times, as a leading paper, should try to represent the full spectrum of actual debate.“When the member of congress opens up his Times in the morning, he wants to see what the parameters of debate are,” Taibbi said. “The leaders of this new movement are replacing traditional liberal beliefs about tolerance, free inquiry, and even racial harmony with ideas so toxic and unattractive that they eschew debate, moving straight to shaming, threats, and intimidation,” Taibbi continued.They’ve conned organization after organization into empowering panels to search out thoughtcrime, and it’s established now that anything can be an offense, from a UCLA professor placed under investigation for reading Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” out loud to a data scientist fired* from a research firm for — get this — retweeting an academic study suggesting nonviolent protests may be more politically effective than violent ones!Taibbi then examined what’s been happening within the media itself.
There was another similar situation last week which I mentioned in passing Again, the person who said this is a real person named Max. Taibbi’s concern seems to be rooted in his fear of a liberal circular firing squad, and the casualties among the left because of the outrage mob. “Essentially the problem is if you say a certain thing and an employee accuses you of racism, either your career is over or your reputation is ruined,” he said. He continued, “These people are thinking this. Terms under which this service is provided to you In that case, staffers at the paper claimed the op-ed was putting their lives in danger and that’s what eventually led the Times to do an about face. “I couldn’t believe they were coming for the man’s job over something I said,” he recounts. And that’s not a healthy climate for journalism.” Later he returned to this point saying, “If you’re labeled a racist in this corner of the media you really can’t work.