Comment by boroboro4
5 hours ago
This is what great reporting looks like: well-written, transparent, and rigorous. It’s sad to see how hatred toward progressives can distort people’s judgment.
5 hours ago
This is what great reporting looks like: well-written, transparent, and rigorous. It’s sad to see how hatred toward progressives can distort people’s judgment.
Re. hatred towards progressives and the Boudin recall:
>Boudin ... alleged... that the campaign was largely a Republican effort to remove him from power. Despite Boudin's claims, the recall campaign was publicly led by Democrats. 83% of donors to the campaign were from Democratic-registered voters or no-party-preference voters, with over 80% of donations coming from local San Franciscans. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesa_Boudin)
There's quite a lot on the reasons why in the article.
> It’s sad to see how hatred toward progressives can distort people’s judgment.
The status quo is easy, change is hard, and anyone benefiting from the status quo will do whatever they have to in order to prevent change. Progressive by definition want change, progress. Change is scary. Humans are most easily motivated by fear.
I think it's a little more than just fear of change. Garry Tan knows where his (material) interests lie, and will do and say anything to fight off those who would build a more equal society, even if it means supporting actual fascists like Trump. The ultra-wealthy are very class conscious.
It would be nice if billionaires could f off to billionaire island and leave everyone else alone
you won capitalism. go away.
This isn't great reporting. It's politics.
Kind of a category error to suggest there's a stark difference. Over the last 100 years, enormous amounts of excellent journalism has been informed by political objectives on the part of reporters.
It’s weirder than that. Even the idea of an apolitical journalism is ahistorical.
Apolitical journalism started with the telegram wire services as a _marketing_ approach, not a moral one. It allowed them to sell to more local papers which were all politically aligned. You can see that in some of the surviving names. But local reporting stayed political in those individual papers the whole time. We have like a whole chapter in basic us history classes on the political implications of the Spanish American war journalism empires.
Apolitical tv was similarly a market condition. The airwaves were limited, so the content was controlled. That was apolitical in that it tried to appease both parties, but you wouldn’t see any topical coverage on political issues they both opposed.
So when people talk about politics entering journalism they are telling on themselves. They prefer a very narrow set of journalism that wasn’t ever some universal norm, and was itself political.
Yikes. Vastly outweighed by the ruination of journalism by politics.
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This article isn't that -- nothing excellent is achieved. It's pure intra-party squabbling between leftist and centrist factions of California Dems. Balko is just trying to score points for his faction.
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Completely content-free junk statement. The post is purportedly about correcting bad information about a person who held public office, and (if it is in fact misinformation) was spread for political reasons. How are you supposed to do such a correction without it being political?
Everything is politics.
Which food you eat (are you vegan? carnivore diet? Both have implications in regards to animal welfare, climate change, soil use, identity etc etc), which media you consume (obvious), which job you have (which power structures do you strengthen with it? who benefits from your labor? who do you try to disrupt?).
To say one is "apolitical" is just voicing a preference for the status quo.
To decry something as political is just voicing one's political opposition to the view expressed.
That's a pretty depressing worldview. Children playing in the park aren't being political. It's possible to just exist sometimes.
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Maybe I just want to eat what tastes good, and not have to worry about how what I chose on the menu is going to support a politician, political party, businessperson, etc.
The "everything is politics" meme is old and annoying.
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Given how many articles he's published in Reason Magazine over the years, Radley Balko might qualify as "libertarian" or perhaps "civil libertarian" rather than "progressive." Not that the labels ought to matter too much.
(I posted this article with its actual title a few days ago and it didn't pop at all, which is funny I guess)
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It shouldn't be any big surprise that a guy like Garry Tan is power-hungry and manipulative. He's got his hands in all kinds stuff like influencing elections. https://garrysguide.org/elections
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This Tan guy is a real douche and in full support of the author but...
"Usually it's the latter, because, who wouldn't want the needle to move even a little bit in the right direction?"
Which direction? The one you think is right or the other one, other people think is right?