Thread by @MattGertz

1. I have some thoughts on the Maureen Dowd column pushing back against criticism of journalists from the left that mainstream political reporters were tweeting all weekend. nytimes.com/2021/02/27/opi…

2. First, this kicker is from a villain’s monologue about how his bad conduct was justified because he did things how they’ve always been done; his critics have no right to question him because they don’t have his job; and he’d do it all again if given the chance.

3. He is then arrested and presumably replaced by someone who can stand on the wall without doing the bad conduct.

I'd say this is telling, but it's more likely Dowd, as usual, doing film allusions without understanding what the film is saying.

4. Back to the top — what a coincidence, I’ve been waiting for this moment, when a journalist would conflate all critiques from the left I order to imperiously reject them.

5. The treatment of Kim was reprehensible and grotesque, no doubt about it. There’s no excuse for harassing someone with racist and sexist invective, full stop.

6. I think a question that noted both Tanden's tweets critical of and praising Murkowski would have been better, but the social media reaction seems to have been very much over the top and the harassing behavior is plainly unacceptable.

7. What are the potential remedies? As someone with a fairly strong prior that social media is bad for you, the obvious ones are a) social media companies take a tougher line on banning over harassment or b) journalists leave twitter to avoid it. But..

8. Social media companies have been loathe to do a), while journalists won't do b) as Twitter is part of their workplace.

9. I don't have a lot of faith in c) Liberal elites take a tougher line to defend reporters from criticism, because it requires us all to spend more time on this site; it's too easily gamed to prevent legitimate critiques; and ...

10. It actually happened in this case, with Klain and Tanden retweeting criticism of the racist/sexist attacks, to no avail. And, d) Liberals agree not to criticize journalists at all because their work is too important, is not a serious ask.

11. The problem is that it is incredibly easy to harass people on social media, and the asymmetry is vast -- it takes you two seconds to send the tweet, and the result is the target wades through hundreds of such tweets. It's legitimately horrifying -- but not journo-specific.

12. But Dowd’s concern isn’t social media harassment, it’s that liberals are criticizing journalists at all. Here’s where the argument expands.

13. It's wrong to think journalists are on the left's "side" but let's be honest -- media outlets, including the NYT, leaned in to the idea that they were fighting Trumpian "alternative facts" as a strategy to increase subscriptions. It worked very, very well!

14. Reporters aren't responsible for the decisions of the business side, but it's a little much to suddenly become very very concerned about this without interrogating where the notion came from.

15. Just leaving this here as evidence of how ludicrously out of touch Dowd is.

16. Here, I think, is the crux of the argument. Dowd disagrees with liberals who argued that Trump’s unique characteristics implied the need for journalists to change some of their behavior in response. For Dowd, this is evidence that liberals dont know what a journalist is.

17. But this makes no sense. The arguments she's describing about whether to cover Trump's news conferences live and how much attention to give his tweets were very much held within the press as well, provoking some behavioral changes over the course of his presidency.

18. I'd argue that the changes were insufficient, but cable networks deciding not to carry some speeches live because Trump would lie to their audiences and vastly increasing fact-checking emphasis were real changes in behavior that happened due to these debates.

19. There are vibrant and ongoing debates within Dowd's industry about whether its traditional emphases and behavior are best-suited for achieving its traditional aims. She's just sort of missed them, perhaps too busy partying with movie stars.

20. It is, I assume, very annoying to have people from outside an institution criticizing it without skin in the game, never having worked within it, lacking full context that insiders think they have.

I've just described how every other institution feels about media coverage.

21. My sense is that the political journalists tweeting out Dowd's column would not accept a politician's argument that the reporter just doesn't understand what a politician does. And yet, here we are.

22. I keep coming back to a Poynter conference I attended in 2017. Their polling showed skyrocketing support for the press among Democrats, and cratering support among Republicans. And all the discussion was about how to win back Republicans, rather than hold onto Democrats.

23. I wrote at the time that this was short-sighted, that GOP press hatred was broad and deep but that some industry changes could solidify Dem support. mediamatters.org/legacy/democra…

24. But journalists like Dowd get very tetchy at the notion that anything should change in response to the audience being demographically different -- and wanting different things -- then in 1996.

25. Liberal support for journalists is a bubble, and they're the only ones left who don't hold the industry and its practitioners in contempt, kinda seems like something you'd want to do something about.

26. Or just be thin-skinned and imperious about critiques from the people who'd like your industry to improve and flourish, I know those people tweeting "be better" are annoying.

27. Journalism is a powerful institution that deserves scrutiny. It is important for our country and society that it flourishes, journalists should be treated with respect like anyone else, but when they mess up the consequences can be massive so responsible critiques are needed.