Josh Barro Profile picture
29 Mar, 7 tweets, 2 min read
It's not off limits. Some very loud reporters (often self-appointed "disinformation" czars) have just led a fairly successful campaign to convince people within the industry that criticizing their work is morally wrong.
This beat has been like a brain poison inside newsrooms, making reporters arrogant about criticism at a time when the industry can least afford it.
And the arrogance is structural. If the whole premise of your beat is "people believe wrong things, this is turning our society into a dystopia, I will make people believe the right things" then of course you will end up with an authoritarian attitude when people object.
And yes, Glenn is unpleasant. But his excessive appetite for conflict is a reason he's willing to have fights about this when most people quite reasonably decide it's not worth the trouble.
"Raising this criticism publicly will cause some people to say nasty things on the internet" is an objection that can be levied against *any* online criticism. Note that it applies also to critical coverage of non-journalist subjects in news stories.
I would just find the deep concern over how coverage can cause harassment more genuine if it were not coming from an industry in which so many were, for example, eager to make Nick Sandmann (then a minor) a national villain because they didn't like the look on his face.
There is no principle here at all other than that working journalists with the right ideological commitments should not be criticized and everyone else is fair game.

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More from @jbarro

31 Mar
I don’t understand why this would need to wait for fall. It’s not even April yet. Shouldn’t we be vaccinating 12-15 year olds before this school year is over?
The elapsed time between the similar Pfizer announcement of adult data and the adult EUA was only about a month.
Some extremely misguided responses to this suggesting we lack either manufacturing or distribution capacity to start vaccinating kids in May (wrong wrong wrong)
Read 4 tweets
21 Mar
Contra the video narration, were there really any *good-faith* complaints that she was engaged in cultural appropriation? Sounds like some people wanted to use her dancing as a hook to complain that people complain too much about appropriation in other contexts.
See for example this WaPo story. Someone who says “If white people can’t have corn rows you can’t do this kind of dance" is not actually mad about cultural appropriation, they're mad about complaints about cultural appropriation. washingtonpost.com/local/is-it-cu…
And I broadly agree with the view that cultural appropriation complaints have gone overboard (depending on the specifics). But don't take your annoyance about that out on this young woman, she didn't do anything to you.
Read 5 tweets
20 Mar
If this wasn't principally about the tweets, then it was very unethical for the Teen Vogue staffers to issue a public statement making it all about the tweets.
If your real view is "I don't think this person is qualified" but you instead say "I am very upset about this person's racist tweets from a decade ago when they were a teenager" because you think (correctly) that will get more traction, you are being dishonest.
Also, McCammond would hardly be the first person to be made EIC of a publication with no prior editing experience -- especially a publication like Teen Vogue that is small and could just as well be organized as a vertical of a larger outlet.
Read 4 tweets
19 Mar
"Pfizer/BioNTech agreed to supply... Israel ahead of other nations in part bc of the country’s assent to share medical data... Privacy experts say the agreement shows how far Israel lags behind European nations in protecting confidential personal data." wsj.com/articles/how-i…
Yeah, I bet EU residents are super thrilled about their data privacy advantages right now 🙄
Apparently via @antoniogm, though his tweet isn't loading:
Read 5 tweets
19 Mar
We're approaching the phase where vaccines are plentiful and the challenge is getting as many people as possible to take it. Partly that's about messaging. But it's also about making vaccines really easy to get. "Available at CVS when you buy milk" easy. businessinsider.com/fight-covid-va…
Hesitancy is just that. Many wavering people are ready to be sold on getting the vaccine. And you want them to be able to get it right away when they've decided to, such as when they're in their doctor's office and the doctor is singing its praises. businessinsider.com/fight-covid-va…
I spoke with @ashishkjha and he thinks we'll be in a place where you can just walk into CVS and ask for a vaccine around mid-June. businessinsider.com/fight-covid-va…
Read 4 tweets
18 Mar
Remember, people who say they work 75 or more hours a week are usually lying, or at least grossly overestimating: nymag.com/intelligencer/…
I absolutely do not believe that the average Goldman Sachs analyst works 98 hours a week.
I am seeing the replies to this and I know people are very invested in the idea that they have been working 100 hour weeks and probably even believe it, but again: such claims are typically greatly exaggerated. nymag.com/intelligencer/…
Read 7 tweets

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