Thread by @bernybelvedere

Absolutely shambolic thread that slimes @conor64 throughout and fundamentally misunderstands the nature and role of objectivity in opinion writing. Completely embarrassing analysis here.

https://twitter.com/biblioracle/status/1396078670943510528

Warner tries to argue for the journalistic superiority of what he calls "illumination" (a posture he attributes to Serwer) over "objectivity" (which he says Friedersdorf tries but fails to achieve). But set this distinction, and the notion of "objectivity," aside for a second.

Both Serwer and Friedersdorf are attempting to analyze the episode correctly. If you ask Serwer if he's striving to get an accurate read of the situation, he'd say yes. Same with Friedersdorf. Their pieces are their best attempt at correctly evaluating the episode in question.

Warner spends the entire thread disparaging the "objectivity" and "adjudication," but he's using these as proxies for a far more prosaic complaint: he agrees far more with Serwer's take overall than with Friedersdorf's. That's it. That's his underlying critique.

This is basically it. He disagrees with Friedersdorf that an article evaluating HNJ ought to have included a section about conservatives being disadvantaged on campus. He thinks that this shows Friedersdorf's purported objectivity is a sham.

But what if—and dream with me a second—Friedersdorf judged that a brief assessment of the state of political discrimination within academia in toto is a salient consideration to include in a piece whose central case is one of alleged political discrimination within academia?

Friedersdorf is chided here for "attempting neutral language," while Serwer is praised for describing the NHJ's denial of tenure "extraordinary" and NHJ herself as "award-winning." Does this difference lead Friedersdorf astray in his analysis? If so, how?

We aren't told how it leads either Friedersdorf, or his audience, astray. Earlier in the thread Warner calls Friedersdorf's piece "by and large a fair-enough analysis." So how is his "neutral language" harming the piece?

The only thing I can find is that Warner disapproves of Friedersdorf's decision to use part of his article to survey ideological discrimination on campus more broadly, which leads Friedersdorf to suggest this is an issue that also impacts conservatives.

Warner simply disagrees with Friedersdorf. That's it. He builds a whole ass thread about Friedersdorf's approach to journalism being faulty when we could have just gotten a single tweet that said, "I hate that in a piece about NHJ Conor included a section about conservatives."

"FIRST SOME DISCLOSURES, I WOULD PAY TO WATCH A VAT OF BATTERY ACID DRIZZLE DOWN CONOR'S FACE UNTIL HE DISINTEGRATES INTO MUSH. BTW, HIS ARTICLE WAS SO SO"

I went to great lengths to show how, contra Warner's claim that Friedersdorf included this section to establish his own objectivity, he included it because it's a manifestly salient consideration when assessing political discrimination within academia.

https://twitter.com/loafstata/status/1396173494069628929?s=20