This account by @SangerNYT speaks of "intelligence assessments that wildly overestimated the capabilities of an Afghan Army that disintegrated." nytimes.com/2021/08/15/us/… Which prompts a reader of the news to ask how that over-estimate happened.

But... 1/3
This report from @meekwire of ABC News goes in a different direction. It quotes an unnamed intelligence official: "The intelligence community assessment has always been accurate; they just disregarded it." They = the Biden Administration. 2/3 abcnews.go.com/US/afghanistan… There's more—
Intelligence failure?

"Numerous U.S. officials tell @ABC that the opposite was true, insisting that key intelligence assessments had consistently informed policymakers that the Taliban could overwhelm the country and take the capital within weeks."

abcnews.go.com/US/afghanistan… 3/4
Conflicting reports are common in a fast-moving situation, but these two prompt a reader of the news to ask: WTF?

Intelligence estimates wildly overstated the capacities of the Afghan Army (NYT)

vs.

The intelligence was dead on; the policy-makers simply ignored it. (ABC)

4/4

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More from @jayrosen_nyu

25 May
Good round-up in @CJR of @AP's poorly reasoned decision to fire 22 year-old Emily Wilder for unspecified violations of its social media policy. cjr.org/the_media_toda… These cases will keep coming until there's a rethink of the policies themselves.

Some places I would start: 1/
By accepting the faulty premise that every public statement from a newsroom worker somehow implicates the company as a whole, you widen the attack surface for hostile actors who want to wreak as much havoc as they can. Instead of protecting the company, you're endangering it. 2/
An alternative is to combine common sense rules for social media — double check your facts, don't troll or needlessly antagonize, don't take positions for the heck of it — with freedom of speech. Which means journalists don't speak for the brand on social, but for themselves. 3/
Read 9 tweets
4 May
Brief report on Washington Post's book event with Josh Hawley. It was 30 minutes. About half on 2020 election, half on big tech and Hawley's book. Reading prepared questions, Post reporter @Cat_Zakrzewski did challenge him on his part in the insurrection and did follow up... 1/
The problem was the same one you see on Sunday shows. The guest can turn on his fog machine, lose most of the audience in hand-to-hand combat over important but arcane details, and run out the clock when the push back comes. This is what Hawley did with "election integrity." 2/
"Election integrity" — and the debate he says we needed about it — was Hawley's blanket defense for his actions on January 6. He knew the questions were coming, he knew his fog machine could hande them. He said he had no regrets. He was asked but took no responsibility.... 3/
Read 6 tweets
3 May
Wow. A group of disheartened former Denver Post editors and reporters launched an upstart news site two-and-a-half years ago. Today, The Colorado Sun announced it had acquired and would operate a family-owned chain of 24 suburban newspapers around Denver. npr.org/2021/05/03/993…
This part is also key: "The Sun, which will drive the papers editorially, is a public benefit corporation, which means it is a for-profit outfit that promises to perform a civic good in a way that is responsible and sustainable."

For-profit/non-profit are not the only choices.
Here's more on Colorado's save-local-newspapers-from-the-vampire transaction, which is a little complicated. But in a good way. coloradosun.com/2021/05/03/col… It's a "pilot project to show that national funders and local journalists can collaborate to keep newspapers in local hands."
Read 5 tweets
25 Apr
Rick Scott of Florida voted to overturn the 2020 election results in Pennsylvania. Sunday he will be on @ThisWeekABC with @GStephanopoulos, the most prestigious platform @ABC can bestow. What does the new president of ABC News, @KimGodwinTV, think about that? Hat tip, @MattNegrin
Number of questions @GStephanopoulos asked @SenRickScott about his vote to overturn election results in Pennsylvania: zero.

Number of gestures toward that kind of accountability: also zero.

@ABC News policy appears to be amnesty.

He did ask about this:
Time to put the question directly to news executives and show hosts at the major networks: What is the policy — and what is your thinking — about featuring on air those who voted to overturn results of the 2020 election? graphics.reuters.com/USA-TRUMP/LAWM…

It will help them and us to know.
Read 9 tweets
17 Apr
"Swiss Billionaire Is Said to End His Bid for Tribune Publishing." Hansjörg Wyss was part of a serious offer for the major newspaper chain that could have prevented it from being sold to the hedge fund Alden Global Capital. nytimes.com/2021/04/17/bus…
The Times story says Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss saw the Chicago Tribune as a national newsroom, like the Times or the Post, but in doing his due dilgience discovered it was not to be. Too expensive.

This makes little sense to me. Who would have encouraged that illusion?
In retrospect this quote from Wyss should have given us more pause. “...the combination of giving enough money to a professional staff to do the right things and putting quite a bit of money into digital will eventually make a very profitable newspaper.” nytimes.com/2021/03/27/bus…
Read 4 tweets
22 Feb
"When in doubt, draw a distinction."

Not sure where he got it, but in grad school one of my teachers told me that. Some of the best advice I ever received.

This THREAD is about some of the key distinctions I draw on to do my work. If you're into that kind of thing.😎

Ready? 1/
For distinctions to do work, the terms have to be sufficiently close that prying them apart clears space for thought.

If I write, "bending is not the same as breaking," well, who said it was? That one is going nowhere. But "naked is not the same as nude" is an idea with legs. 2/
These notes about some of the distinctions I draw in order to do my work were written under the influence of two masters of the form: the French critic Roland Barthes, and the political philosopher Hannah Arendt, known for her striking distinctions— such as labor vs. work. 3/
Read 27 tweets

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