Glenn Greenwald (whose view of the press at the founding is quite at odds with Jefferson’s) and Megan McArdle have a diavlog on the obligation of journalists to pound the point home on the Yoo memos. I am largely in agreement with Megan non-water-engineer that The People are to blame. Unfortunately many people, including not only bog-standard liberals but radical anarchists like Kevin Carson and Murray Rothbard fall prey to The People’s Romance. Jack Ross explains the latter as just being Jewish. The good thing about Carson is that he seems to take the Moldbuggian view of objective journalism. Greenwald takes the MM view of the privileged nature of the journalistic profession, but sees that as a noble ideal they unfortunately fall short of. I am down on that kind of idealism because it leads you to be perpetually shocked, whereas the real measure of an accurate view of reality is not being surprised. The press is not a branch of government created to check the other ones. It is a self-interested outside power-center of the sort Bertrand de Jouvenel wrote about, expect it to behave like one. I’ve defended Greenwald before if only because he was being attacked on little basis, but in this dispute he seems to have behaved like a real ninny. As long as I’m piling on, his new book’s blatant hypocrisy seems like a good example of the Jimmy Johnson rule in action. I had suspicions about it earlier and was not persuaded otherwise by its editor at the time.
A little while back Chip Smith pointed out the sad case of Tim Masters. It’s the sort of thing you would expect Radley Balko to write about. However, there’s too much abuse of power for just one man to cover. Balko himself has recently finished an excellent story on years of police persecution of some old grandparents in Church Point Louisiana. It’s the sort of thing that inclines one to much less sympathy towards the police than, say, Peter Moskos in his diavlog with Will Wilkinson on his book “Cop in the Hood“. One interesting thing they discussed was how he could rationalize fighting a drug war he didn’t believe in. His answer was that he saw his activities as quality of life maintenance. Peter’s big idea is foot patrol. I laid out evidence on the effectiveness of different police patrol tactics here.
During the Duke Lacrosse brouhaha a Sudanese immigrant cab-driver was arrested on trumped up charges (a fare he had driven was convicted of shoplifting way back) because he had an alibi proving one of the accused was not at the scene of the “crime”. For defying the authorities (which he was taught to fear in his home country) and sticking up for an innocent stranger he was made Reader’s Digest Hero of the Year. Remember that no good deed goes unpunished and that economic freedom is just a kind of personal freedom as the authorities still haven’t finished screwing him over. Although he now has his citizenship Durham went after his license due to complaints from his competitors that he was “unfairly competing” (i.e offering a better product or service at a lower price than the politically connected) with them and so he is out of the taxi business. I recognize that public roads are a state subsidy rather than a feature of the market and that a free-for-all on the commons can mean congestion, but state licensing of cabs is simply rent seeking and an invitation for corruption. Tom DiLorenzo explains how good provided privately in the past were monopolized and then turned into supposedly “natural monopolies” here.
April 17, 2008 at 12:22 pm
I saw that interview with Moskos. He notes that the drug dealers were frankly not nice people, so he had no problem putting them away. Victimless crime, strictly speaking, yes, but the individuals engaging in said crime were simply unsavory.
Of course it’s the outlaw status that attracts people like that, and precedes them. Getting over that chicken-and-the-egg problem is vital, and isn’t much helped by many a cop show.
August 16, 2008 at 6:32 am
The Greenwald / McArdle conversation is so weird to watch… Greenwald is clearly right, but he uses a ridiculous historical narrative and ueber class analysis that McArdle easily deconstructs. On the other hand, it’s easy to be ceaselessly contrarian like McArdle is (most libertarians I know should be lawyers).
Libertarians like to make a priori conclusions ahead of engaging in arguments about the profit motive being “good” (not simply “just” or “understandable”) and then it’s easy for them to explain away anything that happens in “the market”. This is wrong – the rules of the market are not a priori goods; they are arbitrary dictates that constrain the goods markets can generate.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention!
August 16, 2008 at 6:43 am
Let me be more clear: I think Greenwald is inconsistent, but right. McArdle is consistent (as usual, libertarians look for a “principle”) but wrong. There is no doubt that the media CLAIMS a special status in society, and that other institutions in society back up this claim. Whether they deserve that status is another story. Are people responsible for that? In part. We’re not solely responsible, but in the sense that it’s gonna be on us to fix it, we are complicit.
August 16, 2008 at 10:44 am
How is Greenwald “clearly” right? And when does McArdle say the media is “good”? I think the real issue is that if you try selling people what you think they ought to want but don’t (like truth), they won’t buy. There’s always PBS and NPR to give a profit-free view of things, but how high are their ratings compared to Fox?
And what “rules” of the market are you specifically concerned with?
August 17, 2008 at 5:21 am
Yeah, sorry… I wrote that Greenwald was clearly right early in my viewing, and I know longer think it’s clear. But I think he’s right that people who claim to give us important political news should give us… important political news. If you’re just a for profit business, fine – but don’t pretend you’re this essential institution. That’s the problem I have with McArdle: she wants to have it both ways, with her profession simultaneously important but irresponsible.
This business about whether or not people will watch it is baloney – the news stations never know what people will watch, and it’s their fucking conceit that they can predict it anyway. Why not just put important news on the air? The internet is proof positive that people want substantive news – maybe not the lowest common denominator, but so what?
The rules that govern the structure and governance of corporations, the rules governing broadcasting, etc. any number of rules that constrain what the market can produce, who can enter, etc. It’s not a free market so McArdle’s argument is worse than trash in my opinion.
I remember a specific quote of hers that went something like, “I wouldn’t have gotten into journalism if I didn’t think it was a very important calling”. She obviously thinks what her colleagues and her do is important, but not important enough to do with standards? Psshhh…
August 17, 2008 at 5:23 am
The only other issues is whether this is just about news Greenwald wants to see. My view is that the issues Greenwald has been reporting on are existential, crisis issues for the republic. If people are truly unconcerned with them, then there’s not much role for news anyway. And I mostly suspect that news organizations are so in the pocket of the (for lack of a better term) ruling class that they are irretrievable anyway, but I respect Greenwald raising the alarm.
I can never post just once. :)
August 17, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Mass media is is for masses, not niches. The very low starting costs of bloviating on the internet permit a few weirdos to congregate and talk about the important issues of what variety of Otherkin they are and how to remove protein stains from fursuits. Journalism is another avenue of entertainment, and without the pretensions it would be less entertaining. You’re right that newscasters don’t always know what people will want, they lambasted Fox News when it first appeared, but Rupert Murdoch laughed all the way to the bank. Air America can complain all they want, but who’s buying?
Existential crises are for paranoid fearmongers, like the neocons we all know and laugh. Life will go on, and it will be a bitch, as ever.
May 2, 2009 at 10:37 pm
[…] to give people what they want. It’s the truth.” I share the same opinion of the media, with Megan McArdle contra Glenn Greenwald. Why do the people want what they want? Largely it’s the result of a long process of […]