I think the career trajectory of Matt Taibbi is instructive here. He was a celebrated polemicist among the center-left for his reporting on the financial crisis. Then it was revealed that he had been shitty to women in the '90s while working as an expat journalist in Russia, allegations that surfaced at the peak of the #MeToo era. This largely cost him his reputation in the center-left and mainstream media publications that had sustained him. So he pivoted to becoming an anti-anti-Trump commentator as much out of self-preservation as anything else. His writing has become disingenuous, but the people who care about that kind of stuff already rejected him.
A generation ago, there wouldn't have been an alternative media for him to retreat toward — though the allegations against him probably wouldn't have harmed his reputation as much, either. I'd prefer a person like Taibbi being in the center-left tent pissing out, personally, but so it goes.
I have a personal beef against Taibbi from my days in 1990s Moscow. He created and wrote for a shock-jock newsletter/zine aimed at (male) expats, mostly rating Russian hookers and “exposes” of heroin use. It was modestly called “The Exile.” Everyone I know from those times was gobsmacked when he re-emerged in US and was taken seriously. His dad is a journalist — whether he’s a nepo baby or just talked his way into a serious role based on this resume, I can’t say. But he got his start in alternative media of a sort. And whether he actually did the scuzzy things he wrote about, I have no personal knowledge of that. But it’s not like “he harassed a female employee.”
I haven't read too much of The Exile outside of a couple of pieces here and there, but your assessment of it seems fair. I would say that his writing on politics and economics in the late 2000s/early 2010s holds up. And he had more insight into the Trump phenomenon in 2016 than did many of his peers.
You don’t happen to know how he got from there to here do you? It was like if some regular caller to the Howard Stern show suddenly popped up writing for The New Republic.
I have no special knowledge of Taibbi's career trajectory, and know basically nothing of The Exile aside from what you wrote about it. But I first became aware of Taibbi as a college student in the mid-2000s, when he was a columnist for the New York Press, an alt-weekly that competed with the Village Voice. (Yes, such a thing actually existed!) I believe this was before he started popping up in more mainstream or mainstream-adjacent left-of-center publications like Rolling Stone, the Nation, etc.
It's not inconceivable to me that he could parlay his experience with The Exile into a gig at the New York Press, seeing as both broadly fell under the "alternative media" umbrella, and NY Press, as I recall, did have some tendency to publish salacious, un-politically-correct (as we would have called it then) stuff at times. But his column there, though it retained some shock-jock elements, was legitimately good - the guy can write. My guess is he went from Exile to NY Press, and then more mainstream outlets became aware of him mostly for his work with the latter, which maintained a kind of edginess but was generally more respectable. Dude was basically aping Hunter S. Thompson.
Thank you so much for a deep think piece and this is literally what I have been feeling towards journalists these days - and as a super conflict averse and apologetic Japanese, my pet peeve has been the social media’s inherent incentive to drive ppl away from acknowledging mistakes so I’m glad to see you mention this!!
Great analysis and I think it's good to step away from the specifics of the latest Lorenz controversy.
On a completely different note, you can't have two links to the *same* article in *literally one sentence*! This violates traditional blogging standards!
Offending sentence: she’s been writing (link) about how journalism and influencing (link) are melding together since 2018! It's the same link!
There is also the fact that the internet wiped out the business model that local newspapers had (online ads + ordering - classsified ads for local business paying reporters) without meaning to.
I worked in journalism for a long time and I can’t believe the kinda stuff Lorenz got away with while employed by WaPo. Especially her frequent, unscientific rants about Covid. I think it really undermined that publication’s integrity.
"If we look at media that is personality-driven, CNN and television are actually a good analogy. They give shows to people, they develop them and do marketing around personalities. I think that model hasn’t been very good for journalism."
Previous Lorenz was correct. Starting in the 1960s and accelerating with 1990s-00s techno-optimism liberals started abandoning gatekeeping and curating institutions (including media outlets) and assumed that self-expression and open communication would inherently engender empathy and mutual toleration. Rightists built paralllel institutions and realized they could harness bigoted self-expression in service of billionaire masters. Guess what was more effective?
This is a great post about how journalists probably should stick to being journalists rather than influencers! Lorentz should stick to mainly being a journalist , she seems better suited to it.
I think the career trajectory of Matt Taibbi is instructive here. He was a celebrated polemicist among the center-left for his reporting on the financial crisis. Then it was revealed that he had been shitty to women in the '90s while working as an expat journalist in Russia, allegations that surfaced at the peak of the #MeToo era. This largely cost him his reputation in the center-left and mainstream media publications that had sustained him. So he pivoted to becoming an anti-anti-Trump commentator as much out of self-preservation as anything else. His writing has become disingenuous, but the people who care about that kind of stuff already rejected him.
A generation ago, there wouldn't have been an alternative media for him to retreat toward — though the allegations against him probably wouldn't have harmed his reputation as much, either. I'd prefer a person like Taibbi being in the center-left tent pissing out, personally, but so it goes.
I have a personal beef against Taibbi from my days in 1990s Moscow. He created and wrote for a shock-jock newsletter/zine aimed at (male) expats, mostly rating Russian hookers and “exposes” of heroin use. It was modestly called “The Exile.” Everyone I know from those times was gobsmacked when he re-emerged in US and was taken seriously. His dad is a journalist — whether he’s a nepo baby or just talked his way into a serious role based on this resume, I can’t say. But he got his start in alternative media of a sort. And whether he actually did the scuzzy things he wrote about, I have no personal knowledge of that. But it’s not like “he harassed a female employee.”
I haven't read too much of The Exile outside of a couple of pieces here and there, but your assessment of it seems fair. I would say that his writing on politics and economics in the late 2000s/early 2010s holds up. And he had more insight into the Trump phenomenon in 2016 than did many of his peers.
You don’t happen to know how he got from there to here do you? It was like if some regular caller to the Howard Stern show suddenly popped up writing for The New Republic.
I have no special knowledge of Taibbi's career trajectory, and know basically nothing of The Exile aside from what you wrote about it. But I first became aware of Taibbi as a college student in the mid-2000s, when he was a columnist for the New York Press, an alt-weekly that competed with the Village Voice. (Yes, such a thing actually existed!) I believe this was before he started popping up in more mainstream or mainstream-adjacent left-of-center publications like Rolling Stone, the Nation, etc.
It's not inconceivable to me that he could parlay his experience with The Exile into a gig at the New York Press, seeing as both broadly fell under the "alternative media" umbrella, and NY Press, as I recall, did have some tendency to publish salacious, un-politically-correct (as we would have called it then) stuff at times. But his column there, though it retained some shock-jock elements, was legitimately good - the guy can write. My guess is he went from Exile to NY Press, and then more mainstream outlets became aware of him mostly for his work with the latter, which maintained a kind of edginess but was generally more respectable. Dude was basically aping Hunter S. Thompson.
Hey, I was describing my personal beef. If you’d rather conduct a thoughtful analysis of his writerly oeuvre as a whole, have at it.
I give up! We travelled in overlapping circles in Moscow and he had a reputation as a pretentious clown. Clearly you’re above this gossip.
I dunno if Matt Taibbi was really ever “center” left. Maybe if you averaged all his positions on the single left right axis.
But he always had a red-brown vibe imo.
Thank you so much for a deep think piece and this is literally what I have been feeling towards journalists these days - and as a super conflict averse and apologetic Japanese, my pet peeve has been the social media’s inherent incentive to drive ppl away from acknowledging mistakes so I’m glad to see you mention this!!
Great analysis and I think it's good to step away from the specifics of the latest Lorenz controversy.
On a completely different note, you can't have two links to the *same* article in *literally one sentence*! This violates traditional blogging standards!
Offending sentence: she’s been writing (link) about how journalism and influencing (link) are melding together since 2018! It's the same link!
Thanks, I changed it so the second link is to a different article as originally intended.
If she accused you of misogyny then your critiques must have been pretty accurate.
There is also the fact that the internet wiped out the business model that local newspapers had (online ads + ordering - classsified ads for local business paying reporters) without meaning to.
I worked in journalism for a long time and I can’t believe the kinda stuff Lorenz got away with while employed by WaPo. Especially her frequent, unscientific rants about Covid. I think it really undermined that publication’s integrity.
"If we look at media that is personality-driven, CNN and television are actually a good analogy. They give shows to people, they develop them and do marketing around personalities. I think that model hasn’t been very good for journalism."
Previous Lorenz was correct. Starting in the 1960s and accelerating with 1990s-00s techno-optimism liberals started abandoning gatekeeping and curating institutions (including media outlets) and assumed that self-expression and open communication would inherently engender empathy and mutual toleration. Rightists built paralllel institutions and realized they could harness bigoted self-expression in service of billionaire masters. Guess what was more effective?
Devastating quotes (and context for the second one!), I loved it
When I think of the idea of a new, institution-free version of a journalist, Molly White’s Citation Needed comes to mind.
This is a great post about how journalists probably should stick to being journalists rather than influencers! Lorentz should stick to mainly being a journalist , she seems better suited to it.