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Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
Paul Krugman did something that he made clear he regarded as quite brave: He defended the Democratic Party presidential nominee and likely next U.S. president from journalistic investigations. Complaining about media bias, Krugman claimed that journalists are driven by “the presumption that anything Hillary Clinton does must be corrupt, most spectacularly illustrated by the increasingly bizarre coverage of the Clinton Foundation.” While generously acknowledging that it was legitimate to take a look at the billions of dollars raised by the Clintons as she pursued increasing levels of political power — vast sums often received from the very parties most vested in her decisions as a public official — it is now “very clear,” he proclaimed, that there was absolutely nothing improper about any of what she or her husband did.
Krugman’s column, chiding the media for its unfairly negative coverage of his beloved candidate, was, predictably, a big hit among Democrats — not just because of their agreement with its content but because of what they regarded as the remarkable courage required to publicly defend someone as marginalized and besieged as the former First Lady, two-term New York Senator, Secretary of State, and current establishment-backed multi-millionaire presidential front-runner. Krugman — in a tweet-proclamation that has now been re-tweeted more than 10,000 times — heralded himself this way: “I was reluctant to write today’s column because I knew journos would hate it. But it felt like a moral duty.”
[...] The reality is that large, pro-Clinton liberal media platforms — such as Vox, and The Huffington Post, and prime-time MSNBC programs, and the columnists and editorialists of The New York Times and The Washington Post, and most major New-York-based weekly magazines — have been openly campaigning for Hillary Clinton. I don’t personally see anything wrong with that — I’m glad when journalists shed their faux-objectivity; I believe the danger of Trump’s candidacy warrants that; and I hope this candor continues past the November election — but the everyone-is-against-us self-pity from Clinton partisans is just a joke. They are the dominant voices in elite media discourse, and it’s a big reason why Clinton is highly likely to win.
That’s all the more reason why journalists should be subjecting Clinton’s financial relationships, associations, and secret communications to as much scrutiny as Donald Trump’s. That certainly does not mean that journalists should treat their various sins and transgressions as equivalent: nothing in the campaign compares to Trump’s deport-11-million-people or ban-all-Muslim policies, or his attacks on a judge for his Mexican ethnicity, etc. But this emerging narrative that Clinton should not only enjoy the support of a virtually united elite class but also a scrutiny-free march into the White House is itself quite dangerous. Clinton partisans in the media — including those who regard themselves as journalists — will continue to reflexively attack all reporting that reflects negatively on her, but that reporting should nonetheless continue with unrestrained aggression.
Source: The Intercept
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @01:15AM
Having a few non-tech stories is one thing, but a daily diet of anti-Hillary pieces makes this site useless and disgusting, except for Trump voters.
Congratulations, editors.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @01:20AM
Here's a shekel for that thought.... Carry on shilling
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Wednesday September 07 2016, @01:40AM
Aaaand, how many stories have you submitted?
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @01:49AM
I'm not going to say, but that's a lousy excuse. Breitbart or Daily Kos type stories shouldn't be posted here, period, regardless of whether the submission queue is slow or not. Space out the stories if you have to.
That's really basic. That's about the integrity of this site and what it supposedly stands for.
BTW on the other site, well over half the stories now seem to be written by the editors themselves. Timothy and Samzenpus used to do some of that ("An anonymous reader writes...") but the new crew does it much more, it's the main diet of the site instead of a last resort. Not saying that's good, but it can be done and it is way better than this shit.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday September 07 2016, @02:00AM
See my other comment. If you submit a story with just one link, we can quote some text and do the work. It should take less than 2 minutes to submit if you're on the ball.
I have submitted over 900 stories. Most of them are apolitical or draw few complaints. How many should I submit to satisfy our readers? 10 every day? Should the editor team delete everything Runaway1956 submits from IRC (I deleted some inflammatory bullshit sub just the other day)?
I have made damn sure to keep the science/tech diet healthy around here. I don't want to see election stories every day.
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(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Wednesday September 07 2016, @06:55PM
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 08 2016, @12:12AM
2 minutes sounds about right. Find a story you like, grab a meaty paragraph and a link, and you're done. The only one who'll really grouse is wonkey_monkey. Everyone else will appreciate it and enjoy discussing it.
I would also like to personally and publicly thank all the hard-working editors who kept the lights on while many, including myself (took the family on an 8,500 mile, 6-wk road trip around the US), were checked out for the month of August. I felt guilty that I wasn't helping, the few times we had connectivity and could check the site. You guys are heroes.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday September 07 2016, @02:14AM
See, the thing is, this site's content is determined by the community. If you're seeing political subs (and don't give me this "you're pro Trump" bullshit, read some of gewg_'s subs) it's because someone wanted to talk about it enough to sub it.
If you disagree with TFA's slant, say so in the comments. Or sub something you'd rather discuss. Part of not censoring the community is making sure every community viewpoint gets their say in subs as well as in comments.
Mind you, I'm just as guilty of having bitched about crappy, biased subs myself. I was wrong and so are you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 07 2016, @02:47AM
I'm not going to say, but that's a lousy excuse.
I'm sure you could have come up with a better excuse.
(Score: 3, Touché) by kurenai.tsubasa on Wednesday September 07 2016, @03:02AM
Look, AC. If you have something pro-lizard person to run, run it! Even somebody like me, a mammal supremacist, is softening their views about the lizard people. I'm still not 100% comfortable with my decision that the lizard people are preferable to the alt-right. Explain it to me! Make a believer out of me! But these stupid AC posts aren't going to get you anywhere.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Thursday September 08 2016, @06:35PM
I'd give you a +1 Funny/Insightful but please be kind; I'm an "alternative right" European who thinks small geckos are cute! XD
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 07 2016, @11:59PM
It's not a lousy excuse. It's the truth. If members of the Soylent community want better stories, they must submit them. Nobody gets paid to build, edit, or maintain the site. It's all volunteers. You would think that the least they might get for their efforts was a daily pat on the back wrapped in hearty thanks, but instead they get lashes like this.
I value the site. I value the community. I do what I can to help keep them going. If you do, too, then consider substituting a complement or a compliment for a complaint. It's really easy, and much appreciated.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday September 07 2016, @01:54AM
Since I am anticipating an objection to my "how many stories have you submitted?" comment, I used a stopwatch and measured how long it took me to open Google News, open the Submit Story page, open the Google News technology section, think of a headline, and submit a submission with two links (no text, no quotes, but likely to get published if it is not crap). How long did it take me? A whopping 1 minute, 29.31 seconds, including an accidental reload of the submit page.
Take matters into your own hands.
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(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday September 07 2016, @02:16AM
Then there's the ever popular hop on IRC, type #submit , bitch about MrPlow sucking ass, type ~submit , and be done.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday September 07 2016, @02:19AM
I don't think you can sub 2+ links at once that way. Maybe you can, but it would probably look like a mess.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @02:32AM
Still waiting for the days old political commentary submission in the queue to make it to the front page.
It doesn't say its about Trump, but it is about Trump.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @03:01AM
I personally will probably vote for Trump. But yeah holy fuck the media buzz is annoying. Whoever cleaned out the queue yesterday is a hero. No less than 10 different political things.
Political things usually just end up being coke vs pepsi.
Politics is nothing more than the collision of money and feelings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @03:34AM
I'm not the parent, but I've submitted six stories today. My average is usually about 20 minutes to put together a decent submission that requires very little to no editing.
I appreciate how many stories you submit and you're clearly better at it than I am. You've put in a ton of work for this site and it wouldn't have survived this long without you.
That being said, I think there are a lot of people in the community that are not happy with the submissions (including my "obituary" and "Slow News Day" submissions). Perhaps we could use another Meta/Ask Soylent story about submissions. A lot of problems would be solved if we had more submissions, but I don't know how we can get more people to submit (hopefully we can come up with something).
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday September 07 2016, @03:49AM
Well, obituaries sometimes cluster randomly as a bunch of people that users in the community like or thinks interesting die. Not everybody will think that Person X is noteworthy or belongs on the front page, and there's usually not much to say other than tributes and highlighting the individual's accomplishments.
If you mean the smallpox eradication obituary from a couple weeks ago, users seemed to like it.
Slow News Day depends. Someone could complain that the Japanese balloon story is 72-year-old news, but that might be better than a 3-4 hour gap on the weekend and lead to an interesting discussion.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 08 2016, @12:19AM
That sounds about right to me. It's how long it takes me once I'm in the swing of things.
Many think that they need to spend hours composing story submissions, and then don't because nobody has that kind of free time. Others think that submissions assembled with celerity are slapdash, but that seems shortsighted because efficiently accomplished tasks say 'practiced' to me.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Wednesday September 07 2016, @08:39AM
Don't tar us all with the same brush please. I've been arguing against politics on this site because a. It is already reported and discussed ad nauseum elsewhere, and b. The debate just turns into a insult match without any intelligent discourse.
However, I feel your pain and share your views. I am even more disinterested in this argument than many, being a European and not an American. It seems to me that America is trying to make the run-up to the next election last the full 4 years that the President is in office. And, nowadays, this site does descend into the reddit/4chan mentality from time to time. Such stories, if they must appear at all, should be saved until the weekend imo.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 08 2016, @12:31AM
I believe it's because the First American Republic is in its death throes. Too much political chatter on Soylent is an epiphenomenon. I would rather see and discuss tech/science/geek topics, but the passing of the world's most powerful democracy is stuff that matters. So perhaps we should try to appreciate all this for what it is, the build-up to a shattering historical transformation for which we have front-row seats.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday September 08 2016, @07:04AM
You may well be correct in your assertion, but I would still suggest that all the political bickering that we are getting currently is not stuff that matters. The result will matter - not the sort of rubbish that is being discussed in many of these political pieces. There is no discussion on policies and how they will affect the US and the rest of the world. There is no detail of what will change if candidate X is elected, merely exaggerated claims as to how the world will suddenly become all rainbows and pink ponies, or the arrival of the Apocalypse, depending on one's point of view. Most political submissions here consist of mud-slinging, dirty tricks, and repeating of op-ed pieces. And, if you are correct, even the result will not matter as the outcome will clearly be the same.
Voting is a personal choice. I just wish people would keep it to themselves or discuss it in one of the many political fora that already exist today. I do resent to some degree that we are expected to edit stories which will generate such low quality discussion. But my views on the topic are, I suspect, becoming quite well known.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 08 2016, @10:24AM
I agree it's not terribly illuminating on an intellectual level when you consider the mud-slinging itself. It is different to note that this time there is nothing but mud-slinging. It's a tacit acceptance of the fact that discussion of policy is irrelevant because what a US presidential candidate says on the question of policy before an election has no connection to what he does after being elected. Think about that. It is a clear sign that democracy in America has failed, because the public no longer accepts its basic premise, namely that voting matters in terms of the direction a country will take on a policy level. All pretence has been stripped away and the limbic foundation of the political process has been laid bare. Now we have one candidate who is clearly a criminal, who has knowingly committed crimes, and another that shamelessly panders to bigotry, and yet neither of them has been disqualified either by law or by the court of public opinion.
It's not much consolation for a tech community that would much rather, collectively, discuss cool tech and science than political drivel, but historical dislocations have a tendency to sweep all along with them and we are no different. There is a unique opportunity here, since we cannot escape the dislocation in the coming months, to transmute the tedious Red vs. Blue slog into an interesting meta discussion of how a system falls. That should interest everyone no matter where we live, because the system that is falling is larger than the United States alone. Rather, it is the global financial & economic consensus that has obtained since Bretton Woods in the wake of WWII.
How often does that sort of thing happen, once every few generations? Afterward people ponder questions like, 'But how could someone like Hitler have come to power?' or, 'What on earth drove the Chinese to undertake something like the Cultural Revolution?' I think this community might garner some insight on questions like those as this whole thing is happening, if we examine it through that kind of lens.
Anyway that's my suggestion for how to get through the next two months at least.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Thursday September 08 2016, @06:47PM
I actually like that there are political stories! :o Even if it means I end up annoying people I like.
It's not that I don't understand people being tired, I'm tired too and when I'm too tired I skip it, but when I'm not too tired then SoylentNews is the only place I can comment like this where it doesn't go directly into some 3rd party marketing/surveillance machine like Disqus or Facebook but instead makes the Five Eyes etc. at least have to harvest it on purpose at some point.
That on its own is worth a hell of a lot to me.
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday September 09 2016, @07:29AM
In which case we need a 'Politics' nexus or topic - and some way of filtering them out for those that don't want to see them.
I'm sorry Yog, but I will still try to avoid editing them as much as I possibly can! :)
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Friday September 09 2016, @09:06AM
I don't mind at all (I don't decide for you and don't want to either because I'm among those who usually find it very annoying when other people decide on my behalf) but I will point out that there's not that much need for a nexus etc. since people will quickly see by a title or a summary if they're interested or not. It's not difficult to avoid.
Slashdot tried to separate it out and people who didn't like the stories still sought them out to complain about them :)
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday September 10 2016, @08:37AM
I agree with much that you have written. The difference with adding a new nexus is that, if the original proposal is still thought to be the way ahead, different editors will be supporting different nexuses. That way, stories can be edited by those having a. an interest in the topic, and b. the editors with specialist subject matter knowledge will be editing those stories. For the time being, it will still be falling on my plate - ah c'est la vie!
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Saturday September 10 2016, @09:26PM
Aah I get the point now and it makes a lot sense. Thank you! :)
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday September 07 2016, @02:51PM
a daily diet of anti-Hillary pieces
Reality has a non-progressive anti-globalist bias. So any site that doesn't pander for money or political favors will naturally be full of anti-left stuff.
Hillary specifically is highly unlikable and seems to be running on an "emperor has no clothes" strategy where everyone personally dislikes her and her beliefs while also simultaneously knowing that everyone else is paid or politically forced to like her so they best go along to get along. Its basically the "Hitler in the 30s" strategy. "Well, I'm not personally a huge fan of the final solution, but everyone I know likes the guy so rather than rock the boat I'll just kinda agree with everyone else... who happens to be in the identical situation...". No one is braver than a democrat, LOL.
The neocons are equally morally dead so that's how the /pol/ candidate crushed them, hopefully permanently, and is going to win. And its going to be pretty awesome. Progressivism, globalism, crony capitalism, socialism, communism, imperialism, all have failed. Lets try something that works, or at least is different, or at least hasn't failed lately.
Honestly I think she's faking her lung cancer and brain cancer to get some sympathy votes. Pragmatically "emperor has no clothes" strategy has mostly resulted in Trump winning in the polls. It doesn't seem terribly controversial that the "dying grandma" meme will net her more votes than what she's been doing.
The most enjoyable thing about this election cycle is watching normies wake up to mainstream media propaganda. In the long run even if Trump loses, he wins because nobody believes the news anymore.
Another enjoyable thing is watching the haughty and arrogant press get entirely neutered in public. Like they've been handed a jar with their balls in it, forbidden city style, and they don't even seem to realize they're holding a jar or their balls are in the jar. Oh 100% of the press are lefty liberal progressives and they all hate Trump and incessantly propagandize against him, and he's gonna win anyway, and they're gonna cry on camera like they did all thru the primaries? I'll drink a beer to that! I love the sweet sweet tears of progressive journalists slowly learning their media empire is in fact completely and permanently impotent.
I do have a question about Hillaries incredibly bad health, if her obviously late stage cancer finishes her off before the election, does that mean her veep is getting sworn in, and should the veep be participating in the presidential debates and so forth? I mean she's pretty sick and can't keep up with Trump even at this "relaxed" pace, so later on she's just gonna be lost. Or worst case, what if she wins and ends up in a hospice for a couple years... will she be of sound enough mind to resign (understanding she's a power mad sociopath, I'm guessing "no").
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mechanicjay on Wednesday September 07 2016, @07:13PM
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 08 2016, @12:40AM
You took the words out of my mouth. The media outlets are corporate mouthpieces; that's why they all change their tune about the Establishment after the elections are done. Before the election, they play up the horse race and controversy to generate high ad revenue, but as soon as the ballots are counted (or not, as it were) they step and cheerlead for the Whitehouse, whoever it is, until it's time to start the whole election charade over again. Just consider how much the Washington Post and NY Times prevaricated against W before he was (s)elected, and how quickly they stepped up to help sell his Dept of Homeland Security, PATRIOT Act, Iraq Invasion, etc afterward.
Of actual leftist media there are relatively few. Bill Maher, MotherJones, and Michael Moore are a representative handful. They're the real deal because, as you said, they base their criticism of elected officials on how far their actions depart from their stated policies and how distant they are from what they believe to be philosophically sound and laudable, which means they criticise Democrats as much as they criticise Republicans.
Washington DC delenda est.