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The Munk Debate with Matt Taibbi, Douglas Murray, Malcolm Gladwell and Michelle Goldberg is now online: Be it Resolved: Don't Trust Mainstream Media.
Contrary to many alternative media takes, I thought that Goldberg had a surprisingly strong showing. I remember her from the Peterson, Fry, et al. debate where she seemed too crude at times. This time Goldberg's opinions clearly came from experience, and her points were well conveyed. Briefly she claimed that there are clear signs that the media does learn from its mistakes and "overcorrects," that the media would not have driven you to make bad decisions if you followed it, and that the processes and culture of the media remain in place. The debate was worth watching just for her.
Murray conveyed a deep sense of moral disgust at what he saw as the carelessness of the Con side. This too came off as having come from experience. There was a point lurking here that I thought needed more articulation. The Con side said that they were professionals who were still doing what needed to be done, and they pointed frequently to successes on their side. But can one be called a professional if only the broad "process" is followed, and no attention is taken to details such as promptness of reporting, accountability, and the taking of personal responsibility rather than pointing fingers? In the absence of the markers of professionalism, it seemed more like they were claiming that their status as mainstream reporters performing an essential service gave them the right to lead people to a better future. In this I am reminded of the film The Verdict. Few people really care ifa doctor will do a fine job in the future, if he can get away with criminal negligence just this one time.
Gladwell's performance dragged down the debate consistently, but I feel some sympathy for him. His system of diversity has left him in a place that he didn't think it would take him. His constant complaints about white people did not seem enlightened, but as bigoted as any racist tract. Still, his point about whether people like him would have been "included" in the past did have something to it. What we've seen in recent times is a concept of diversity that succeeded in pushing people forward, but failed in the end to bring them up to the same standards as those who they have joined. It is just like programs which try to give educational opportunities for the disadvantaged, but which children finish without learning proper English. If you forget the goal, then you have failed and must try again. Similarly, Gladwell wasn't supposed to end his journey as something that strongly resembles a bigot, but he seemed unable to stop himself from doubling down on it despite it being obvious that it was doing them no good. If men like Gladwell begin to recognize failure and try again, perhaps building on what they have learned so far, I have little doubt that they will do a lot of good.
Taibbi did well, not much to say there. I do think that the Pro side didn't adequately answer questions about their alleged fixations on culture war (edit: and Twitter) issues, but it seems like a charge that could easily be thrown back at the mainstream media over the past decade.
Goldberg was better than Gladwell but she, at one point, did something you should never do in a debate: she basically ceded the argument to the other side by admitting that the media is captured and distorted...by consolidating corporations and powerful moneyed interests like Bezos.
Um...you can't do that. As a sign of good faith it was better than anything Gladwell said. As a matter of tactics, that probably made her, on net, worse than he was.
I might be accused of being uncharitable, I think a lot of this debate employed very common "woke" argumentative tactics that were simply out of place due to the different debate topic, which led to a worse showing than expected.
Turn it into a semantic discussion by insisting no one can define their terms. Gladwell tried this, no doubt having seen it work as a useful defense mechanism/way to run out the clock when progressives ask conservatives to define "woke". The problem is that it obviously doesn't work because all sides seemed to have relatively similar views of what the mainstream media is. Gladwell was guilty of the very thing he accused the other side of (wrongly, since they did define their terms both before and after being asked): just assuming we had the same definition of mainstream media in his anecdotes. Which he was right to do since "mainstream media" is not as contentious as "woke".
Grant that something is happening but it's for [Other Reasons Here]. No, that college professor wasn't fired for saying gays should be careful in conservative African countries. It's actually for this Other Thing That Doesn't Indict Wokeness (e.g. higher tuition fees leading to the idea that the customer is always right). Therefore it isn't damning to wokeness. It's a very common thing around college kerfuffles. Well, yes, the college students overreacted but there was this Holy Context^(tm) of this supposedly egregious thing that happened that makes it make sense besides wokeness being bad.
Yeah, well, everything sucked in the past and you're suspect for even thinking anything was better then (though Taibbi should have really clarified the difference between the media being racially inclusive and politically polarized. Murray's catty defense of Taibbi was true but not really substantive)
Suffice it to say, #2 may work in debates centered around how bad wokeness is, but is horrible in the case of this proposition. Since it doesn't matter why we can't trust the press, the question is merely if we can.
She's probably correct actually but, again, it doesn't help.
There's a very good argument, made by people inside the media who would understand the psychology, that the media assumed Clinton was going to win because they were in a bubble and, believing this, pivoted to attacking Clinton to prove their bipartisan bona fides.
The problem is twofold:
They had to do this because of the accurate perception that the mainstream media skews to the Left/would support Clinton
The backlash to Trump's victory led to the criticism of this very tendency and the belief that bad actors exploit false balance (see "butter emails"). Arguably, this "overcorrection" led to things like the reaction to the Hunter Biden story or the firing of anyone who broke message in any way during the 2020 riots/protests. Nobody wanted to be the "rube" who helped Trump win again by reporting something that was unflattering.
The problem is: this isn't actually flattering for the MSM since the underlying fact here is that it is biased towards the Left and its attempts to fix this are intermittent, doing their own harm and will be washed away when things get tough.
I think this was balanced by their focus on the Hunter Biden story which was probably what Taibbi hammered on the most.
(I guess the trucker protest counts as culture war but the implications Murray was concerned about don't seem to fit in the same bucket as shit like the Covington kid or the other such "meaningless" topics).
This is public forum, hardly even a debate. Unlike political debates, there is nothing at stake, hence no need for 'strategy'.
There's only a need if you want to do well. If the argument is that she didn't feel said desire, fair enough.
I think it's silly to go up there and make bad arguments for your side (then why bother going?) but YMMV.
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