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I don’t know. I haven’t followed the TikTok drama at all.
But the reason MSNBC guy said anything was an attempt to discredit reporting on a wholly ancillary point. Taibbi’s “failure” to engage with the disingenuous attack says nothing about his credibility. Indeed, even if Taibbi is hypocritical here, it doesn’t change the reporting (which once again shows why MSNBC guy was so disingenuous — it was an attempt to poison the well).
Maybe I'm misunderstanding something but I can't tell what the foundation for your assertion is. You're just labeling the question to be a disingenuous attack (how?) that says nothing about his credibility (why?). Looking at my conclusion below, can you be specific about which part of it you take issue with?
Your conclusion is exactly the problem. The whole point of the question by MSNBC guy was to talk about a specific issue that isn’t central to the American debate that probably involves material detailed knowledge that Taibbi doesn’t have.
If Taibbi doesn’t respond, the mainstream media is able to make this absurd claim that Taibbi isn’t willing to criticize Musk and because of that unwillingness Taibbi’s story is bullshit.
This is of course pure ad hominem. Let’s assume ad arguendo that Taibbi feels gratitude towards Musk and therefore doesn’t want to criticize Musk (as opposed to Taibbi simply being unaware of the particulars). Taibbi failure to criticize Musk doesn’t change the merits of the story (which by and large no one has been able to refute outside of some nitpicking that has turned out to be itself not exactly correct).
But focusing on this sideshow is a way that MSNBC guy has gotten people to buy this dumb idea that Taibbi isn’t being honest and instead is pushing Musk’s narrative (why Musk has a supposed narrative is left unstated and how that narrative fails to corroborate with reality is left unstated).
That is, MSNBC is using arguments as soldiers. He doesn’t really care what Taibbi thinks about some obscure Indian-Twitter issue. He cares about casting aspersions on the Twitter Files by any means necessary. He tried to using this Indian issue as the means.
Me:
You:
I never claimed that Taibbi's story is bullshit or that his unwillingness to criticize Musk changes the merits of the story, I said the opposite. You said my conclusion is exactly the problem but I'm not seeing where we actually disagree here. Most of your post is about what MSNBC, Hasan Mehdi, and the mainstream media believe but I'm none of those people and unless I actually endorsed their opinions/arguments as my own, they're not my responsibility.
I'll try again. Here's my conclusion again, but with each clause numbered. Can you please just reply with which number you take issue with?
You throw a causal couple liner disclaimer out there and then go on and on about how yes it does affect the credibility of Taibbi and his story. It is the equivalent of “just asking questions.”
And yes, my major beef is with the MSNBC guys but you are in effect either falling for it or signal boosting it.
Let me say this unambiguously since you don’t address.
Your post is largely built on a disingenuous MSNBC reporter coupled with darkly hinting at “credibility” problems without really doing the work to show why failure to criticize Musk makes Taibbi’s reporting less credible outside of asserting that he isn’t playing with a free hand because he doesn’t want to criticize Musk over a bullshit Indian story (when in fact one of his compatriots did criticize Musk over a different story. What you left out is that Taibbi under oath (which was backed up by Michael S. also) stated that they received a massive trove of info that would’ve been hard to pre-select, there was zero limitations on what they could write, and whenever they asked for more info they got it. Moreover, Taibbi provided receipts. Do you think he made them up? Do you think Musk made them up? To date, people with knowledge have only challenged the context (unsuccessfully in my opinion).
So hear we have the very unique situation where a reporter was willing to state his methods
under oath, subjects haven’t claimed “he is lying (though one has claimed he misunderstood the facts),” there has been independent validation, it is consistent with what certain state AGs have also found, but your are casting aspersions because a bullshit MSNBC attempt at a gotcha related to an Indian Twitter squabble? Really? Really?
I'm not "darkly" hinting at anything, I said my conclusion outright. You're just asserting that I'm not doing the work without explaining how exactly the approach I laid out is deficient. Here's the relevant part of my conclusion again:
Ignore Taibbi for a second, is there anything you disagree with there as a general principle? Maybe you do agree with the premises but disagree that they apply to Taibbi? It would be helpful if you specified because I can't tell.
I'm assuming you're talking about the congressional hearings? I didn't watch those hearings so I have no idea what they said in it. I laid out my arguments why I believe Taibbi is being so evasive and "but he said under oath" doesn't address what I actually said.
What receipts? What context? Are you talking about the Twitter Files? I don't have any basis to doubt the veracity or authenticity of the Twitter Files.
As best as I can tell, you seem to be under the impression that I have a hidden argument buried within my post. I believe what I wrote is clear enough but if there's any confusion on your end you can just ask me to clarify. It would be more helpful to keep the conversation focused on what I actually wrote rather than what you think I wrote.
Why do you think Indian Twitter situation was brought up?
How does Taibbi’s “unwillingness” to attack Musk affect his Taibbi’s credibility? Is it his general credibility or Twitter specific? If Twitter specific, then any story in particular?
The theory is that Taibbi was happy to cover what Old Twitter did because it made Musk look good, but he doesn't want to cover what New Twitter does with India because it makes Musk look bad. In the absence of Taibbi providing a more convincing explanation for his actions (he hasn't) that's the conclusion the evidence I outlined above leads me to.
His unwillingness to attack Musk is not really the issue, it's the lack of curiosity about Twitter's actions that I find suspicious as I said above. He seems to be deliberately keeping his head in the dark about a story central to his beat, most likely to avoid having to (negatively) opine on New Twitter's actions and upsetting Musk. It's Not Good when journalists choose to avoid covering certain topics because they're worried about upsetting the wrong people because it might lead to some stories being suppressed. That's Bad.
Both, but primarily Twitter-related. Given how much aversion he has demonstrated to upsetting Musk, I'd be worried that if he came across a Twitter scoop that happens to make Musk look bad he'd be inclined to bury the story. There are a few journalists who I would be inclined to take at their word when they report something via anonymous sourcing or something similarly unverifiable but I wouldn't trust Taibbi's reporting on a given topic without some serious corroboration.
As I said before: "For whatever cannot be corroborated by outside sources, we have to trust that a journalist is engaging in enough due diligence in vetting sources and investigating claims." In terms of past Twitter stories, I don't have any reason to believe there were based on fabrications. I didn't pay attention closely but Taibbi appears to have provided authentic documents and none of the employees involved disputed their authenticity as far as I am aware. I am also not aware of any follow-up reporting by others that poked any significant holes in Taibbi's reporting. The only remaining concern would be matters of omission but I'm not aware of any issues at the moment.
With respect to your first paragraph, what incentive did Taibbi have to make Musk look good? Musk didn’t pay him. He was associated with Musk before Twitter.
Maybe one could say that after getting a really good story from Musk Taibbi would be reluctant to hit back at Musk. But you seem to have started the story too soon.
Moreover, your logical inference is off (end of first paragraph and start of second). Taibbi is an American journalist who primarily (though of course not exclusively) focuses on the US. To my knowledge, he has never written about India. Contra your belief, this Indian issue isn’t central to Taibbi’s beat. Taibbi’s beat (if there was one) was how the US government was effectively (with the help of media) circumventing the 1A.
Moreover, as has been pointed out the whole “Indian Twitter story” was a red herring designed to try to ignore Taibbi’s reporting. It wasn’t that far from someone writing about say the problem of crime increasing in American cities and someone who wants to end that narrative ask “why haven’t you reported about crime in Poland” with the subtext being “you only care about American crime and not Polish crime because you want to report on black people so we can ignore your reporting.” After getting these numerous drive bys that were complete BS, Taibbi fired back. He should’ve been more clear “Warsaw ain’t my beat but you can’t use that to discredit the honest reporting I’ve done on XYZ.
But even if you think Taibbi doesn’t want to resort negatively on Musk (not that there is a shortage of reporters willing to take on that beat), you are ignoring the context of where this came up. Given the timeline, none of the Twitter files would implicate malfeasance by Musk. He barely owned the company when this whole thing started. So Musk is irrelevant to this whole story in terms of Taibbi’s credibility.
Taibbi has no history of fraud or making spurious claims that don’t check out. But you are using an entirely dishonest, red herring to cast aspersions? I think that is shameful.
Finally, do you trust mainstream media on say covid vaccines?
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