I took out a (discounted) Defector subscription so I could read Dave Roth’s political posts, and I found a whole bunch of good writers creating informative content. Such as Drew Magary, on the Way We (some journamalists choose to) Live Now:
… Let me give you as much background as I can. Taibbi was once a star reporter—the only star reporter, really—at Rolling Stone, making a name for himself not merely for investigating fuckery within the financial sector, but for explaining it clearly to Americans who, at the time, were perhaps not up to speed on the depth and history of that fuckery. Wall Street makes a lot of things overly complicated so that their customers don’t understand it. Taibbi made those things simple. And pointed. This legendary story where he described Goldman Sachs as a “vampire squid” is probably the best illustration of his once formidable talents. I really enjoyed reading his work, so much so that when he asked me (and a handful of other writers) to help contribute to a gimmicky blog post he was compiling, I felt touched by greatness. Who wouldn’t? The guy was Michael Lewis and Anthony Bourdain all in one.
Then in 2017, Taibbi got called out for a lot of ugly shit that he (along with his partner Mark Ames) wrote and did while writing for a gonzo magazine in Russia around the turn of the century. Taibbi issued what appeared to be a sincere apology when that blowback hit him, but it clearly stung him to the point where he decided that he had been wronged by the Woke Police. After that, he left RS and booted up a Substack that enriched him via the now-familiar Free Thinker economy, profiting off the feedback cycle where nu–right wing media stars tell their readers, “I was cast out from the elite, and you might be next!”
That’s the exact same gripe that compelled Elon Musk to buy Twitter and refashion it in his own “I was the class clown you guys!” image. So you see how Musk would find Taibbi (and Bari Weiss) a mark to dump his Twitter Files, and why Taibbi would be willing to act as Musk’s sock puppet in “reporting” them. These are bros who just want the freedom to be bros again. And more important, they want money.
Friday Night Fights Open Thread: The Sh*tposter EconomyPost + Comments (52)