Rolling Stone, Once a Counterculture Bible, Will Be Put Up for Sale
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Also amazing is that Time Out, which will strike most people today as an unremarkable and boring listing of events, was considered a key achievement of the London counterculture when it first came out. Apparently any countercultural vibe was gradually purged from it over the course of the 1970s.
The young/anti-establishment people of the 60's and 70's are the old/establishment people of today.
Not in any such numbers as to constitute an actual counter-culture anyway...
It has a few places people hang out, occasionally they organize this or that, and they have a good time.
Other than that just as insignificant, in influence, in power, in numbers and in mass appeal as the juggalo scene.
Not much to write home about.
Paper Magazine, the New York Times, and Gothamist now mostly reflect the same cultural ideals. It's fascinating. Was this what the 80s was like?
Was he successful? He certainly convinced most of the people on the right, but they were already on his bandwagon anyway... As someone in the middle, it's looking more and more like he had a point. (Even if the site that bears his name has become.. well, whatever it is, now.)
It might not be easily understood, but it's usually both easily recognizable and frequently condemned.
We're not talking about some secret society, but about major currents for change.
>Remember ever cool word/ term you knew as a kid and how they immediately stopped being cool once you heard your parents use them?
Yes. That's pop culture. Not anti-establishment culture.
LGBTQ spaces and movements? Black Lives Matter? Occupy Wall St and the subsequent progressive upswell which led to Bernie Sanders, an unknown independent from Vermont, to garner nearly as many votes as one of the most well-known politicians on the planet?
If tame middle aged people who listen to Enya and mass media outlets can root for your cause, you're not exactly a counter-culture.
Neither of these is a small niche. Police brutality is a huge, huge issue. It may seem like a small niche to people who are not members of targeted demographics, though.
> and are otherwise totally content with modern society.
What leads you to believe this? From my personal experience this couldn't be more wrong
Anyway, if you want real counter culture that middle aged people will still clutch their pearls over... what about Antifa?
I'm not saying it's not important -- but as a request for change it is niche in scope, that is constrained to a small area of life (even if you are one of the targeted demographics).
>What leads you to believe this?*
Well, some internet ranting and rare protesting aside I don't see any alternative lifestyles there (or only very trite ones, the "fair trade coffee" equivalent of politics). It's all business as usual otherwise.
>Anyway, if you want real counter culture that middle aged people will still clutch their pearls over... what about Antifa?
Better in the shocks middle aged people respect, but scores less points on "culture". It's a reaction-based group, not an alternative cultural force.
The specter of police violence is not constrained to a small area of life for members of targeted demographics....
To argue, as BLM does, that we should restructure the entire policing system (some say even dismantle it) is to conduct a reimagining of what power and authority means in this country.
In a place where "law and order" (one of Trump's favorite phrases) and the administration of "justice" is upheld as the highest ideal, to decisively argue against normative ideas of them is certainly counter culture.
Also antifa is not reactionary. Many members of antifa orgs run community kitchens, organize reading groups, or build small farms or communes.
They didn't seem to understand (or care?) what they did wrong and thus didn't really apologize.
The magazine retracted the story and apologized. The author apologized as well. The editor handed over their resignation (it was not accepted).
What do you want, to have them be some parriahs that never find journalistic work again?
I'm all for free speech, but I wish we could get a handle on people saying completely wrong things for profit.
Author and Editor fail to validate highly sensitive claims in an incredibly amateur fashion. * they did not even ask the accused for comment*.
Rather than separate from the author and Editor, and help them find a career elsewhere, the publication gives a pretty weak apology and doubles down on two individuals who obviously failed to follow basic journalism standards.
They don't need to be "parriahs", but I do think it rubbed readers the wrong way when RS continued to defend their work and ultimately gave a sour retraction ('we were hoodwinked!') and weak "sorry!".
Obviously not. Else countless others shit-rags would also be.
In the era of fake news this is a misdemeanor.
Saying that bad journalism "is why the Rolling Stone is for sale" makes no sense when bad (and far worse) journalism does just fine everywhere.
I don't have an opinion on this case in particular, but there are cases where no amount of apologizing is enough. Becoming a copy writer for the rest of one's career does not strike me as a particularly cruel and unusual punishment.
Is that always true? I'm not so sure. And even if it is true, perhaps it should not be so. All kinds of professionals have accidents or errors and continue to work.
There's this apocryphal story that makes some sense.
Tom Watson Jr., CEO of IBM between 1956 and 1971, was a key figure in the information revolution. (...) A young executive had made some bad decisions that cost the company several million dollars. He was summoned to Watson’s office, fully expecting to be dismissed. As he entered the office, the young executive said, “I suppose after that set of mistakes you will want to fire me.” Watson was said to have replied, “Not at all, young man, we have just spent a couple of million dollars educating you.”
http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2017/08/23/remain...
Start at the top and start firing.
"Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin, who headed America's Asia-based 7th Fleet, has been relieved of his duties following the damage to the USS John S McCain."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/world/asia/fitzgerald-col...
Next up is the commander of the ship and the senior officers.
Being relieved of duties doesn't mean firing though. Could be that they become paper pushers. The next step would be court martial.
But yes, there are career ending mistakes. Especially when they cause the death of 7 people and takes a 9000 ton, $1.5 billion ship out of commission. The Arleigh Burke class also forms a good chunk of an aircraft carrier group's defensive perimeter, so by taking out these ships, these mistakes (whether one mistake or many mistake doesn't matter) puts approximately $30 Billion worth of military assets (not to mention the 5000+ people) at risk.
How's that for a career ender?
By the time the correction is issued, the false information has spread worldwide. There are still people who believe dumb conspiracy theories because the early coverage of events like Katrina and 9/11 got it wrong.
And the correction will never go viral the way the wrong-headed reporting will.
So yes, they shouldn't work again. And maybe if we burn enough people in such a way editors will pump the brakes a little on breaking news in such a way to avoid printing bullshit and infecting the public further.
But the real problem? It's just crappy journalism. Taking some half-assed, re-hashed current political narrative being peddled by somebody with emotional problems, forgetting the editing and fact-checking, and running with it front-page. They suck at their job. That's an indication of an organization that doesn't care about quality.
The best defense I can come up with for RS is that we live in a tough-as-nails media market, and everybody's having to cut corners and pump stories far past reason. Doesn't mean they suck any less, just that they suck as much as many other news outlets. They got caught.
Good journalism is rare and getting rarer. Whether RS fired anybody or not isn't very important. What _is_ important is that their publishing of the story and reaction to it forms a not-so-pretty picture of where the overall industry is.
First, there's a difference between malpractice and a mistake, even a serious one. The problem with the rolling stone incident, as I understand it, was that the editors failed to take the most basic, widely recognized steps to ensure integrity in a situation where they were unusually essential.
There's a difference between making a mistake as a lawyer, for instance, and breaching ethics, basic procedures, or committing "gross incompetency" in a way that gets you disbarred.
Furthermore, there's a huge difference between temporary disbarment and becoming a pariah that never works again in the field.
Now, law isn't journalism, there isn't a "bar" or a specific concept of disbarment, and rules are looser in journalism. But the journalists and editors behind this story do seem, by the standards of their profession, to have committed far more than a mistake. This was really, really serious, and goes deep into gross incompetence and breach of ethics.
In spite of this, and how outrageous it was, I do think the day could come where they'd be reasonably welcomed back into their profession as full members. But this was really serious, and I do think removal from their positions, and an extended period of working as a proofreader under the supervision of a journalist with a better track record, certainly isn't unreasonable.
In fact, it might be the sort of thing that would actually help the journalists and editors to re-enter their field again in the future, with trust.
We published the article with the firm belief that it was accurate. Given all of these reports, however, we have come to the conclusion that we were mistaken in honoring Jackie's request to not contact the alleged assaulters to get their account. In trying to be sensitive to the unfair shame and humiliation many women feel after a sexual assault, we made a judgment – the kind of judgment reporters and editors make every day. We should have not made this agreement with Jackie and we should have worked harder to convince her that the truth would have been better served by getting the other side of the story. These mistakes are on Rolling Stone, not on Jackie. We apologize to anyone who was affected by the story and we will continue to investigate the events of that evening.
False rape story with easily discoverable falsities and lies, yet incredibly lax editing
as a cover story with bold graphics
with real, innocent victims who had nothing to do with anything, yet were punished and their property vandalized.
The rest of it seems run of the mill corporate entertainment shilling and promotion...
What about, going back a bit, but David Foster Wallace's piece on John McCain's election campaign?
While the question about lack of gender diversity in RS's writers seemed aggressive compared to the normal How I Built This "So a billion dollar valuation. That's a lot of money. What does it feel like to be...rich?", Wenner's response seemed out of touch and dismissive.