Glenn Greenwald Resigns from the Intercept
theintercept.com
theintercept.com
Forget about the Intercept for a second and try it like this: Imagine a tech startup cofounder wanted to remain in the trenches instead of managing others. Then she's accused of not respecting the management that formed around her. Yeah, no shit, they have to earn it. And it takes a lot of fucking nerve to tell her "you didn't give yourself a management job before now, even though you were at one point free to. Therefore you're unqualified to make this specific managerial decision, even though you deliberately created a contractual route to retain that power over those certain choices even if it isn't your day-to-day job."
They kind of are though. If they've chosen not to be in a management position, they have chosen not the have all the context around decisions, nor devote their mental energy to evaluating and making managerial decisions.
Qualified isn't necessarily the right term, but you can't be the leader only when its convenient, that just won't work.
The Intercept said it had no doubt that Greenwald would "launch a new media venture where he will face no collaboration with editors — such is the era of Substack and Patreon."
"In that context, it makes good business sense for Glenn to position himself as the last true guardian of investigative journalism and to smear his longtime colleagues and friends as partisan hacks," the Intercept statement reads.
"We get it. But facts are facts and The Intercept record of fearless, rigorous, independent journalism speaks for itself."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2020/10/29/glenn-greenw...
TBF, it sounds like he's barely involved (He does live in Brazil after all), and he just uses the intercept as a venue to post articles to which he has full editorial control.
If he doesn't actually have any ownership, nor a title, just a contract that says he can publish articles in exchange for the use of his name, then, yeah, they can tell him whatever they want.
Instead of applying the corrections or pulling rank and saying that he's the founder and wants his article to be published despite the damage it might cause to the paper's reputation, Greenwald threw a tantrum, flung a bunch of accusations at the editor, quit, and took it all public.
This line itself sounds far more tantrum-like and childish than anything I've seen from Greenwald regarding this.
... does sound like he feels victimized.
I think he is also correct. I think it is a bit of a smear against Biden, but editorial complaints about that sound a bit opportunistic to stay diplomatic.
Sounds like Glenn's colleagues prevented him from engaging in a preliminary bet when no news agencies outside of NY Post and Fox have seen the source evidence.
At best Glenn can play second-fiddle to Fox and NY Post, engaging in meta-analysis from afar. At worse, Glenn was betting a decent chunk of his brand's credibility.
Editor: Extensive feedback, but couched in a professional way
Glenn: I disagree, professionally
Glenn, a few hours later: Your review comments are solely because you are biased and you're accusing me, someone who has never made an error of making an error.
Editor-in-Chief: You're out of line.
Glenn: I quit.
So then they responded stating the obvious that Glenn was not willing to work with them.
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It’s sad, really. I used to respect the guy and still follow his work, but I think spending all of his time on conspiracies and abuses of power has maybe warped his perception of reality.
Greenwald broke some of the biggest stories of the last 20 years. He’s seen the US government downing planes and trampling all over due process just to get hold of some of his sources. His partner was effectively detained and grilled in London for the sole crime of being his partner. He moved to a country that soon suffered a de-facto coup. I think his vision is actually less clouded than ours, to be honest.
No, it didn’t.
Even Greenwald himself acknowledges he doesn't have access to the relevant information. How does that make his claim of political censorship more credible?
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-hunter-b...
Now that the article and the email exchanges are released, it's clear to me that Greenwald once again used his popularity to peddle conspiracy and victimhood. In my opinion he has lost all his credibility.
I am angry that he did this and many people on here bought it.
I think that's a very uncharitable way of framing his questions. He's not passing any judgement (that I saw) that the documents are true or not, he wants an official position from the Biden campaign relating to them.
Central argument is that the 'story' about Hunter Biden's laptop and the emails on it is not being taken seriously by the mainstream media.
The purported emails have not been provided with their metadata as far as I can tell.
The story told by the emails appears to be some vague, 'Hunter Biden was pursuing a business deal and trading on his family name' type thing.
And all of this from an unnamed author in the New York Post citing evidence on a laptop left in a computer repair shop? All sounds completely ludicrous.
Makes me wonder why the hell Greenwald is making so much hay over this. Kompromat?
And from Bidens' perspective, the e-mails are mostly a "nothing burger" even if real. At worst, some influence peddling by people close to the VP. So what is the point in giving this any more attention? It looks like the mid-west is going to swing this election, and right now they are getting slammed with COVID. The only folks who remotely care about the NY Post story are already solidly in Trumps camp. The voters that he is trying to reach have no idea what the "laptop from hell" is. So from the Biden perspective, ignoring the story is probably the best move. A confirmation/denial would likely get picked up by mainstream press, who so far have been staying away from it because of the issues with sourcing.
A separate question then becomes "are they a big enough deal for it to be a legitimate news story?" and your answer to that will depend on whether you are naive enough to believe Hunter and James Biden were able to peddle influence without Joe Biden's (perhaps entirely off-the-record) involvement.
Yet another separate question is, "should this sway anyone's vote from Biden to Trump?" and that will depend on how you weigh this instance of corruption against Trump's many ethical violations, and how important considerations of corruption are in picking your candidate.
Because when you go out to vote, you don't vote against a candidate. You vote for one. And with two obviously unfit candidates, people may prefer to not legitimize either through voting.
I think this is clearly not true for this election year in particular.
He claims it was the fault of a colleague but he's still comfortable calling himself the founder of the org. Take some responsibility for Christ's sake.
In a decent world Joe Biden would pardon her on his first day.
A brief glance at https://theintercept.com/search/?s=biden in the last month shows me pieces like:
>Anatomy of a Lie: How the Trump Campaign Edited Video of Biden to Create a Fake Gaffe
>Trump’s Pathetic Attempt to Get Netanyahu to Attack Biden Falls Flat
>Move Over, Hunter Biden. Meet Eric Branstad, the China Ambassador’s Son Who Got Rich in Trump’s Swamp.
The only thing that irks me more than biased news sources is biased news sources that are pretending to be impartial.
I'm not says this is the case necessarily here, but it is something to remember.
as opposed to
"then the nazis did this and caused a significant degree of suffering widely regarded in the forthcoming decades as among if not the most evil acts ever committed"
The difference is taking things personally, as opposed to a third person observational perspective. Both may come to the same conclusion, but one is hoping you'll be convinced while the other just represents what is known about the reality in question, letting the meaning of it speak for itself. There is even inclusion of opinion, but not personally taken, just noted as occurring.
By whom? Weasel words.
Are the Nazi's actions bad only because of the "widely opinion" other people held?
The Intercept is likely pointing to stories like those:
> Biden’s Promise Of A Deportation Moratorium Is Nowhere In His Platform
> Controversial Data-Mining Firm Palantir Vanishes From Biden Adviser’s Biography After She Joins Campaign
> With Tara Reade’s Allegations, Joe Biden’s Campaign Is Only the Latest Chapter of America’s Accountability Problem
The Intercept has been consistently critical of Biden and other establishment Democrats which isn't surprising given its progressive slant. The difference, in contrast to Greenwald's framing is just, that this story he wanted to go with is complete and utter rubbish.
"The Washington Post on Sunday published an op-ed -- by Thomas Rid, one of those centrists establishmentarian professors whom media outlets routinely use to provide the facade of expert approval for deranged conspiracy theories"
A self-respecting school newspaper wouldn't publish that. That's "longform Twitter", not journalism.