onfocus

…there’s an entire genre of media coverage best described as “rich guy has an opinion.” It’s surprisingly common, and once you notice it you’ll see it everywhere: entire news stories dedicated to the otherwise unremarkable opinion of a rich person, or news stories that fold the opinions of rich people into their otherwise neutral coverage.

In fact, some once prestigious media outlets are now entirely rich guy vanity projects. It is everywhere.

I do know quite a bit about Mastodon’s trust-and-safety mechanisms, having been a moderator on CoSocial.ca for a couple of years now. So I’m going to walk through how the same story might have unfolded on Mastodon, assuming Ms Kendzior had made the same post about the WSJ article.

Interesting look at how a more distributed moderation model might have handled a controversial Bluesky banning.

The dress-up “dismantles their narrative a little bit,” Jack Dickinson, also known as the “Portland Chicken,” told Willamette Week. “It becomes much harder to take them seriously when they have to post a video saying Kristi Noem is up on the balcony staring over the Antifa Army and it’s, like, eight journalists and five protesters and one of them is in a chicken suit.”

Tactical frivolity.

You just have to think for yourself. Know what tradition you’re aligned with, whether it’s a philosophical one, a religious one, or one that rises out of a particular past oppression—or all of the above. There might even be a group or a school of thought you’re reacting against. If you haven’t thought about these things before, read less daily news and try to find an approach that reflects what matters to you.

I've been thinking about this essay quite a bit since I read it. I've been disappointed with Ezra Klein and this gets at some of the reason why. But I think Coates' reminder that knowing you're part of a tradition or school of thought that will continue after you're gone is a powerful idea. It's easy to lose sight of that in the daily news chaos and this essay was a good reminder that humanist ideas might not be very old in the grand scheme but they are powerful. Also thinking about this:

You treat people humanely—everyone.

People can come in the tent without agreeing on every policy. But you have to make the demand that all people will be treated humanely. That belief guides what you yourself will do. You don’t buy into the MAGA lies to get supporters. You give them a vision of what you support, and you call them to it.

That's a bright line that I can get behind. I appreciate hearing this.

The quote is devastating. It reveals a president who is either completely detached from reality, easily manipulated by advisors feeding him false information, or being deliberately deceived by old Fox News footage (as we now know was happening). It raises fundamental questions about who is actually running the country and whether the person with access to nuclear codes can distinguish between television clips from five years ago and reality.

We need to have a national conversation about fitness in the media so some adults in the room will feel confident about standing up.

"We don't even watch Jimmy Kimmel at all," Gary, 54, said. "Things that are supposed to be thought of as a given as it relates to American life, those things are being constantly trampled down."

No kidding. I don't watch him either, but I want to live in a world where Jimmy Kimmel can do his thing. We need the ability to critique and poke fun at the people in power. It's the American way. Voting with our money is also the American way. Plus, how thin-skinned must you be to get Jimmy Kimmel fired?

This video is a good introduction to the fediverse. I've been on Mastodon since 2018 or so and it's now the only social network I use. It doesn't have ads, has better privacy controls, and gives much better filtering and muting options. Mastodon lacks some polish in the signup and discovery features, but makes up for that in lots of other daily life ways.

That being said, there's no excuse for how everybody covered this Jony Ive fiasco. Even if you think this device ships, it took very little time and energy to establish how little Jony Ive has done since leaving Apple, and only a little more time to work out exactly how ridiculous everything about it.

Righteous rant from Edward Zitron about fawning, credulous OpenAi coverage.

Garza reveals the behind-the-scenes drama, discusses the ethical challenges of billionaire-owned media, and shares powerful insights on standing up for integrity in journalism. From hopeful beginnings at the LA Times to her shocking departure and reflections on billionaire influence in the media, this conversation explores the high stakes of maintaining editorial independence in an increasingly polarized world.

I enjoyed this interview with Mariel Garza about her decision to leave the LA Times editorial board. Really interesting that their "good billionaire" suddenly went fascist out of nowhere. It really does feel like some sort of psychological contagion among the ruling elite.

If a ludicrous idea started building momentum, the ringleader and their affiliates would get pushed out of an organization, then another one, and another one, before being deemed so poisonous that society in general would exile them to some tract of rural land to farm beets and / or start a cult. If they were still interested in spreading their ideas, their options were limited to the physical media they could afford to purchase — a monthly pamphlet sent through the mail, a ham radio, or a sign on the side of the road. Barricaded from the tightly controlled mass communication networks of print distribution and broadcast signals that informed the nation and the leaders they chose, they were forever stuck on the fringes.

That was where “crazy” used to die.

We also got wikipedia so maybe we can start shunning weirdos again and keep the good parts of the Internet.

President Trump’s on-again, off-again tariff announcements sent stock markets plunging. On this week’s On the Media, how to make sense of the ever-changing news about the economy. Plus, the policy behind the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ rhetoric.

I thought this On the Media was a great tariffs 101 and the interview with Brown economics professor Mark Blyth was especially good.