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Facebook Founder Presents Vision For The New Republic, Many Resign In Protest
SkiTee94 writes: Chris Hughes, one of the original founders of Facebook, is in damage control mode to save his recently acquired, century-old publication The New Republic. In response to Hughes' vision to turn the highly respected, and most would say old school, publication into a "digital media company," about a dozen senior editors and writers simply quit (out of a 54-person staff). One of the editors who quit said, "The narrative that they are putting out there is that it is the 21st century and we have to innovate and adapt. ... We don’t know what their vision is. It is Silicon Valley mumbo jumbo buzzwords that don’t mean anything." Is Hughes a visionary cleaning out dead wood or a clueless tech star leaving destruction in his wake?
"....It is Silicon Valley mumbo jumbo buzzwords that don’t mean anything."
That made my day!
I've heard Hughes speak. He enjoys pushing new things simply because they're new, not because they'll actually improve the product.
Sad to see this happen to TNR.
Hughes is both a visionary cleaning out dead wood and a clueless tech star, the latter because he bought TNR in the first place.
Without knowing what he means by "digital media company" and what changes exactly were taking place it's impossible to know.
Maybe the staff overreacted to some BS corporate email?
Maybe the publication was being turned into something with typical clickbait articles, because it makes more profits?
Heh, only someone whose politics is on the extreme right would consider TNR a "far left wing liberal rag".
I'd say that Hughes didn't do a damn thing.
You had a bunch of journalists who didn't identify with the pablum the new owner was puking. So, to send a CLEAR message, they quit.
An unusually direct show of integrity in today's era of spineless, jellyfish-like hack wannabes.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
From about 1975 forward TNR was in the vanguard of "neoliberalism", which basically amounts to packaging hard right Republican ideas + hippie punching and selling in to "moderate" Democratic politicians and DC insiders who think they need to "move right" to get re-elected. Classifying TNR (cf Andrew Sullivan) as a 'liberal rag' is a bit, oh, silly.
sPh
Which admittedly is darkly amusing as from 1980 forward TNR - under multiple editors - was as engaged as any neoliberal [*] entity in destroying economic security for the majority of US citizens. Now they get re-engineering/outsourced/disrupted and it is a tragedy.
Also, the failure of any of these people to resign during TNR's era of deep racism under Peretz/Sullivan should disqualify them from uttering even a peep.
sPh
[*] neoliberal = hard right Republican with a prettier face
You don't have a single left wing outlet in the US. Even the most left leaning is way into the political right everywhere else on the planet. You've got so used to extreme right as central, you cannot see you're a fascist state.
For the past 40 years TNR has apparently been owned by a incredibly bigoted person who used the liberal credibility of the magazine to push his white supremacists ideas. Certainly these ideals are accepted in some circles, but not the target audience of the TNR. As a new generation who was not raised on overt bigotry came into being, a generation that pretty uniformly saw the assassination of MLK through history books, not newscasts, and were not raised on magazine subscriptions, the new century saw the circulation of the new republic cut in half. The white supremacy could no longer be covered with the inertia of the respect of the magazine.
In this way we see the problems of TNR firmly rooted in old ideas and the destruction of the brand by the previous owner. If the brand is to be rehabilitated it is going to require the jettison of the previous ideas that are not consistent with far left ideology, and those who think that white supremacy is consistent with anything real in the US were free to leave with the editors.
TNR is only going to be saved by re branding as an online source of liberal news and analysis. While the editors did not promote any kind of white supremacy, they were complicit in the past, and that may have been a problem in the present.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
No, this magazine actually is a public trust. It has never turned a profit in 100 years. But it has provided a forum for some of the best writers we've ever had. I hate to break it to you: lots of terrific art, theater, music , literature, science , sport, journalism , and for that matter, personal relationships, are not for-profit activities. And now this FB dweeb has decided to fire the Editor without telling him, kill the print edition, and become another HuffPo or Daily Mirror Online or TMZ or ... any number of other shallow "digital media" your generation is saturated with. It is just part of the general demise of good writing and the rise of "info porn" that the Internet has brought us -- along w Instant Billionaires like Bezo and Hughes and Zuckerberg.
It can be both a 'Trust' and a business. The two are not incompatible.
For a decent magazine to survive in the modern media environment. It has to make a choice:
1 Regurgitate the cheapest possible copy and content you can scrape up from the cheapest possible source to get your advertising costs as low as possible so you can undercut the price of any other magazine. Race to the bottom.
2 Be a distinct and unique voice that attracts readers for your unique writing and insight.
Guess which one the editors want and which one the new owner wants? Given that there are more crappy magazines out there already than anyone can read, which one do you think is likely to attract quality employees?
Magazine market is racing to the bottom almost across the board. This new owner sounds like he is dying to join the race.
Elsewhere you'll see they honestly and clearly state their intention to promote left-wing liberalism. They aren't pretending to be objective, balanced, or factual.
Holding a set of beliefs doesn't disqualify you from being objective, balanced or factual.
Everyone has beliefs - some subscribe to a classifiable set of beliefs. This journal is a collection of people who share some beliefs around liberalism - and they declare it.
Of course this means that they'll tend to see things through the prism of their beliefs - but everyone does this. At least in this case, they're honest and upfront about their beliefs, so you can take those into account.
They're going to pick stories of interest to liberals, and they're going to give liberal insights into events - but that doesn't mean they can't be reasonably objective, balanced of factual.
I say 'reasonably' because nobody can be completely objective, balanced or factual. Everyone is influenced by their preconceptions, experience, and by their imperfect knowledge.
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A couple problems. The first is that no one is truly objective except someone studying an isolated system. The second is that we have this misbegotten notion that "balance" is that we must give both sides of a story equal billing. When one side is flagrantly wrong, it deserves to be dismissed and ignored. The third is on you to show how they omit facts. I know the extreme right wing of this country loves to manufacture "facts" or omit actual facts when it suits them, there's a whole TV network that excels in such shitflinging.
I doubt they have forgotten it, in fact it probably puts them in a good position for feeling out if someone is actually saying something.
Nothing to do with totalitarianism. Outside of a few social issues, the U.S. has almost no liberal politicians, and the U.S. also has essentially no fiscally conservative politicians. Instead, both parties are fiscally liberal, with the Republicans being the most fiscally liberal (spend money and don't worry about raising taxes to pay for it). Both parties are socially fairly conservative, with very few progressives or socialists even on the Democrat side of the aisle. The only real differences between the two parties are that:
In short, the differences are mostly a lot of empty rhetoric, full of sound and fury....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Fleecing conservatives of their money is in fact a market. Those guys will open up their wallets if you say all the right sweet things. Even better they'll go around repeating it. There is an entire eco-system in right wing political systems doing this. Since a lot of these people trend to being older, they are both susceptible to fear and they have money. The young, can also be susceptible, but they don't have money so there is no market.
They need to create an index for conservatives.
Until Hughes bought it, for the previous few decades it had been controlled by Marty Peretz, and was to some extent reflective of his views, which are an odd idiosyncratic mix of left-wing and right-wing ideas. He's socially liberal but a defense hawk, among other positions. Which explains why TNR was liberal on things like gay marriage, but neoconservative on things like the Iraq War.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Supporting Excellent Iraq War II, pumping the _Bell Curve_, publishing the racist fantasies of Stephen Glass, joining the anti-public education movement, and also publishing the "No Exit" hatchet job on Bill Clinton's health care reform proposal isn't in any way shape or form liberal. And that's not even taking into account Martin Perez' racism and ethnic hatred which is of a variety that is a bit harder to criticize in US society but which most liberals reject.
Representative quote from Andrew Sullivan: "The middle part of the country—the great red zone that voted for Bush—is clearly ready for war. The decadent Left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead—and may well mount what amounts to a fifth column." [note that he later altered that essay as published on his blog to make it less self-damning; this is the original wording]. Yes, he's gay. No, he's not liberal.
sPh
One big problem with focusing solely on skill is that there will always be someone younger, who has more energy. The older you get, the more crucial job security and stability become. So policies that don't take into account seniority tend to attract that younger crowd. Unfortunately, young people are fickle. When you're in your early twenties, most folks are willing to drop a job and pick up a new one like it's a hat. It is difficult to maintain a consistent voice and a consistent style when the people keep changing, and worse, lots of institutional knowledge simply disappears when that happens.
The only way to be successful in the long term is to keep a decent percentage of your senior people around. If you don't do this, your organization is screwed. Unfortunately, the self destruction usually doesn't happen immediately; it is a slow rot that progressively degrades the quality of the final product, resulting in a gradual decline of sales. As a result, the people who promote such shortsighted thinking rarely get the blame that they deserve.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Performance pay--- how do you measure performance? It is NOT a simple problem and no matter what you come up with humans are naturally talented at adaptation, they will survive and many will thrive by gaming your system. Seniority is the least hackable metric of all and so simple everybody knows it's inherent flaws - but EVERY metric is going to be flawed.
Online performance is largely measured by CLICKS. The result is the trashy click bait we have today. An earth shattering investigative report which might take a year of a senior journalist's time (a REAL journalist) puts them at the bottom of the scale while some twit pushing rumors/gossip who can't spell has tons of clicked of trash gets to the top (and has the nerve to call what they do journalism.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
The second is that we have this misbegotten notion that "balance" is that we must give both sides of a story equal billing. When one side is flagrantly wrong, it deserves to be dismissed and ignored.
I absolutely agree with you that there's no need to present ideas that are demonstrably false. But "liberalism" is not something that is easily proved "true" or "false." A group stating that they are promoting "liberalism" could mean many things, but a political ideology is NOT a synonym for "truth."
The third is on you to show how they omit facts. I know the extreme right wing of this country loves to manufacture "facts" or omit actual facts when it suits them, there's a whole TV network that excels in such shitflinging.
I know many "conservatives" who use misunderstandings (intentional or not) or outright lying to promote their ideas, but I also know "liberals" who have done the same. And there are people who have fundamental ideas about what they think good policies might be on both sides who try to stick to the truth.
In any case, getting stuck in one's own ideological bubble means that it can be difficult to see the truth -- not always because you're deliberately lying or because any of your ideological buddies are lying. Often the sides talk past each other -- so you always get your "talking points" and never really have to seriously consider rebuttals from the other side... or if they occur, you just laugh and dismiss them, and your group of ideological friends laughs along with you, because it's easier than confronting real philosophical fundamental inconsistencies that are present in any real-world political ideology.
Whether you're a fan of the Rush Limbaugh show or NPR or Fox News or DemocracyNow! or whatever, you get the slice of "news" that best represents what the producers/editors think is important.
"Balance" is an issue not so much about truth, but about making sure that opposing opinions are considered in cases where there are real, actual conflicts with no one "truth." And it's also about running a variety of stories that sometimes might bring up "inconvenient" problems with your pet ideology.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with a magazine or whatever saying, "We're going to slant toward liberalism." But "facts" can always be selected, even if they are all true. Magazines and newspapers have to figure out what stories to run, and they will select them in ways that will promote or emphasize their ideology. For people who don't ever step outside that "ideological bubble," though, they could end up with a pretty skewed perception of the world... even if every single sentence in the magazine is "verifiably true."
That's why "balance" -- in general -- is important. Even more important is diversity of opinions, diversity of experiences, and diversity of ideologies. If you don't have those things, you can still up distorting things to adhere to your chosen ideology... even unintentionally.
(P.S. In case anyone's making assumptions and gearing up for ad hominem, let me be clear that I would never identify myself as a "conservative" (whatever that means). I believe that the one-dimensional idea of a political spectrum that encompasses all possible ideas is fundamentally flawed and leads to distortions, groupthink, and doublethink -- because all possible issues have to be crammed into some space along the spectrum, despite many underlying inconsistencies that arise.)
Your center detector needs re-calibration (travel anywhere in the world outside the US)
Yes, the US, once the last, best hope for freedom and liberty, is moving further to the left where all the countries that have already lost are now positioned. Central Banks (rah rah), central control (yippee ECB), and soul-crushing austerity rules while the ECB spends 1.6 Billion Euros (that's Billion with a "B") on its luxurious building, built for kings. Of course, they are the new kings and priests all rolled into one, while the obedient zombies of Europe cheer on their own enslavement.
That's great - let's bring it to the US. It's working very well. The only thing stopping Agenda 21 from wresting control of all property from the US citizens and handing it to the elitists are those that know enough history to recognize the New World Order being promoted by HW Bush and Obama is no different from the serfdom and slavery of the old world that founding of the US tried to avoid in the New World. Old habits die hard, though, and the descendents of the old dictators want their Divine Right of Kings back, but with a new name now because they have created new gods to replace the old, and those gods demand sacrifice from the people. And glory for the New Priests.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia