[HN Gopher] Hedges vs. Obama
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       Hedges vs. Obama
        
       Author : 1cvmask
       Score  : 5 points
       Date   : 2021-10-30 20:58 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
        
       | mark_l_watson wrote:
       | Chris Hedges was a very good reporter, a good author (America,
       | The Farewell Tour, is a must read), and an excellent source of
       | current information. He has replaced Noam Chomsky as the person I
       | go out of my way to listen to about politics, social injustice,
       | etc.
       | 
       | Matt Taibbi is also pretty good as an information source.
        
         | rsj_hn wrote:
         | For progressive takes, I recommend Thomas Frank.
         | 
         | Chris Hedges is also good in that he has coverage of working
         | class issues, but like the rest of the alt-reporting crowd,
         | there is a lot of strident oversimplification and too much
         | crusading. The temptation to sensationalize and ignore
         | contradictory data is just too great. For example, you can't
         | just rant about "greedy healthcare industries" and expect to
         | generate more light than heat. Healthcare is complicated, and
         | cannot be boiled down to a couple of the seven deadly sins. .
         | 
         | You can't view the world through a theological lense and be a
         | good reporter. You can, however, view the world through a
         | theological lense and get a lot of useful data. And that is
         | ultimately the job of the reporter -- to provide useful data,
         | understanding that it is just a small slice of reality, but an
         | important slice that deserves to be made known.
         | 
         | I would also put Robert Fisk in the same bucket -- I loved to
         | read him, and enjoyed "Pity the Nation", but then he had all
         | these extreme takes about china-petro-dollar conspiracies that
         | made me groan. But still, he provided useful data that was a
         | slice of reality.
         | 
         | Greenwald, Taibbi, all these fall into the same bucket. Good on
         | the ground stories, but ignore the sweeping conclusions.
        
         | 1cvmask wrote:
         | That's why the establishment and corporate journalists are
         | coming after the likes of independent journalists like Glen
         | Greenwald and Matt Taibbi:
         | 
         | https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/10/what-happened-to-mat...
         | 
         | Also this part in discussion with journalists Chris Hedges and
         | Glenn Greenwald with Edward Snowden is interesting on how
         | corporate media and corporate journalists work to hide the
         | truth or create fake news:
         | 
         | https://youtu.be/sP76tolGrho?t=4682
        
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       (page generated 2021-10-30 23:02 UTC)