> 1. Anyone who has been in a tech company knows that there is internal lingo that refers to features we devs make. But it's presented as being an "Orwellian language"
Internal jargon can be Orwellian. These are not mutually exclusive.
> But it's presented as a "deep state"-like collusion where the agencies control if twitter act on them or not.
No, this chummy relationship is presented as problematic. Nowhere does he imply that the FBI controls what Twitter does. It's not a priori wrong to think that the government should not have such a close involvement with Twitter in its act of moderating/censoring. Having a lower threshold than you for risk of malfeasance is not a priori wrong. If you think your risk assessment is better, now you can make that argument using actual data, and those who disagree can make theirs. Fostering public debate is exactly what good journalism is supposed to do.
> But they are presented mostly stripped of context and the focus is on anonymized employees snarky comments to make it seem like decisions were arbitrary, partisan, and without any regard to logic or context.
Sounds like standard journalism to me. Maybe your beef is not with Taibbi and the "Twitter files" but with how journalism as a whole is conducted. I agree, but don't apply a higher bar here where it's inconvenient.
Journalism should present things in the correct context, and contextualize statements, situations, etc.
If feels like you're accusing journalists of lying to push an agenda, which is, by definition, not journalism. Journalism is about informing. Not saying everyone does it perfectly, in the same way you can do bad science that is still technically science.
> Journalism should present things in the correct context, and contextualize statements, situations, etc.
Even if we agree that that's what journalism should be, what is your assessment of how accurately this definition matches most high profile journalism today? How much context did the Covington kids get, or how much context did the rail workers who wanted to strike get? There are very clearly some contexts that get priority coverage and are hammered non-stop, and some contexts that barely get any coverage at all.
To be clear, I'm not sure that I do agree with your definition. I think journalists typically do what you describe, but I think merely reporting raw data without context is also perfectly valid journalism. This "contextualisation" narrative is how some journalists are excusing their lack of support for Assange, and it's bullshit IMO.
> If feels like you're accusing journalists of lying to push an agenda, which is, by definition, not journalism
Unbiased journalism is a fiction. I agree that the best journalists try for objectivity, but this is an ethos that is slowly being pushed out of mainstream journalism, and activism has become standard practice (edit: this is probably because outrage generates more clicks/views, so activism "sells" in a sense).
I also think some professional journalists absolutely do outright lie for utilitarian reasons, such as "fighting evil" (typically Republicans). This goes back to the activism point.
Far more common are various forms of well known bias, my side bias, bias blind spot etc. This leads to one convincing oneself of a falsehood and then vehemently arguing for it, despite countervailing evidence.
If you spend time doing raw info dumps from one side of an argument, say the unions in the rail strike, you're not telling the whole story.
Telling the whole story is important to journalism. It's why you always see "X did not respond to a request for comment." They attempt to give the other side to speak.
Telling only one side of the story makes you a mouthpiece, not a journalist.
I didn't say journalism is without bias, but that's a completely separate topic. Let's try to keep this from turning into a "here's all of the things wrong with journalism and no solutions" rant thread.
You can be biased and also not attempt to push an agenda. The inverse is true, too.
> Telling the whole story is important to journalism.
I disagree. I think journalism is simply "presenting a factual story". I think presenting a contextual story is better journalism, but it's not necessary to qualify as journalism.
Internal jargon can be Orwellian. These are not mutually exclusive.
> But it's presented as a "deep state"-like collusion where the agencies control if twitter act on them or not.
No, this chummy relationship is presented as problematic. Nowhere does he imply that the FBI controls what Twitter does. It's not a priori wrong to think that the government should not have such a close involvement with Twitter in its act of moderating/censoring. Having a lower threshold than you for risk of malfeasance is not a priori wrong. If you think your risk assessment is better, now you can make that argument using actual data, and those who disagree can make theirs. Fostering public debate is exactly what good journalism is supposed to do.
> But they are presented mostly stripped of context and the focus is on anonymized employees snarky comments to make it seem like decisions were arbitrary, partisan, and without any regard to logic or context.
Sounds like standard journalism to me. Maybe your beef is not with Taibbi and the "Twitter files" but with how journalism as a whole is conducted. I agree, but don't apply a higher bar here where it's inconvenient.