Their flagship publication, The Free Press’, failure to correct an error-filled defense of George Floyd’s killer demonstrates that they are just another partisan tribe
Hughes recently claiming that Biden definitely exhibited serious cognitive decline while Trump did not was the first crack in my initial esteem for him. This is another.
On the "shoplifting in California" issue, I don't profess to know much about crime statistics (infinitely less than Mr. Balko does!). But I, like (I am guessing) most other ordinary shoppers in American cities, have noticed that in the last two or three years the big chain pharmacies have been locking up large categories of relatively low cost goods that were never locked up before (e.g. toothpaste, deodorants, shower gel etc.).
This is annoying and inconvenient, and also appears intuitively to support claims that shoplifting had greatly increased prior to the practice of locking up toothpaste, and similarly that any reduction in shoplifting since then has been achieved by increased inconvenience to the customers rather than through the criminal justice system. But that intuition may be mistaken: I would be greatly interested to learn how Mr. Balko (or some other actual expert on crime statistics) would explain the recent phenomenon of locking up toothpaste, if not the result of increased losses through theft.
Typical Radley, mischaracterizing what the Fifth Column actually said about the documentary. If you're going to be upset that the Fifth Column encourages people to engage with wide ranging stuff, you might as well just ignore it. That's kind of their MO.
That said, Hughes is neither interesting nor accurate.
It would be really great if Radley would issue a correction here.
The Fifth Column guys are not a monolith of "heterodox thinking", whatever the fuck that means.
I've been a listener since day one, and they often disagree on various issues.
But the key thing here for me is, what precisely does "amplify" mean in this piece? Does that mean that the Fifth Column podcast went out of their way to promote the documentary? Does that mean they blasted out links to it on their social media accounts? Or, is it a bullshit sleight of hand method for Radley to assert that TFC actually endorses the findings within the documentary?
At its best, this is lazy journalism. At it's worst, this is akin to taking a pot shot.
Thank you for writing this. I watched "The Fall of Minneapolis" and was horrified by it. So add me to the list of people whose mind you have changed about it.
Jumping ship from the fifth column after how they all handled this topic. They have major blind spots. I appreciate the folks trying to hold people's feet to fire. Had little exchange with Matt Welch. Doubt he will respond.
I watched the discussion on the Reason podcast with Balko and Hughes. Balko fails to understand the point made repeatedly by Hughes, that he is arguing not that Chauvin is innocent, but that the prosecution did not prove their case to the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard.
I think your expose is worthwhile, but the details are so minor and semantic that I can't assume bad faith on the part of Hughes. The larger message of his piece was that there should have been reasonable doubt in the trial, and that normal legal circumstances didn't apply in the Chauvin trial. This seems potentially valid, given the information we have about the jury after the fact. Keep in mind: even police (with several years of total LE experience) who simply restrained bystanders went to prison for YEARS. We should absolutely be honest about the details of the trial but the weight of the dishonesty still rests 95% on the legacy media, which misreported this case (and other, politically-related incidents) incredibly dishonestly.
Heterodoxy is a brand and creed just like any other, and it breeds its own groupthink - I believe in part because the left so often repels it and isolates it as much as possible, such that someone who adopts heterodoxy inevitably shifts ever-rightward.
It’s also a consequence of the collapse of newsrooms, though. At every organization we see people routinely speaking on issues where they have limited expertise.
I don't know about Nocera, who was always a good business writer, but something serious has happened to Bari Weiss. She was an interesting voice at the NYT, and I can imagine that being driven out by the Slack Militia took an emotional toll, but she has wildly overcompensated. The web site, the "university" and her whole public posture has severely compromised her intellectual reputation. Sad.
Hughes recently claiming that Biden definitely exhibited serious cognitive decline while Trump did not was the first crack in my initial esteem for him. This is another.
On the "shoplifting in California" issue, I don't profess to know much about crime statistics (infinitely less than Mr. Balko does!). But I, like (I am guessing) most other ordinary shoppers in American cities, have noticed that in the last two or three years the big chain pharmacies have been locking up large categories of relatively low cost goods that were never locked up before (e.g. toothpaste, deodorants, shower gel etc.).
This is annoying and inconvenient, and also appears intuitively to support claims that shoplifting had greatly increased prior to the practice of locking up toothpaste, and similarly that any reduction in shoplifting since then has been achieved by increased inconvenience to the customers rather than through the criminal justice system. But that intuition may be mistaken: I would be greatly interested to learn how Mr. Balko (or some other actual expert on crime statistics) would explain the recent phenomenon of locking up toothpaste, if not the result of increased losses through theft.
Defining yourself by opposition to another group (rather than by what one believes/wants) is the opposite of independence.
This piece is so good.
Typical Radley, mischaracterizing what the Fifth Column actually said about the documentary. If you're going to be upset that the Fifth Column encourages people to engage with wide ranging stuff, you might as well just ignore it. That's kind of their MO.
That said, Hughes is neither interesting nor accurate.
"Heterodox" is the new "contrarian": reinforcing the rightwing status quo, while posing as a provocative thinker.
(I see Lee Jones making much the same point already)
It would be really great if Radley would issue a correction here.
The Fifth Column guys are not a monolith of "heterodox thinking", whatever the fuck that means.
I've been a listener since day one, and they often disagree on various issues.
But the key thing here for me is, what precisely does "amplify" mean in this piece? Does that mean that the Fifth Column podcast went out of their way to promote the documentary? Does that mean they blasted out links to it on their social media accounts? Or, is it a bullshit sleight of hand method for Radley to assert that TFC actually endorses the findings within the documentary?
At its best, this is lazy journalism. At it's worst, this is akin to taking a pot shot.
Which is it, Radley?
A good response here, from Matt Welch:
https://substack.com/profile/4280296-matt-welch/note/c-51852575?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=aakyu
Thank you for writing this. I watched "The Fall of Minneapolis" and was horrified by it. So add me to the list of people whose mind you have changed about it.
Jumping ship from the fifth column after how they all handled this topic. They have major blind spots. I appreciate the folks trying to hold people's feet to fire. Had little exchange with Matt Welch. Doubt he will respond.
https://wethefifth.substack.com/p/firehose-84-did-we-really-mostly/comment/51847008?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1dvvyx
I watched the discussion on the Reason podcast with Balko and Hughes. Balko fails to understand the point made repeatedly by Hughes, that he is arguing not that Chauvin is innocent, but that the prosecution did not prove their case to the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard.
I think your expose is worthwhile, but the details are so minor and semantic that I can't assume bad faith on the part of Hughes. The larger message of his piece was that there should have been reasonable doubt in the trial, and that normal legal circumstances didn't apply in the Chauvin trial. This seems potentially valid, given the information we have about the jury after the fact. Keep in mind: even police (with several years of total LE experience) who simply restrained bystanders went to prison for YEARS. We should absolutely be honest about the details of the trial but the weight of the dishonesty still rests 95% on the legacy media, which misreported this case (and other, politically-related incidents) incredibly dishonestly.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/
Heterodoxy is a brand and creed just like any other, and it breeds its own groupthink - I believe in part because the left so often repels it and isolates it as much as possible, such that someone who adopts heterodoxy inevitably shifts ever-rightward.
It’s also a consequence of the collapse of newsrooms, though. At every organization we see people routinely speaking on issues where they have limited expertise.
This type of unfounded contrarian writing is why I dropped The Free Press a couple of months ago.
I think this is a pretty big misreading of what’s happening.
pre-existing bias to contrarianism is exactly the same as any other bias, and does not allow for facts to get in the way of preconceptions.
I don't know about Nocera, who was always a good business writer, but something serious has happened to Bari Weiss. She was an interesting voice at the NYT, and I can imagine that being driven out by the Slack Militia took an emotional toll, but she has wildly overcompensated. The web site, the "university" and her whole public posture has severely compromised her intellectual reputation. Sad.