Matt Taibbi

http://observer.com/2000/06/from-russia-with-lust

cool guy

eXile was the best source of Russian news for years, even if Taibbi and Ames are / were creeps at times.

not likely

Seriously, it was probably the only source of unbiased, fearless Russia-based journalism in English until they were shut down by the government. Whatever dickishness they got up to (Ames used to review prostitutes in a regular column) their coverage was peerless.

sure and you prob think taibbis writing on american finance is good too

I rarely read it. Seems ok, if a bit simplistic.

eXile was genuinely great, though.

“We wrote a whole bunch of editorials about the size of Putin’s penis,” said Mr. Taibbi.

o taibbi u so crazy

“People are afraid of what our paper will write about them, so they give us free shit,” Mr. Taibbi said.

“That’s the thing about Russia,” Mr. Taibbi said. “It’s a totally unironic place. When I first was a student over there I had this girlfriend who had this mobster boyfriend, so she only saw me between 3 and 6 in the afternoon, but as a going-away present when I left my exchange program, she gave me this picture of herself naked in a bathtub. It was totally serious, like, ‘Here, for you to remember me by.’ An American woman would never do that except as a joke or to be sexy.”

american chix man

Journalist James Verini, while interviewing Taibbi in a Manhattan restaurant for Vanity Fair, said Taibbi cursed and threw a coffee at him, and accosted him as he tried to get away, all in response to Verini's volunteered opinion that Taibbi's book, The Exile: Sex, Drugs, and Libel in the New Russia, was "redundant and discursive."[18] Taibbi later said the incident was "an aberration from how I've behaved in the last six or seven years."[19]

taibbi's financial journalism has occasional issues, but for the most part is pretty good. i'm consistently surprised by how few other journalists have gone his route (in terms of financial reporting), all things considered.

b/c it's not as exciting as having Bloody Marys with Cokie and George Will?

anyway he uses obscenity in a whee-I'm-at-Rolling-Stone manner but he was the first journalist in 2008 and 2009 to explain credit default swaps and such in a clear manner.

legume what is your beef with dude's financial reporting exactly?

another politics thread of substance and enlightenment

legume what is your beef with dude's financial reporting exactly?

― the route is ban (k3vin k.),

was just going to ask this myself

he doesnt know what hes talking abt!

i mean 'clear' try wrong

also is writing is basically the worst

another politics thread of substance and enlightenment

― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Thursday, June 7, 2012 10:24 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this guy would appeal to you, because he is so substantial

legume what is your beef with dude's financial reporting exactly?

― the route is ban (k3vin k.), Thursday, June 7, 2012 10:10 AM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

kevinclovestofu

oh, this is gonna be one of these threads

dude is overrated by people who think he is 'cool,' underrated on actual writing performance by people turned off by that perception

Malcolm Gladwell S/D C/D

nobody commented on this!

errors is a single piece http://prospect.org/article/errors-matt-taibbi

dude is overrated by people who think he is 'cool,' underrated on actual writing performance by people turned off by that perception

― mh, Thursday, June 7, 2012 10:42 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

o god stfu

um who are these people who think he's *quote* cool *quote*?

Hunter Thompson aficionados who are into the renegade/substance abuse style of writing? I've run into a few, and count that shit as a guilty pleasure sometimes

lag∞n, I get yr point but there's a place for a populist reporter who appeals to those who aren't picking up well-researched political mags on the regular

it'd be nice if dude had a fact checker, though

yeah itd be cool if there was a populist finical reporter who a. knew wtf he was talking abt b. wasnt the worst writer in the world c. wasnt a weird self involved misogynist

this person clearly is not matt taibbi

what abt someone like felix salmon

he writes mostly for a p financially literate audience and doesnt generally have taibbis passion for publicly s.h.a.m.i.n.g.i.n.g. the industry

yeah itd be cool if there was a populist finical reporter who a. knew wtf he was talking abt b. wasnt the worst writer in the world c. wasnt a weird self involved misogynist

kinda hard to argue against this

“That’s the thing about Russia,” Mr. Taibbi said. “It’s a totally unironic place. When I first was a student over there I had this girlfriend who had this mobster boyfriend, so she only saw me between 3 and 6 in the afternoon, but as a going-away present when I left my exchange program, she gave me this picture of herself naked in a bathtub. It was totally serious, like, ‘Here, for you to remember me by.’ An American woman would never do that except as a joke or to be sexy.”

american chix man

― lag∞n, Thursday, June 7, 2012 7:12 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol what a simp

in a way taibbi then is perfect -- nobody knows how this shit works but people know in their bones that something is grossly wrong and the great majority are being shafted.

felix salmon is great (great name too) but he wouldn't have come up with "vampire squid" either

but yes the exile crew and their 'aesthetic' are p gross

Indisputable that they were gross. 90% of their stuff was gutter-level gonzo / Vice offensiveness but the other 10% was worth more than pretty much every mainstream reporter working for an English-language paper put together.

i will admit to liking "war nerd"

Dolan/Brecher stuff was usually p.great. When I first became aware of Vice it seemed like the worst parts of eXile combined with NY/etc advertising dollars.

sharivari srs request for evidence here, also did they do like actual reporting or was it more that they were willing to print opinions that were taboo

Both. Can't really offer links atm but will look into it later.

There was a lot of very good reporting / analysis and a definite willingness to print things that other people were too gutless to look at. More importantly, i think they understood Russian politics better than any other news source and were willing to call out all sides, and the press, on their faults.

Nothing about Taibbi is gonzo/druggy, tho.

his style is kinda gonzo imho

Taibbi's 2004 campaign journal Spanking the Donkey cemented his status as an incisive, irreverent, zero-bullshit reporter. In one memorable scene, Taibbi dropped acid then interviewed the former chief of the Office of National Drug Policy—while wearing a Viking helmet.

hmmmmm

...while wearing a viking helmet

i know that in the US today where we're practically flooded with leftist writers tackling economic crimes w/ humor and outrage, Taibbi seems redundant and his flaws are magnified. but imagine an alternate reality where actually every financial writer is either a shill for Wall St. or a blathering pundit on the Sunday morning news programs, and you can see why, even for his flaws, people would embrace Taibbi (who is often very informative - okay, so he sometimes gets confused about how derivatives work, so do I). u know. theoretically.

his crimes against reality go way beyond not understanding derivatives

r u on the jp morgan payroll?

lagoon, would you recommend Michael Lewis

he's waiting for that one perfect anti-oligarchy journo

I mean, I read this shit after the fact in the book that I should probably sell to someone looking for printed proof of their crimes, but it always seemed like things I’d flip last but begrudgingly deal with because one of them had witnessed parliament being blown up in their adopted home

a few years ago a reporter went and interviewed a lot of ppl who had worked at the exile with taibbi and ames and they all said that none of it was true, all of it was just satire in shitty taste

wokeness at its most boring

yeah but Tara Reade blah blah Russia blah blah Katie Halper blah blah Matt Taibii blah blah rapist blah blah Russia

verbatim talking points iirc

@Aimless: I guess so, but it could also be a way to say "I'm sure I'm guilty of this too."

I really don't get the hate for this guy.

I fucking hate rapists & their satire excuse is bullshit they only came out with when they were called out. I wish they were dead. fuck you all

also it's fucking creepy how any negative tweet about these fucks gets bombarded by new accounts proclaiming their innocence, like they have some kind of namesearching-response team

disgusting fucks

all of you

let's say it was "just satire" which it wasn't- they should already have been cancelled for that, who the fuck thinks that shit is funny or clever

yeah but Tara Reade blah blah Russia blah blah Katie Halper blah blah Matt Taibii blah blah rapist blah blah Russia

if i wrote something like this i would kill myself

You seem cool.

fuck you too

Taibbi didn't rape anyone. Is it more important to cancel people than to be right? Is cancelling an innocent person better for the movement than admitting you are wrong?

lol

glad ilx user Left is here to help

Left, please consult the Comprehensive ILX User's Manual for suggestions about how to tell others to fuck themselves without flecking everyone's screen with spittle.

Cancel season is over

yeah sorry I know this site thought r kelly was cool until like a year ago so what was I thinking

people still like led zeppelin ffs

Has anyone actually accused Taibbi of sexual misconduct?

No

oh well that settles it then

this site thought r kelly was cool

the ilx Server had opinions about r Kelly?

cunts

Has anyone actually accused Taibbi of sexual misconduct?

― JoeStork, Friday, May 1, 2020 5:48 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

No

― flappy bird, Friday, May 1, 2020 5:48 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

oh well that settles it then

― fuck it (Left), Friday, May 1, 2020 5:49 PM (fifty-seven seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

It...doesn't?

cunts

You seem cool.

I post stuff on this thread because I think Taibbi has interesting opinions and takes. At best people have a one-liner response, and at worst we get people like this guy flipping out.

Is ILX twitter now?

basically

Instead of asking calmly if hydroxychloroquine works, or if the less restrictive Swedish crisis response has merit, or questioning why certain statistical assumptions about the seriousness of the crisis might have been off, we’re denouncing the questions themselves as infamous.

All three of these things are widely discussed in every mainstream media outlet and on the Internet, what the fuck is he talking about? There was literally a widely-shared article in the New York Times YESTERDAY about Sweden's COVID response, there have been clinical trials around the world of hydroxychloroquine and remdesivir whose results are broadly publicized, there is constant discussion of what the true fatality rate per infection is (and general consensus that in most places it's probably less than the 0.9% in the first iteration of the Imperial College model.)

I have no knowledge of whether Taibbi is a rotten person but this is just an incorrect thing for him to be saying.

xp - Back to the job at hand.

@Aimless: I guess so, but it could also be a way to say "I'm sure I'm guilty of this too."

So, here is a thought. If he really had been denouncing those questions, but reversed course and decided that he'd been entirely wrong to do so, wouldn't the appropriate way to correct that be to state: "Like many people, I reflexively dismissed and denounced these questions on inadequate grounds. But now I want to re-examine them, and I suggest you do, too, because if they have merit it is important to discover that."

By writing "Instead of asking calmly... we’re denouncing the questions themselves as infamous", he casts himself as the sole one who understands the merit in asking calmly, and is correcting the faults of the rest of the world. Like I said, if he truly was accusing himself of acting wrongly, this is a disingenuous way to say it.

why do people register here just to shit on everyone

it is their imperative reason for being?

@eephus

I think that's fair. I have seen what he's talking about too, though. There is this constant need by the media to frame everything in how it relates to Trump. And of course these types of stories fuel the outrage networks and drive traffic.

@Aimless
ok. I'm not sure why you're dismissing him based on this rhetorical problem, but fair enough, I guess.

I am not dismissing him. But if you are a writer for a living, your choice of words matters, and if your subject matter is telling others how to interpret and evaluate world events, then doing so disingenuously is not just a rhetorical problem. If his purpose was to admit guilt, then admit it directly, don't implicate the rest of the world and then exonerate yourself.

I've seen what he's talking about but it's on a team-sports level from individuals more than the media, choosing their thoughts and feelings about any given corona-related topic by its positioning against what Trump thinks/says/does. (As the MAGAs have based their positioning on what he thinks/says/does.)

let's get Left banned pronto

ironic

if left posted some Dennis Perrin tweets and dialed down the invective about 40% they'd be you

tsk tsk dontcha luv me no more

I don't have any particular animus against either you or left but I do like to complain

I’m mostly curious who in the media/activist/political sphere Left likes.

"media/activist/political sphere"

gross

icky, eh?

fp'd Left for the Zeppelin comment

Did you ever read what Ellen Sander wrote about them?

I have, yeah :(

shame bell

a "shame post" function is long overdue on ilx

This is good.

The coronavirus bailout could end up being the last chapter in this hideous story. Although we’re seeing a graphic demonstration of how “unskilled” workers like home health aides and delivery people and grocery clerks are actually the vitally important people in our society, they’re not getting the radical rescue. There’s no sudden universal health care, no guaranteed sick leave, no massive jobs plan, just Band-Aids. They will die in massive numbers and emerge from this crisis, if and when it ends, poorer and more vulnerable than before.

But the financial markets are getting the World War II-style “whatever it takes” financial commitment, based upon the continuing fallacy that “wealth creators” must be the first in line for rescue in any crisis. This was a wrong assumption on the decks of the Titanic, a wrong assumption after 2008, and a criminally wrong assumption now.

Continuing belief in the trickle-down myth that has been destroying and dividing this country for decades will kill us faster than any pandemic. If we’re going to spend in “unlimited” amounts, let’s for once do it in the real world and for the people who need it most.