That seems to be the plan at the “Business” section, no less, of the New York Times, or perhaps it should be the New Woke Times. “What Bernie Sanders Gets Right About the Media” is the latest and greatest from former BuzzFeed dude and now NYT “Media Equation” dude Ben Smith, who loudly champions everybody’s favorite Larry David impersonator: “The senator’s sweeping critique of coverage has more merit than we in the media like to admit.”
The problem is, Ben’s article provides precisely zero empirical evidence to support his dramatic charge, unless you believe that it’s somehow unfair for people to ask Bernie questions he doesn’t want to answer, or to repeat statements that he has made repeatedly—like the one about that fabulous literacy program that they’ve got down there in Cuba—or even to just say mean things about him, like that mean Chris Matthews, whose admittedly bizarre comparison between Sanders’ victory in the Nevada caucuses and Hitler’s invasion of France helped cost Chris his job.1
Bernie Sanders is, not to be polite about it, a dope. His original “plan”, that made him famous and successful in his run against Hillary Clinton, was to eliminate all imports and all immigration. The U.S. would become a hermetically sealed entity unto itself, just as in the good old days—those good old days that, according to Young Man Bernie, were so corrupt that the country needed to be purified and cleansed by total revolution, the way they were doing in Cuba and the Soviet Union. It’s sad that so many people are so angry that they’ll vote for a dope. And it’s sad that Ben Smith feels that, having taken a glamor position with the august New York Times, he has to prove his “passion” by writing such woke trivia, so similar to the Times’ recent, and often lamentable, “1619 Project”.
Afterwords
In his “maiden” (is it still okay to say “maiden”? Probably not) piece, “Why the Success of The New York Times May Be Bad News for Journalism”, Smith tells us that the Times is becoming a monster:
The gulf between The Times and the rest of the industry is vast and keeps growing: The company now has more digital subscribers than the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the 250 local Gannett papers combined, according to the most recent data. And the Times employs 1,700 journalists — a huge number in an industry where total employment nationally has fallen to somewhere between 20,000 and 38,000.
So, okay. With great power comes great responsibility. We get it. But “great responsibility” and “self-congratulatory self-flagellation” are two different things.
1. If you come from a white-collar background—my dad wore suits and ate vichyssoise, which he could both spell and pronounce correctly, unlike me—Big Chris’ blue-collar regular guy shtick got old in about two seconds. But even though I have no idea where he thought he was going with his comparison between Sanders and Adolph—and, wherever it was, it was the wrong destination—and even though his trite, banal, invasive semi-flirtations with female guests, along the lines of “What are you doing for the rest of my life, beautiful?”, were trite, banal, and invasive, he hardly should have been forced into retirement. If this is “woke”, wake me when it’s over!
Fascinating article. Can you imagine listening to Bernie’s
voice for FOUR years?
Mom’s vichyssoise was especially good with sour cream and chives!