Me too, almost 70. I happened to have had teachers who emphasized discerning fact from opinion in English class. Somewhere around 2018, I began to awaken to what was happening to "news." Then came 2020...And here I am.
I had a journalism class in jr. high school, taught by the teacher who supervised the school newspaper. "Opinion" was for the opinion page. Everything else was supposed to be fact-based being careful not to use loaded words (bias) so the readers could form their own opinions. I'm appalled how much mainstream news is pure propaganda and assumptions. And Matt is right (in his own piece this morning), it's too exhausting to have to read the propaganda from both sides to sort out what are the actual facts. I'm so excited about Racket 2.0.
02/09/26: I date it from the EXACT moment that the NY Times female reporters (nascent Communists, even then) went absolutely berserk during the William F. Smith (Kennedy) rape trial in the early 1990s (the verdict was on 12/11/91; Smith was acquitted of all charges). The NYT management, led by the ever-malleable Pinch Sulzberger, surrendered faster than Petain in 1940 in France, and from that day on, in ever more sordid increments, the NY Times turned into what it is today --- A Washington Post that makes money.
I agree with you about the ties between feminism and neo-Marxism. Neither was an organic development. Both very much planned as factors of social destruction.
Anthropologist Margaret Mead was in the lead on the Globalist Feminism project in the 60s/70s out of the Tavistock Institute.
Welcome, but would you like a list of what you missed from 2015-2018 or did you eventually catch up?
I mean you're on Racket so you probably got that "Russiagate was the new Weapons of Mass Destruction" by now. What about this one (with apologies to Steve Cortes who called it out long before Snopes but has less gravitas with the slower to agree):
I only subscribe to WSJ at deep discounted rates purely for a handful of their columnists and other specific features. I refuse to read their news stories as they are at least as biased as NYT.
I literally cancelled my print WSJ in 2013 or 2014 when they allowed Russia to do an advertising fake broadsheet insert called "Russia Beyond the Headlines" that was barely identified as paid for and had strong font similarities to the main WSJ. I thought that was awful. WaPo did it too, using WaPO-matched fonts. It was pure Russian propaganda
Best thing about that decision was later having a foundational rock to tell anyone accusing me of some sort of Trump-Russia sympathy for pointing out how dumb Russiagate thinking was to fuck right off.
Some say ‘luck’ is what you make it. There are many factors in the world of thoughts and words that converge in fascinating ways, giving rise to thoughts of ‘providence’, serendipity, unexpected scrutiny, and, shall we not include the full range of human experience in emotion?
Whichever word we choose to encourage Emily, and by extension Matt and ‘the team’, we recognize in ‘luck’ the randomness of appealing to readers. So words alone are ephemeral, but it is that talent of choosing words that touch on inspiration we see and encourage in her promising career working with a serious communicator in charge of Racket.
It is a lot like taking a commuter ride to our various places of reality. I’m hearing, ‘Come on y’all, let’s go with some well seasoned civility.’
what were you doing reading the WSJ anyway ? You should have followed the money years ago and saw that what you were reading was going to be "bullshit" on any issue that threatens the established order. They are solidly in "the big club."
AVOID: Being too deep inside the jargon of Inside Journalism.
Only few (“civilian”) readers have ever heard of “The Overton Window.”
(My guess is that this has something to do with an Overton in the CIA.)
Below: The phrase is used with the automatic assumption that readers will know what she’s talking about:
Emily Kopp: “Over the years we’ve helped pry open the Overton Window, releasing much needed fresh air.”
“O•ver•ton win•dow: noun, the spectrum of ideas on public policy and social issues considered acceptable by the general public at a given time.” [Example:] "I suppose the Overton window is shifting, but slowly."
--- What a wonderful description of a French collaborator with the Nazis during WWII:
“… The Deep State sycophant… (Natasha Bertrand)...”
--- No coy sourcing. No soy saucing.
--- Your next video, sit further away from the camera.
--- Matt’s Achilles Heel is not getting to the end of a sentence soon enough.
--- The engine of perpetual energy creating verbosity is the word “of.”
Betcha you didn’t know that.
--- Much good work will be done by Matt, Friends and Emily. Good luck!!!
It’s one of many good essays he wrote. Writing and Leviathan is another one well worth reading. They both touch on good writing as opposed to propaganda.
I have been an observer and participant in political life for over 50 years. I have come to conclude that the proximate cause of the collapse of the greatest experiment in freedom has been the failure of the only industry protected in the constitution. The Press. Please do what you can to fix it.
I remember being impressed by a couple of The Hill segments you were on. Good, solid reporting that the big press didn't bother to do. Glad you're aboard this ship. Speaks well of Matt Taibbi that he recognizes a reporter similar in integrity yet different in mindset and skills and brings you on.
Good to hear your list of rules. It is a breath of fresh air to hear them as a goal.
I posted a comment on Matts article and it was concerning interactions with the comments on articles. It is one of the big advantages of substack. Allowing the authors and users to interact on the articles makes for better reporting in the future. While it can be a time suck, I think it keeps authors in touch with true grass roots movements and readers. Reporting can't be a one way dialog.
I hope to see you interacting in the comments section.
Matt is one of my most trusted sources and he has my respect. His recommendation of you means a lot and I am excited to see where it goes!
I hope we continue to see contributions (more please!) from the likes of Eric Salzman and you should consider more collaborations like the few pieces Matt did with Michael Tracey. I have an admiration for people who get under my skin and make me question things I thought I had resolved.
Tracey does important work. He's certainly (intentionally) abrasive, but he's one of the most willing people to go against bizarre mass narrative-building in real time.
Yes, he does important work. I don't care about his abrasive style, either. I care that he has ideological blind spots and is unwilling to confront them. He's not alone, either as many in the indy journalist space have it.
We have to take care with who we trust. Tracey can be great. He can also be blind.
Nobody’s perfect. I disagree with many things Tracey has said. I don’t agree with everything anybody says, but Tracey has defiantly been willing to become the most hated man in journalism for going against the tide, multiple times.
Could be my orbit, but I'm seeing a lot of people pursuing truth rather than running after everyone in there with pitchforks and torches. Example: the person leading LA's olympic committee is in the epstein files. He told Ghilane he wanted to know what he needed to do to see her in a tight leather outfit. Say what you want about his taste in women, but that's a far cry from billy gates mentions.
“Readers shouldn’t have to spend hours wading through social media slop and the hackneyed narratives of legacy media just to cobble together enough fragments of information to approximate a sense of reality.”
02/09/26: And damn it, we were never given a Field Day each Semester. Not to mention that the vending machine soda is flatter than the Round Earth theory...
I like, "...helped pry open the Overton Window..." you know, friends and family still ask me what the heck an Overton Window is, and there's still a red squiggly line under it when I type it out.
There was talk from Matt a few months ago about readers volunteering to save copies of source documents. I think this is absolutely critical as so many source materials get deleted from the net. Have you worked out a formal way for us to do this? Some kind of framework, guidelines, etc.?
Old school journalism. I'm almost 70 and have despaired I'd never see it again. Emily, welcome to you and your 10 "rules." This made my day.
Me too, almost 70. I happened to have had teachers who emphasized discerning fact from opinion in English class. Somewhere around 2018, I began to awaken to what was happening to "news." Then came 2020...And here I am.
I had a journalism class in jr. high school, taught by the teacher who supervised the school newspaper. "Opinion" was for the opinion page. Everything else was supposed to be fact-based being careful not to use loaded words (bias) so the readers could form their own opinions. I'm appalled how much mainstream news is pure propaganda and assumptions. And Matt is right (in his own piece this morning), it's too exhausting to have to read the propaganda from both sides to sort out what are the actual facts. I'm so excited about Racket 2.0.
About 25 years ago the rot began to show.
02/09/26: I date it from the EXACT moment that the NY Times female reporters (nascent Communists, even then) went absolutely berserk during the William F. Smith (Kennedy) rape trial in the early 1990s (the verdict was on 12/11/91; Smith was acquitted of all charges). The NYT management, led by the ever-malleable Pinch Sulzberger, surrendered faster than Petain in 1940 in France, and from that day on, in ever more sordid increments, the NY Times turned into what it is today --- A Washington Post that makes money.
I agree with you about the ties between feminism and neo-Marxism. Neither was an organic development. Both very much planned as factors of social destruction.
Anthropologist Margaret Mead was in the lead on the Globalist Feminism project in the 60s/70s out of the Tavistock Institute.
It was probably somewhat earlier at the NYT because they are the main propaganda organ in the U.S. of the British Milner Group/Chatham House.
Get this woman an editor. My word, she's hackneyed.
02/10/26: Who are you referring to (above name)?
02/09/26: Yes, here we are. T. Bankhead and friends in "Lifeboat." The sequel.
Welcome, but would you like a list of what you missed from 2015-2018 or did you eventually catch up?
I mean you're on Racket so you probably got that "Russiagate was the new Weapons of Mass Destruction" by now. What about this one (with apologies to Steve Cortes who called it out long before Snopes but has less gravitas with the slower to agree):
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-very-fine-people/
Years it took for this to squeek out. And who has paid attention or cares to question their assumptions.?
Speaking of Old School journalism, I cancelled my subscription to WSJ earlier today. Good luck, Emily!
I only read WSJ and NYT articles to pan their terrible propaganda anymore.
Check out Coffee & Covid by Jeff Childers here on Substack for splendid panning each morn.
It's a fun site, but he worships Trump a bit too much. Still, a lot of info you don't get elsewhere.
I would check the front page daily, but it’s outlived its usefullness, especially at over $450/yr.
Exactly.
Why pay someone to shovel propaganda down your throat?
I only subscribe to WSJ at deep discounted rates purely for a handful of their columnists and other specific features. I refuse to read their news stories as they are at least as biased as NYT.
We haven't had it for years, but I'm curious why you cancelled it now.
I was cleaning up unnecessary subscriptions today. I’ve found it tiresome for some time now.
Canceled WSJ? As did I just today. I'd had enough!
I literally cancelled my print WSJ in 2013 or 2014 when they allowed Russia to do an advertising fake broadsheet insert called "Russia Beyond the Headlines" that was barely identified as paid for and had strong font similarities to the main WSJ. I thought that was awful. WaPo did it too, using WaPO-matched fonts. It was pure Russian propaganda
Best thing about that decision was later having a foundational rock to tell anyone accusing me of some sort of Trump-Russia sympathy for pointing out how dumb Russiagate thinking was to fuck right off.
Some say ‘luck’ is what you make it. There are many factors in the world of thoughts and words that converge in fascinating ways, giving rise to thoughts of ‘providence’, serendipity, unexpected scrutiny, and, shall we not include the full range of human experience in emotion?
Whichever word we choose to encourage Emily, and by extension Matt and ‘the team’, we recognize in ‘luck’ the randomness of appealing to readers. So words alone are ephemeral, but it is that talent of choosing words that touch on inspiration we see and encourage in her promising career working with a serious communicator in charge of Racket.
It is a lot like taking a commuter ride to our various places of reality. I’m hearing, ‘Come on y’all, let’s go with some well seasoned civility.’
Why did you cancel your WSJ subscription today?
what were you doing reading the WSJ anyway ? You should have followed the money years ago and saw that what you were reading was going to be "bullshit" on any issue that threatens the established order. They are solidly in "the big club."
All the editorials I have read there on my issue are always signed "The Editorial Board". Whoever writes them is scared to put their name on it.
That says a LOT.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
02/09/26: Made mine too!
SPLENDID. Welcome aboard, Emily. Let’s go!
--- Successful writers relate with their readers.
AVOID: Being too deep inside the jargon of Inside Journalism.
Only few (“civilian”) readers have ever heard of “The Overton Window.”
(My guess is that this has something to do with an Overton in the CIA.)
Below: The phrase is used with the automatic assumption that readers will know what she’s talking about:
Emily Kopp: “Over the years we’ve helped pry open the Overton Window, releasing much needed fresh air.”
“O•ver•ton win•dow: noun, the spectrum of ideas on public policy and social issues considered acceptable by the general public at a given time.” [Example:] "I suppose the Overton window is shifting, but slowly."
--- What a wonderful description of a French collaborator with the Nazis during WWII:
“… The Deep State sycophant… (Natasha Bertrand)...”
--- No coy sourcing. No soy saucing.
--- Your next video, sit further away from the camera.
--- Matt’s Achilles Heel is not getting to the end of a sentence soon enough.
--- The engine of perpetual energy creating verbosity is the word “of.”
Betcha you didn’t know that.
--- Much good work will be done by Matt, Friends and Emily. Good luck!!!
Read "Politics and the English Language", by George Orwell. Added to your excellent list.
02/10/26: Thank you. Is that a book in a binding?
It’s one of many good essays he wrote. Writing and Leviathan is another one well worth reading. They both touch on good writing as opposed to propaganda.
Me too. I'm 59, and still had hope. Now, I have even more hope. Maybe let's call it ... super hope. Thank you, Emily & Matt!
I see old school journalism on Substack, which is why it's become my only trusted news source.
Same here. This Boomer left the business after 9-11 when it began to change beyond all recognition. Thanks to Racket for carrying the torch!
TOTALLY AGREE.
Best of luck Emily !
Yes, best of luck to you, Emily.
See Emily, even the Bots agree.
Har har har.
I have been an observer and participant in political life for over 50 years. I have come to conclude that the proximate cause of the collapse of the greatest experiment in freedom has been the failure of the only industry protected in the constitution. The Press. Please do what you can to fix it.
Matt does not understand what is going on in the wider context. Therefore, he is not going to be the fixer of the Press.
But I *think* Walter may… hopefully he sticks around and has some influence on others
Well, that's not happening.
Cannot help but think that Walter, at least in his inner dialogue, said yesterday "I'm outta here"
WE do need to find oujt where Wal;ter has gone. I can find two Substacks associated with him but nothing new ...
She can't even get vocabulary right. We're doomed.
I’m assuming you mean her pronunciation of cacophony. Give her a break. One word, seldom used in conversation, isn’t the end of the world.
'Fettering' for 'ferreting'.
Her Overton Window allusions.
I could go on.
I think it was planned that way.
not a failure, but by design. Capturing the press has been one of the dreams of the Powell Memo. Follow the money .
I remember being impressed by a couple of The Hill segments you were on. Good, solid reporting that the big press didn't bother to do. Glad you're aboard this ship. Speaks well of Matt Taibbi that he recognizes a reporter similar in integrity yet different in mindset and skills and brings you on.
Good to hear your list of rules. It is a breath of fresh air to hear them as a goal.
I posted a comment on Matts article and it was concerning interactions with the comments on articles. It is one of the big advantages of substack. Allowing the authors and users to interact on the articles makes for better reporting in the future. While it can be a time suck, I think it keeps authors in touch with true grass roots movements and readers. Reporting can't be a one way dialog.
I hope to see you interacting in the comments section.
Matt is one of my most trusted sources and he has my respect. His recommendation of you means a lot and I am excited to see where it goes!
Welcome Emily.
We’ll be relying on our bosses as we ramp up and retool. Thank you for the feedback!
Thank you Emily!
You're a purchased leftist plant.
You know what they say about people that immediately begin a debate with an unfounded insult? That they know they have already lost the argument.
You are not adding to the debate, only embarrassing yourself.
👍🏻 There is more than one like this around!
Welcome Emily. Another rule, please:
Do not conflate legal with illegal immigrants. So many journalists do this and it is willfully dishonest and deceptive.
No sacred cows. Selfishly, that's all I ask. And courage.
I hope we continue to see contributions (more please!) from the likes of Eric Salzman and you should consider more collaborations like the few pieces Matt did with Michael Tracey. I have an admiration for people who get under my skin and make me question things I thought I had resolved.
Tracey is a wanker, but during Covid, he was an early spear tip reporter. Will respect him for that.
I'm an outdoors man. I have a strange admiration for ticks.
Tracey does important work. He's certainly (intentionally) abrasive, but he's one of the most willing people to go against bizarre mass narrative-building in real time.
Yes, he does important work. I don't care about his abrasive style, either. I care that he has ideological blind spots and is unwilling to confront them. He's not alone, either as many in the indy journalist space have it.
We have to take care with who we trust. Tracey can be great. He can also be blind.
Nobody’s perfect. I disagree with many things Tracey has said. I don’t agree with everything anybody says, but Tracey has defiantly been willing to become the most hated man in journalism for going against the tide, multiple times.
Tracy is the only journalist wiling to tell the truth about the Epstein files.
Could be my orbit, but I'm seeing a lot of people pursuing truth rather than running after everyone in there with pitchforks and torches. Example: the person leading LA's olympic committee is in the epstein files. He told Ghilane he wanted to know what he needed to do to see her in a tight leather outfit. Say what you want about his taste in women, but that's a far cry from billy gates mentions.
👏🏻
Good luck Emily! This:
“Readers shouldn’t have to spend hours wading through social media slop and the hackneyed narratives of legacy media just to cobble together enough fragments of information to approximate a sense of reality.”
This feels like the launch of something wonderful. Thank you for taking it on.
Hi!
Can we set up an air hockey table? Matt never let us have an air hockey table...
😂👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
02/09/26: And damn it, we were never given a Field Day each Semester. Not to mention that the vending machine soda is flatter than the Round Earth theory...
I like, "...helped pry open the Overton Window..." you know, friends and family still ask me what the heck an Overton Window is, and there's still a red squiggly line under it when I type it out.
Excellent news! Racket 2.0 - bring it on!!
There was talk from Matt a few months ago about readers volunteering to save copies of source documents. I think this is absolutely critical as so many source materials get deleted from the net. Have you worked out a formal way for us to do this? Some kind of framework, guidelines, etc.?
can you email contributors@racket.news?
Great idea.
Sick. Can’t wait. Don’t avoid the trans shit.
Upon hearing the news of no Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi doing ATW, I can’t see continuing the subscription. Without the Yin, you can’t have the Yang.
My "general guideline": Stick to these general guidelines, and you will have all my patience, and I will never leave you.