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.
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!!!
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.
Agreed, and it's why I'll absolutely give him is props when he gets things right when most everyone else is wrong. But we have to call out blind spots. If a journalist is telling me a story using 20% of the facts while ignoring good faith arguments that contain the other 80%, they're not a journalist. From what I have seen, Taibbi doesn't do that. He has earned trust. Much less so with Tracey.
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...
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.?
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.
Onward! Can’t wait for the first stories to drop. Any chance you and Matt are thinking about investigative series? 3-4 successive articles on a deep topic? The possibilities are legion.
Independent researchers investigate and write about whatever they want and have time to investigate and write about. Journalism requires organizing and shaping data for publication.
Racket is probably organized as an LLC. I don't much care.
I'm not a researcher but I usually manage to tell the difference between fact and opinion. Lies by omission are more difficult of course - the best way to deal with those is the humility of knowing that the whole truth (and nothing but) is perhaps impossible to come by.
Since 1949, this particular truth has been possible to come by. Right out there in the open in the books published for a general readership by Harvard-trained historian Carroll Quigley. I can't believe that Matt has never heard of them. Or of the other writers who interpret Quigley. If he hasn't, what is he doing in this line of work?
It is like saying that you really like the warm, empathic surgeon at the local hospital, but OK...he does amputate the wrong limb every now and again because his training was a bit iffy. So maybe it is impossible for human beings to tell right legs from left legs. Therefore, it was a natural mistake.
Ann, I do not buy the idea that this truth was impossible to come by. But it does work to excuse Matt.
I,m sorry. I seem to have lost track. I,m definitely not as sharp as I used to be! I don't remember which particular truth you are referring to! I only remember commenting that no-one can know it all. It seems to me in fact that The Truth is often elusive for that very reason.
It was not always thus and I am hoping he and Racket will produce output as we deranging as police brutality (Eric Garner), financialization (2008 Crash), and the South Asian immigrant angle on DEI controversies in N. VA schools. That looked pretty broad. And he is bringing on additional reporters so I’m hoping that will also add breadth.
Let us hope so. Because at this point, if I want information, I do the research myself. Matt seldom offers this depth. I am here mainly for intelligent discussion with other readers. About the concepts that Matt remains studiously silent on.
I teach Matt many times, as opposed to Matt teaching or informing me. There are many of us here who have far greater education and experience.
This seems like an uncharitable standard. I have a lot more education than Matt and yet I am informed by him on several levels. Here's a link to his reporting on Loudon County School controversyhttps://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/587748-matt-taibbi-school-closures-not-critical-race-theory-was-primary-issue-for/. Compare that with the cookie cutter DEI narrative put out by WaPo & NYT. Taibbi did shoe leather reporting that was highly informative even if he does not hold PhD. As for experience, I'd say his time in the USSR/Russia is quite an interesting background. Covering also presidential campaigns for Rolling Stone seems like invaluable experience. For some historical perspective, an investigative reporter of bygone years, Ida Tarbell went to Allegheny College in the 1870s (hardly a leading academic institution) and had a fairly narrow focus (corporate and monopoly power)...I'd say Taibbi fits in the same tradition.
Read Robert Cialdini's work. Should set you straight. Realize where you go wrong when you say such things.
You may claim you know Political Science to a high degree, but I have the same high degree of knowledge in Evolutionary Science and Depth Psychology. Which I use daily.
Besides which, I never rest on my laurels. I keep my analytical skills in crackerjack order.
I would say that you are being quite uncharitable to me, Richard. Seems to me that you are a bit upset I have questioned your star. That's a very old trait in humanity when they are less than aware.
Though you have no idea who I am or what my accomplishments are. I have contributed thousands of resource-packed posts here over a long period. Gratis. I am not paid anything out of the very lucrative sums that Matt and Walter must take in, if you look at their numbers.
You are falling into the Substack-god and groupie relationship. Where any Substack host of some level of popular fame must be a god (at least) and any mere commenter who questions this must have a nasty character. Hmmmph!
This propensity is discussed in Evolutionary Science. You might do some homework there to learn why you have behaved this way
Ironically, no one could ever do any journalism if questing opinions or motives was out of line. See that? You are shooting yourself in the foot here.
How about a thank you to me for generously giving so much for free here for years? Or should I be billing Racket News my regular rate?
Why do you automatically assume that Matt MUST be better in every way than the commenters below? I could write a paper on that very odd behaviour I see across the Substack world. That the Substack host-gods must never be questioned. Because they are....well... gods! And the rabble in the comment forum are rabble.
1 person can't. That's become problematic as the subscription base has expanded. I hope Racket has learned from TFP that larger format tempts a loss of focus. Today's explicit statement of mission is a great start - they need to recite it to themselves daily. Investigative journalism as its own focus frees up any number of topics beyond 1A. The world becomes fair game, limited only by the quality of source material and investigative intelligence. If Racket can hold straight to its new direction, the results will be exciting.
I have been able to track a lot of this for years, as one person. So do many good researchers.
Does a "journalist" write about only what he sees in front of him, and never connects the dots? And how much background should he have -- whether from formal education or experience or copious reading? Because without a wide background, he is not going to bring you the real answers. He will not have figured them out.
What is a journalist? As opposed to a writer of investigative non-fiction, or a researcher? And what are the levels of journalism, from office coffee-boy to full-time investigative writer? They are quite different.
All of this is so hazy. Maybe that is being done on purpose. If a supposed journalist cannot tell you these things, how good is he going to be at telling you other truths?
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.
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.
02/09/26: Yes, here we are. T. Bankhead and friends in "Lifeboat." The sequel.
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.
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?
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.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
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!!!
TOTALLY AGREE.
Best of luck Emily !
Yes, best of luck to you, Emily.
See Emily, even the Bots agree.
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 think it was planned that way.
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.
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.
No sacred cows. Selfishly, that's all I ask. And courage.
Welcome Emily. Another rule, please:
Do not conflate legal with illegal immigrants. So many journalists do this and it is willfully dishonest and deceptive.
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.
Agreed, and it's why I'll absolutely give him is props when he gets things right when most everyone else is wrong. But we have to call out blind spots. If a journalist is telling me a story using 20% of the facts while ignoring good faith arguments that contain the other 80%, they're not a journalist. From what I have seen, Taibbi doesn't do that. He has earned trust. Much less so with Tracey.
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...
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.?
Great idea.
Sick. Can’t wait. Don’t avoid the trans shit.
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.
"Fettering" or "ferreting"?
Yes, should be "ferreting out".
Interesting. “ fettering” pretty much means the opposite of “ferreting. English is nuts
Onward! Can’t wait for the first stories to drop. Any chance you and Matt are thinking about investigative series? 3-4 successive articles on a deep topic? The possibilities are legion.
Independent researchers investigate and write about whatever they want and have time to investigate and write about. Journalism requires organizing and shaping data for publication.
Racket is probably organized as an LLC. I don't much care.
I'm not a researcher but I usually manage to tell the difference between fact and opinion. Lies by omission are more difficult of course - the best way to deal with those is the humility of knowing that the whole truth (and nothing but) is perhaps impossible to come by.
Since 1949, this particular truth has been possible to come by. Right out there in the open in the books published for a general readership by Harvard-trained historian Carroll Quigley. I can't believe that Matt has never heard of them. Or of the other writers who interpret Quigley. If he hasn't, what is he doing in this line of work?
It is like saying that you really like the warm, empathic surgeon at the local hospital, but OK...he does amputate the wrong limb every now and again because his training was a bit iffy. So maybe it is impossible for human beings to tell right legs from left legs. Therefore, it was a natural mistake.
Ann, I do not buy the idea that this truth was impossible to come by. But it does work to excuse Matt.
I,m sorry. I seem to have lost track. I,m definitely not as sharp as I used to be! I don't remember which particular truth you are referring to! I only remember commenting that no-one can know it all. It seems to me in fact that The Truth is often elusive for that very reason.
I find that Matt's topics are limited to a certain circle of ideas, and that he does not do depth outside of that.
Though he needs to.
It was not always thus and I am hoping he and Racket will produce output as we deranging as police brutality (Eric Garner), financialization (2008 Crash), and the South Asian immigrant angle on DEI controversies in N. VA schools. That looked pretty broad. And he is bringing on additional reporters so I’m hoping that will also add breadth.
The financialization and politilization (connections?) of healthcare too…
Well, the "mess up healthcare" tactic is part of the overall issue. Which Matt never touches.
Let us hope so. Because at this point, if I want information, I do the research myself. Matt seldom offers this depth. I am here mainly for intelligent discussion with other readers. About the concepts that Matt remains studiously silent on.
I teach Matt many times, as opposed to Matt teaching or informing me. There are many of us here who have far greater education and experience.
This seems like an uncharitable standard. I have a lot more education than Matt and yet I am informed by him on several levels. Here's a link to his reporting on Loudon County School controversyhttps://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/587748-matt-taibbi-school-closures-not-critical-race-theory-was-primary-issue-for/. Compare that with the cookie cutter DEI narrative put out by WaPo & NYT. Taibbi did shoe leather reporting that was highly informative even if he does not hold PhD. As for experience, I'd say his time in the USSR/Russia is quite an interesting background. Covering also presidential campaigns for Rolling Stone seems like invaluable experience. For some historical perspective, an investigative reporter of bygone years, Ida Tarbell went to Allegheny College in the 1870s (hardly a leading academic institution) and had a fairly narrow focus (corporate and monopoly power)...I'd say Taibbi fits in the same tradition.
Read Robert Cialdini's work. Should set you straight. Realize where you go wrong when you say such things.
You may claim you know Political Science to a high degree, but I have the same high degree of knowledge in Evolutionary Science and Depth Psychology. Which I use daily.
Besides which, I never rest on my laurels. I keep my analytical skills in crackerjack order.
I would say that you are being quite uncharitable to me, Richard. Seems to me that you are a bit upset I have questioned your star. That's a very old trait in humanity when they are less than aware.
Though you have no idea who I am or what my accomplishments are. I have contributed thousands of resource-packed posts here over a long period. Gratis. I am not paid anything out of the very lucrative sums that Matt and Walter must take in, if you look at their numbers.
You are falling into the Substack-god and groupie relationship. Where any Substack host of some level of popular fame must be a god (at least) and any mere commenter who questions this must have a nasty character. Hmmmph!
This propensity is discussed in Evolutionary Science. You might do some homework there to learn why you have behaved this way
Ironically, no one could ever do any journalism if questing opinions or motives was out of line. See that? You are shooting yourself in the foot here.
How about a thank you to me for generously giving so much for free here for years? Or should I be billing Racket News my regular rate?
Why do you automatically assume that Matt MUST be better in every way than the commenters below? I could write a paper on that very odd behaviour I see across the Substack world. That the Substack host-gods must never be questioned. Because they are....well... gods! And the rabble in the comment forum are rabble.
1 person can't. That's become problematic as the subscription base has expanded. I hope Racket has learned from TFP that larger format tempts a loss of focus. Today's explicit statement of mission is a great start - they need to recite it to themselves daily. Investigative journalism as its own focus frees up any number of topics beyond 1A. The world becomes fair game, limited only by the quality of source material and investigative intelligence. If Racket can hold straight to its new direction, the results will be exciting.
I have been able to track a lot of this for years, as one person. So do many good researchers.
Does a "journalist" write about only what he sees in front of him, and never connects the dots? And how much background should he have -- whether from formal education or experience or copious reading? Because without a wide background, he is not going to bring you the real answers. He will not have figured them out.
What is a journalist? As opposed to a writer of investigative non-fiction, or a researcher? And what are the levels of journalism, from office coffee-boy to full-time investigative writer? They are quite different.
All of this is so hazy. Maybe that is being done on purpose. If a supposed journalist cannot tell you these things, how good is he going to be at telling you other truths?