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.
Side note, I would say the early feminist movement was to address the lack of rights afforded women.
Like the civil rights movement for Africa Americans, it was co-opted by leftists for the Cloward and Privan aim of bringing down the country, conceived 1978, Columbia University.
The suffragette movement out of the UK was nominally about women's right to vote, but even that movement in the early 1900s was suspect for being used by other political forces. Very little was as it seemed.
And of course there had been pre-1960s militant women's rights situations in the U.S. too.
Anthropologist Margaret Mead was given the lead in the Feminism Project and the Sexual Revolution Project out of the Tavistock Institute. Then she recruited the on-the-ground level of perpetrators.
Notorious American feminist Kate Millet did her doctorate at Columbia, graduating in 1970. Soon after she began spreading the more severely distorted messages. Her sister Mallory Millett has claimed that Kate was a Psychopath, and purposely planned her path of propaganda and social destruction, with other left-wingers of the time.
Then they moved on to the whole abortion tactic.
Something to remember about Kate Millett is that she had also studied at Oxford University's St. Hilda's College. According to historian Carroll Quigley, it was the Oxford colleges that were used for the British recruiting arm of the Milner Group/Roundtable Movement. Their primary focus was on All Souls College, but for a feminist recruitment, St. Hilda's would have been perfect.
02/10/26: Be my guest! And recommended: "Americans In Paris, Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation," Charles Glass (1951- ) (2010). The hardcover technicals (paper quality, type size, ink density) are also excellent; spend a little more money on the h/c.
Be my guest, Coldwar. Keeping Matt and his new staffers line is why we're here. They read the comments and respond. But so do the rest of us, so if you're going to call someone hackneyed, be prepared to defend it.
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):
The oldsters here figure that we're going to return to black/white TV.
Anyone familiar with the history of news knows that no such "golden era" ever existed. Nor have audiences ever been able to keep their eyes on ideas once we get a glimpse of some blood, or cleavage.
That's how we're biologically programmed. We've had censorship and some level of press freedom.
Entertaining readers is what the Spectator and the Clef du cabinet did - Dickens et al were hucksters, serializing stories. F- integrity, as a brand.
Matt's decision to run away from the criticisms he gets for hot takes just shows his warped understanding of how little any of this matters.
We want entertainment as much, or more so, than we want facts. Wit is a rare commodity and Emily is sharp enough to know that one of the reasons she's the editor and Matt's the owner is down to Matt's wit built Racket and the fact that he started up in a news vacuum.
Betting on quality journalism without humor, wit, and the willingness to lean into the criticism that comes with hot takes is a bad gamble in 2026.
Case in point - I have no plans to read about the Washington Swamp.
Why would I? Insider insights into the lives of scumbags is what I'm missing? I'm here for Walter, Matt, and intelligent insights into literature. That turned out to be asking too much. Yawn.
Paul Harper - What's with the royal "We" as in "We want entertainment as much, or more so, than we want facts." You might be speaking for yourself, but not necessarily for anyone else. If I want entertainment, I'll watch a movie (lots of gratuitous blood and cleavage there).
If I want to make sense of the apparently nonsensical things in public life, I want facts (clear unequivocal descriptions of reality) ferreted out and then disseminated in as dispassionate a manner as is humanly possible. That's journalism at its best. Just because pseudo-journalistic hacks have recently grievously perverted, twisted and bastardized the concept doesn't mean that conscientious journalists should give up striving for a high standard of veracity in practicing their trade without fear or favor.
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 have not watched it all, but The Brownstone Institute has been anti-COVID-mania. So I wonder whether Walter is beginning to get it.
I certainly provided him with enough resources here at Racket News. For which he never thanked me. So that "genius" of his may be from picking up the material from his readers in the comment forums.
There are many intelligent people out here. The only difference in how they are viewed being whether they do podcasts and media careers or not.
The public have an odd idea that to be on a podcast or in the media must mean that the person is a cut above the rest....when actually it simply means that they decided to cash in on what they might have, while others who have equal or greater abilities do not go the media route.
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...
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.?
I am not sure that Matt and Walter pry it open all that much, actually. There is often a booming silence when a commenter touches on vital topics they are unfamiliar with.
No Marty. The whole point is that is someone is billing themselves as a top journalist, they SHOULD know these issues. Just as an Engineer should know their field and so should a medical professional.
Otherwise, they are not a top journalist.
Sheesh! That was an odd comment for you to make. I suspect that you are in one of those groupie relationships with your chosen Substack-god. And you cannot see the reality.
Re: "these issues"-everyone will have different hot button issues that they care about. The top ten issues for the American public are all domestic and revolve around cost of living, crime, governing, and immigration. To expect someone to be an expert all of these diverse plus international issues is ridiculous.
Re: engineers knowing their field:
I'm a mechanical engineer. The field is too broad for anyone to "know" it.
Re: medical professionals:
If I get a cancer diagnosis I don't go to the best doctor for an opinion. I look for an oncologist who specializes in whatever type of cancer I have. And I'm not disappointed when they say they can't help with my back pain-I expect a different expert to address that issue.
I don't expect Sam Darnold to give advice on how to hit a curve ball. That doesn't mean he isn't a top athlete.
Everyone has gaping holes in their knowledge, and to stay silent in an area you feel unqualified to speak should be the norm. There's enough meaningless blather out there already.
Marty, here is where you need an investigative reporter. Few people are aware that oncologists get an income from the chemotherapy drugs they prescribe . If you get a cancer diagnosis it's helpful to know that your oncologist has a built in conflict of interest in establishing your plan of care. It's the only discipline in medicine where the doctor's income is greatly determined by the drugs that he or she recommends. In my research, it appears the way the scheme works , the oncologist buys the chemo from the manufacturer, then bills , and receives a higher payment from the insurance company. "Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome." Always follow the money.
Very interesting. Fortunately, I’ve not had cancer. It seems like this situation is where you’d need to get a second opinion. Do they even do that these days?
Then you have to ask how much width/depth we expect of any "journalist". especially considering the complex issues these days.
The definition of "journalist" is really very vague and elastic. You might have a journalist with a PhD and 25 years of relevant experience in a given field, or a journalist who graduated HS, knows the basic vocational tasks, and that is it.
They, Matt and Walter have no moral compass and imo are cowards. Doesn’t take much to find the decimation of Gaza and atrocities therein on the internet. Do not need to “ know much about the Middle East, blah, blah”. The continued genocide there is the biggest story of this century. At the very least both of them could have at the very least said that. Then move on. Doubtful that the new staff will be any different on this point. And nobody does it better on book reviews than Matt and Walter. Bye bye
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.
Side note, I would say the early feminist movement was to address the lack of rights afforded women.
Like the civil rights movement for Africa Americans, it was co-opted by leftists for the Cloward and Privan aim of bringing down the country, conceived 1978, Columbia University.
The suffragette movement out of the UK was nominally about women's right to vote, but even that movement in the early 1900s was suspect for being used by other political forces. Very little was as it seemed.
And of course there had been pre-1960s militant women's rights situations in the U.S. too.
Anthropologist Margaret Mead was given the lead in the Feminism Project and the Sexual Revolution Project out of the Tavistock Institute. Then she recruited the on-the-ground level of perpetrators.
Notorious American feminist Kate Millet did her doctorate at Columbia, graduating in 1970. Soon after she began spreading the more severely distorted messages. Her sister Mallory Millett has claimed that Kate was a Psychopath, and purposely planned her path of propaganda and social destruction, with other left-wingers of the time.
Then they moved on to the whole abortion tactic.
Something to remember about Kate Millett is that she had also studied at Oxford University's St. Hilda's College. According to historian Carroll Quigley, it was the Oxford colleges that were used for the British recruiting arm of the Milner Group/Roundtable Movement. Their primary focus was on All Souls College, but for a feminist recruitment, St. Hilda's would have been perfect.
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.
02/10/26: Be my guest! And recommended: "Americans In Paris, Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation," Charles Glass (1951- ) (2010). The hardcover technicals (paper quality, type size, ink density) are also excellent; spend a little more money on the h/c.
Get this woman an editor. My word, she's hackneyed.
02/10/26: Who are you referring to (above name)?
The error ridden Emily. You know, the one who is going to “edit” others.
Be my guest, Coldwar. Keeping Matt and his new staffers line is why we're here. They read the comments and respond. But so do the rest of us, so if you're going to call someone hackneyed, be prepared to defend it.
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?
You do.
The oldsters here figure that we're going to return to black/white TV.
Anyone familiar with the history of news knows that no such "golden era" ever existed. Nor have audiences ever been able to keep their eyes on ideas once we get a glimpse of some blood, or cleavage.
That's how we're biologically programmed. We've had censorship and some level of press freedom.
Entertaining readers is what the Spectator and the Clef du cabinet did - Dickens et al were hucksters, serializing stories. F- integrity, as a brand.
Matt's decision to run away from the criticisms he gets for hot takes just shows his warped understanding of how little any of this matters.
We want entertainment as much, or more so, than we want facts. Wit is a rare commodity and Emily is sharp enough to know that one of the reasons she's the editor and Matt's the owner is down to Matt's wit built Racket and the fact that he started up in a news vacuum.
Betting on quality journalism without humor, wit, and the willingness to lean into the criticism that comes with hot takes is a bad gamble in 2026.
Case in point - I have no plans to read about the Washington Swamp.
Why would I? Insider insights into the lives of scumbags is what I'm missing? I'm here for Walter, Matt, and intelligent insights into literature. That turned out to be asking too much. Yawn.
Paul Harper - What's with the royal "We" as in "We want entertainment as much, or more so, than we want facts." You might be speaking for yourself, but not necessarily for anyone else. If I want entertainment, I'll watch a movie (lots of gratuitous blood and cleavage there).
If I want to make sense of the apparently nonsensical things in public life, I want facts (clear unequivocal descriptions of reality) ferreted out and then disseminated in as dispassionate a manner as is humanly possible. That's journalism at its best. Just because pseudo-journalistic hacks have recently grievously perverted, twisted and bastardized the concept doesn't mean that conscientious journalists should give up striving for a high standard of veracity in practicing their trade without fear or favor.
Humor, wit, and hot takes in the service of what? Kirn's increasingly appalling hagiography?
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 ...
Yesterday!
https://x.com/i/status/2021219768343113891
I have not watched it all, but The Brownstone Institute has been anti-COVID-mania. So I wonder whether Walter is beginning to get it.
I certainly provided him with enough resources here at Racket News. For which he never thanked me. So that "genius" of his may be from picking up the material from his readers in the comment forums.
There are many intelligent people out here. The only difference in how they are viewed being whether they do podcasts and media careers or not.
The public have an odd idea that to be on a podcast or in the media must mean that the person is a cut above the rest....when actually it simply means that they decided to cash in on what they might have, while others who have equal or greater abilities do not go the media route.
But the general public is easy to bamboozle, no?
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.
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.
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...
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.
I'm looking forward to the fresh air slipping through that pried-open, Overton window.
I am not sure that Matt and Walter pry it open all that much, actually. There is often a booming silence when a commenter touches on vital topics they are unfamiliar with.
You should expect booming silence about a topic that a reporter is unfamiliar with!
That’s the whole point of the Racket relaunch.
No Marty. The whole point is that is someone is billing themselves as a top journalist, they SHOULD know these issues. Just as an Engineer should know their field and so should a medical professional.
Otherwise, they are not a top journalist.
Sheesh! That was an odd comment for you to make. I suspect that you are in one of those groupie relationships with your chosen Substack-god. And you cannot see the reality.
Re: "these issues"-everyone will have different hot button issues that they care about. The top ten issues for the American public are all domestic and revolve around cost of living, crime, governing, and immigration. To expect someone to be an expert all of these diverse plus international issues is ridiculous.
Re: engineers knowing their field:
I'm a mechanical engineer. The field is too broad for anyone to "know" it.
Re: medical professionals:
If I get a cancer diagnosis I don't go to the best doctor for an opinion. I look for an oncologist who specializes in whatever type of cancer I have. And I'm not disappointed when they say they can't help with my back pain-I expect a different expert to address that issue.
I don't expect Sam Darnold to give advice on how to hit a curve ball. That doesn't mean he isn't a top athlete.
Everyone has gaping holes in their knowledge, and to stay silent in an area you feel unqualified to speak should be the norm. There's enough meaningless blather out there already.
Marty, here is where you need an investigative reporter. Few people are aware that oncologists get an income from the chemotherapy drugs they prescribe . If you get a cancer diagnosis it's helpful to know that your oncologist has a built in conflict of interest in establishing your plan of care. It's the only discipline in medicine where the doctor's income is greatly determined by the drugs that he or she recommends. In my research, it appears the way the scheme works , the oncologist buys the chemo from the manufacturer, then bills , and receives a higher payment from the insurance company. "Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome." Always follow the money.
Very interesting. Fortunately, I’ve not had cancer. It seems like this situation is where you’d need to get a second opinion. Do they even do that these days?
Then you have to ask how much width/depth we expect of any "journalist". especially considering the complex issues these days.
The definition of "journalist" is really very vague and elastic. You might have a journalist with a PhD and 25 years of relevant experience in a given field, or a journalist who graduated HS, knows the basic vocational tasks, and that is it.
They, Matt and Walter have no moral compass and imo are cowards. Doesn’t take much to find the decimation of Gaza and atrocities therein on the internet. Do not need to “ know much about the Middle East, blah, blah”. The continued genocide there is the biggest story of this century. At the very least both of them could have at the very least said that. Then move on. Doubtful that the new staff will be any different on this point. And nobody does it better on book reviews than Matt and Walter. Bye bye
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.