Seung Min Kim, a White House correspondent for The Washington Post, has found herself under vicious attack this week because she had the temerity to show Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski (left) a critical tweet from President Joe Biden’s for budget director, Neera Tanden. Kim was seeking a comment from the key senator on whether the tweet criticizing her in personal terms would influence her vote. Kim was then attacked as a “dumb**s snitch” for undermining the nomination of a person of color.
The attacks began after HuffPost Capitol Hill reporter Igor Bobik posted the picture of Kim asking Murkowski about the tweet in which she accused Murkowski of being “high on your own supply” for supporting Trump’s massive corporate tax cut.
Kim was immediately set upon by a digital mob. One person reportedly wrote “Hi. What a coonish thing to do to fuck up another POC nomination on behalf of whites. Dumb**s snitch.” Vox senior correspondent Matthew Yglesias posted, in a now-deleted tweet, that “I do not approve of harassing @seungminkim, but just FYI to everyone covering the Hill the reason many people were triggered by that image is there were so so so so many instances of republican members of congress saying they hadn’t seen Trump tweet X.” Kim shot back in a tweet that said “When you have to add a ‘but,’ after saying you don’t approve of harassment on someone, just take a moment and think about that.” Yglesias then deleted his tweet.
Columbia University lecturer Tom Watson joined the criticism. Watson is the President of Cause Wired where cites his past work with the New York Times as a writer. Watson tweeted “@seungminkim decided to try and sink the nomination. Good lord.”
The story surrounding the Tanden nomination is a long list of deleted tweets that attacked members of Congress and particularly Republicans. I have not read all of the tweets, but I am not convinced that the tweets make her unqualified for this position. I am concerned when members are influenced by criticism of themselves in voting against a nominee. They are public figures and Tanden clearly holds opposing views. I do not see why such tweets should be determinative in a nomination vote and could send a chilling message to others not to criticize people in power.
However, the legitimate story is how these tweets are impacting key senators and Kim wanted to see how this tweet would influence Murkowski, a key swing vote in the Senate. That does not mean that Kim “decided to try and sink the nomination.” She was doing her job as an independent journalist opposed to being an advocate.
Watson’s criticism reminded me of the recent position of a leading journalism professor at Stanford. Professor Ted Glasser publicly called for an end of objectivity in journalism as too constraining for reporters in seeking “social justice.” He insisted that journalism needed to “free itself from this notion of objectivity to develop a sense of social justice.” He rejected the notion that the journalism is based on objectivity and said that he views “journalists as activists because journalism at its best — and indeed history at its best — is all about morality.” Thus, “Journalists need to be overt and candid advocates for social justice, and it’s hard to do that under the constraints of objectivity.” Good lord.
The attacks on Kim is another example of this age of rage, as I discussed his week in my testimony before the House. There is a growing distemper where academics engage in vulgar or religious attacks and others endorse violence. Our most basic values of free speech and the free press are under attack. When a reporter like Kim must face such disgraceful abuse, we have become untethered from those values that define us.
There is a solution – get off of Twitter! It’s nothing but a gossip machine where people make asses of themselves.
“t’s nothing but a gossip machine where people make asses of themselves” isn’t true. You can find very informative discussions by experts, wonderful art, news, etc., along with the gossip. Maybe you’ve been reading the wrong Twitter accounts.
“You can find very informative discussions by experts, wonderful art, news, etc., along with the gossip.” But that’s a description of the internet in general. What TWITTER is famous for is not even the tweets themselves but for the obscene tool to deliver malicious mob beatings of whatever “target” is in the crosshairs of the mob. If you could illustrate what Twitter is famous for just imagine one of those scenes we were treated to last year where a mob of cowards repeatedly kick the crap out of someone on the ground. That’s the type of activity that currently defines twitter, even more than it’s rank hypocrisy.
semcgowanjr’s claim was false. I noted that it’s false. There’s good and bad on Twitter just like there’s good and bad elsewhere on the net. Any intelligent person can find value in it by using it wisely.
I have reached the same conclusion. Twitter is 100% people driven and ripe for a “general strike”. Imagine using the same swarm tactics that Twitter has created to swarm away from them. #breaktwitter
The problem is not what people tweeted, or how people reacted to tweets. The problem is acting like Twitter matters. Twitter is ether. It’s not real. Let’s go back to reporting on actual news meaning actual things that happened in the actual world and not acting like social media is the world.
The correct phrase is DB. Piglatin: Dumb itchBay
YOU must submit, and bow down to the almighty Biden Administration…here to save us all from Sexism and Racism. This is why we laugh at them. They think we are all as uninformed as the CNN watchers are.
Note, they’re attacking him for not being a handmaiden for the Democratic Party. Twenty-five years ago, print journalists were liberals, but they followed a rhythm set by guild conventions, not by Democratic Party press agents. . The same was arguably true of broadcast journalists a decade earlier.
I realize you and Darren are too disgusted with us to scan the comments, but you’d learn the same lesson if you did so. The Democratic Party is now a collecting pool of jerks. They’re aided and abetted by obtuse people.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/02/25/poll-while-republican-voters-care-about-issues-democratic-voters-top-concern-is-absolutely-ridiculous-n1428264
That poll sets up an interesting triangular. Trump votes at the tip with the issues animating them underneath. A rather insightful way of looking at problems and causes to me.
EB
Margolis is lying when he says “What do you think the Democrats’ number one issue of concern is? Jobs? Poverty? COVID-19? The environment? Health care? … According to Kristen Soltis Anderson, the cofounder of Echelon Insights, Democrat voters’ number one issue is none of those issues.”
She says in a different comment that Democrats are more concerned about the spread of Covid –
https://twitter.com/KSoltisAnderson/status/1364614060474576903
But it’s appropriate to be concerned about Trump supporters, since so many have harmful beliefs, some untethered to reality (white nationalists, misogynists, QAnon believers, believers that the election was stolen, …).
Just wait until Alan gets here and opens a can of whup-ass on you.
Allan’s a troll. He has no whup in his can, try as he might.
Kim was doing her job and shouldn’t be attacked for it.
Matt Yglesias’s point about Republican members of Congress avoiding commenting on Trump’s tweets is valid. He was not attacking or criticizing Kim, and responded “Fair enough, I will delete” to Kim’s response to him. Turley is mistaken to present this as an example of “Kim was immediately set upon by a digital mob.” It’s quite different from the offensive comment by the nameless person in the first quote.
Neeren is well-qualified for the job. If publicly criticizing people in office is such a grave offense that it excludes people from public service, many members of Congress would be out of a job themselves. I agree with Turley that “I do not see why such tweets should be determinative in a nomination vote and could send a chilling message to others not to criticize people in power.”
To those opposed to the Trump tax cuts, why has government revenue gone up since the tax cuts?
Are you aware that revenue will reduce if these tax cuts are reversed?
Why did it go up after each of the four tax cuts in the 20th century?
Would it be helpful to learn the basics of how a free market economy works before reaching such conclusions?
If you’re interested, more can be learned from Thomas Sowell about the hoax of “tax cuts for the rich”. https://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2017/05/01/tax-cuts-for-the-rich-n2320748
“why has government revenue gone up since the tax cuts?”
It hasn’t.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/05/us-tax-revenue-dropped-sharply-due-to-trump-tax-cuts-report.html
https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/did-the-2017-tax-cut-the-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-pay-for-itself/
Anon, you are exactly correct in your assessment that revenue collected by the government has gone down in comparison to other nations due to the Trump tax cuts. The question is did the GDP (production of goods and services) go up? Were more people employed? Yes less money went to the government and more money went to the people because businesses needed more employees. We must assume that you would rather have it the other way around.
TiT trolls again. He ASSumes all the time.
A lot here, Turley. Agreed on many points….
-yes, there’s an age of rage (there’s also a bunch of trump era holdover lawsuits that would be cool to hear your impressions of).
-yes, Neera Tandan is being treated unfairly in most every respect. The fact that the right is squawking about twitter decorum after trump is absurdist to the extreme. Then again, that didn’t stop them from leaning on cold war anti communism and socialism tropes to criticize Biden in the campaign after backing the president most abdicating to the Russians, like, ever. So it’s all fair game is seems. Best for the dems to realize they’re not dealing with a counter party of good faith and addressing ‘unity’ with them should be to mirror the scorched earth tactics they’ve used when in power. Step on the necks of the spineless sedition caucus at every opportunity.
-I tend to agree on dropping the worship of complete neutrality in journalistic coverage, because as just proved in the trumpian age, it’s insufficient weaponry with which to deal with characters of bad faith who lie with impunity and seek power for power’s sake. The late night comedians proved right away the best way to cover trump was to take for granted from the start he was absurdist and a good starting point with him was to laugh in his face and assume varying degrees of darkly comic intention to everything coming out of trump’s mouth. Not only that, complete neutrality was illusionary and only as effective as its social mores and assumptions (which are actively and currently going through intense renegotiations).
,
In addition to ‘bad things happening to professors who speak what’s truly in their minds’ week, it would be great to hear your thoughts on the professor who went off on a deaf student in a zoom class from a community college in California.
Elvis Bug
So here is the latest from Elvis Bug. There is no need for the press to try and be fair and balanced. People with opposing views should have their necks stepped on with the boot supplied by the media. The stomping on the necks of the opposition is not enough but even more boots should be applied with the help of a Reichstag media. Don’t you understand those bad people are liars and should be stomped stomped stomped to a pulp. Step on their necks just before you shot them in the back of the head. Elvis Bug is not being honest. He should have given attribution to Vladimir Lenin in his pamphlet written here. Thank you Elvis Bug for revealing your true nature.
Glad you enjoyed it, TIT!
EB
Elvis Bug. You should write a military type directive to train the media troops exactly how to step (stomp) on the necks of your opponents. Please give us the steps required in an exact process. You could also gain fame if your process were to be appropriated into the Antifa handbook. There may be a promotion in your future comrade.
, Neera Tandan is being treated unfairly in most every respect.
She wasn’t.
characters of bad faith who lie with impunity and seek power for power’s sake
They work for Suzlberger, Bezos, and Jeffrey Zucker
it would be great to hear your thoughts on the professor who went off on a deaf student in a zoom class from a community college in California.
This is relevant just why?
Neera Tandan is being treated
unfairly in most every respect.
She wasn’t.
characters of bad faith
who lie with impunity
and seek power for power’s sake
They work for Suzlberger, Bezos, and Jeffrey Zucker
it would be great
to hear your thoughts
on the professor
who went off on a…
deaf student in a zoom class
from a community college
in California.
This is relevant just why?
**
Here, class, we have some grunt poetry from the early 2020’s. Notice the assonance and alliteration at work 4th stanza…, hear the hard z’s at work to simulate a buzzing sensation simulating fevered confusion. Hear the e’s and r’s at work with focused rage. The s’s turning the corner and hissing like the sound of god deep within a seashell as it tells its story…
Hear the unmitigated idiocy in its sentiment, the chortling over martinis cluelessness, the stubborn desperation of needing to believe in the voice’s own relevancy.
Hear him close with a declaration he deems clever but most certainly is an homage to egocentrism. Let us appreciate the age that produces the work for all its illusion and delusion. Let us just breathe it all in as the sound of his verse vibrates in the ethers as beautiful poetry surely lives in the air.
We all owe Arty a debt of gratitude for sharing his work with us on this fine friday. Reading his work took away precious seconds we’ll never get back. But we must thank him anyway for gracing us with his presence, his insight, his deep foray into the furthest realms of denial and b hole-ism.
Thanks Arty!!
EB
You’ll notice there’s no effort at a refutation.
Why refute sheer genius???
EB
Sooner or later they can’t help themselves. First it was confiscate all the billionaires money and for good measure kick them in the teeth. Now it’s stomp on the necks of the opposition. So we get to hear from the Antifa/BLM centrist branch of the Democratic Party. I can imagine the teeth clattering on the pavement and the sound of the snapping of the vertebrae when the boots are applied. Why not throw in a little bamboo shoot under the finger nail why your at it. You wait in anticipation for the screaming. I don’t recall reading from the conservatives on this forum calling for stomping on necks and kicking in of teeth.
Warning to Lefties: toe the line or get crushed.
Ms Kim is probably a Lefty (she works for WaPo). Didn’t save her.
Lefties sure are bullies – they love to pile on while virtue signaling.
Lefties have created a toxic culture that doesn’t deserve to exist.
WHY DO PEOPLE DEFINE EVERYTHING IN RACIAL TERMS
AND EXPECT EVERYONE TO NOT SEE ALL RACES AS EQUAL