Who's training people in government to talk like this?
Nobody's being won over by these Fisher-Price LLM-style statements. The average takeaway from the below quote will just be "oh, this person's a weirdo"
Embarrassing and childish behaviour here; all, no doubt, just to generate some engagement and a few extra clicks
It really is a bad sign that so many more senior journalists are willing to debase themselves in this way online. It’s time to grow up and show some professionalism again
since we're talking about The Other Place, one now pointless gripe I still have is that actually it could have remained a fair bit more pleasant and usable and useful if more people just used the non-algorithmic timeline and I'll never understand why they didn't just do it
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we'd be far better off treating Twitter use among journos/politicians as an addiction to the platform, and operating on that basis
It's why all the "it's good to stay and be exposed to racism" arguments don't really, on their face, make any sense
Det här kändes uppenbart redan innan den senaste Maktbarometern presenterades. En av mina tankar efter Svenskarna och internet veckan innan dess. open.substack.com/pub/fredrikw...
The whole internet loves Cola Bottle Nate, a lovely guy who almost kills himself eating Haribro cola bottles! *5 seconds later* We regret to inform you Mr. Rimmington is racist
A scene transition may not sound like much, but think of how many films and shows utilise now-famous cuts and transitions as part of their storytelling
These small details are integral to the overall story. It's an affront to artists, therefore, to suggest these can be 'automated' or assisted by AI
By contrast, while it may look as though a "transition from scene 5 to scene 6" in The Wire is the same endeavour within a different medium, it misses the fact that "art for art's sake" is often primarily in more creative works
Functionality exists in fiction, of course, but it's often secondary
Even journalists who might consider themselves more creative writers fall into this 'efficiency trap' due to the inherent demands of the medium. The practical mindset, when it comes to writing, can overwhelm the creative
And if it doesn't for the writer, it certainly will for their editor
Art, style and flair naturally appear in all great journalism, but are subsumed, to some extent, by the practical need to deliver information to the reader in a clear and concise manner
The specific example Shapiro gives encapsulates this difference rather nicely, because it's the sort of conundrum you sometimes face when writing an article – how do I cleanly bridge these two aspects of my story from one paragraph to another?
We have some decent research now pointing to 'pre-bunking' as an effective tool to counter such propaganda. Essentially, pre-loading people with accurate information inoculates them against disinformation
I see no reason we can't apply that to politics more broadly
Working out how to tackle modern 'politics as propaganda content' is definitely going to be critical to neutralising this rising threat from the authoritarian far right
The only thing I can really think of right now is essentially counter-programming?
But it does pose a question of how to interact with them in public that I don’t really know how to answer. Ignoring them achieves nothing but they also aren’t really making efforts to get people hostile to them on their side - in fact they’d rather people did do the opposite
We know voters think all politicians are corrupt. Giving Johnson a free pass here only reinforces the narrative that Labour are just ‘more of the same’
I was on LBC to discuss this story and pointed out that a source got in touch yesterday after we first published to say no further action would be taken by the government against Johnson.
A govt spokesperson noted that in future ex-ministers who break rules could be asked to repay severance.
Johnson refused to answer specific questions or to provide factual denials to allegations of rule-breaking, while insisting all the rules had been followed at all times. His responses led Acoba’s chair, Isabel Doverty, to find him in breach of the rules.
Another reason you do this is so you can say, "That role sounds stupid/pointless, cut it"
A manager/head will be able to explain why a seemingly random role is actually critical to a wider strategy. But a specific employee may not be able to advocate for themselves
New: In a note to staff this morning, New CBS EIC Bari Weiss asked everyone across CBS News to send her a memo by next Tuesday explaining how they spend their workday and what’s working/not working…
No clearer indication of the right’s moral rot than the swift evolution from angrily denying any association with buffoonish bigots like like Posobiec and Fuentes, to “there’s no harm in having a conversation,” to openly praising and promoting them.
