April 2nd, 2015
Just a reminder: Matt Yglesias doesn’t know anything about the economics and sociology of the family, either.
Though I bet he skimmed through part of an Atlantic article on the stuff once and follows @stephaniecoontz on Twitter. Which totally makes him expert enough to write about the subject.
1 commentAnother Data Point on VOXDOTCOM
July 16th, 2014
Refusal to correct an “error.” Though in Vox’s defense, it’s really hard to sort out what is and isn’t true if the “facts” aren’t on Google.
2 commentsSantino. WFB. Juicevox Mafia.
April 30th, 2014
As a friend of mine delicately put it over email, OH MY GOD!
I don’t want to spoil it for you, so just go. Go. GO.
Disclaimer: The images you are about to see are merely historical recreations of what might have transpired based on meticulous research and the public record.
6 commentsMatt Yglesias Has a Problem–Updated
March 7th, 2012
He thinks that his problem is that mean people who are stupid followers of Andrew Breitbart’s cult are giving his Kindle book bad reviews.
But in reality, his problem is that he constructs sentences like this:
For example, it’s a book largely dedicated to making the case for less regulation of urban and suburban land. The kind of thing that conservatives might be open to, were they need just in a fury of rage.
“were they need just in a fury of rage”
Don’t get fixated on the “need,” which is probably just a typo. It’s the “fury of rage” construct that’s the real prize.
Remember: He’s not doing this as a hobbyist. Someone at the Washington Post Company paid him to write this self-serving, sub-literate, word tangle.
Update: Yglesias leaves a comment below. That’s embarrassing enough. But having read his comment three or four times, best as I can tell it’s a non sequitur. Then again, I suppose the Washington Post Company isn’t paying him for reading comprehension. (Or reporting. Or prose style. Or knowing stuff.) They pay him for his “passion.”
That’s their business. I’d just say that passion is a pretty cheap commodity in writing. You can find buckets of it in every comments section from Free Republic to Democratic Underground. Over the years Slate has had lots of really dynamite writers: Seth Stevenson, John Dickerson, Anne Applebaum, Tim Noah, Will Saletan, Jodi Kantor–just to pick a few. They’re all stone-cold studs and none of them got graded on the curve for how passionate they are.
10 commentsOn Matt Yglesias
March 2nd, 2012
There’s nothing wrong with criticizing Andrew Breitbart or rendering a negative judgement on his work and his legacy, as David Frum did yesterday. But Matt Yglesias’ celebration is a wholly different animal.
And I can’t quite understand the non-reaction to it. There used to be a price–professional and social–to be paid when high-profile journalists who are part of big media conglomerates acted this way. A commenter at Daily Kos or Free Republic could behave badly with impunity, but the actual professionals couldn’t because they were afraid they’d get their knuckles rapped by the suits and/or their more respectable friends would disapprove, and maybe even be forced to repudiate them.
It still happens, you know. Compare Yglesias’ tweet, in terms of maliciousness, stupidity, and actual hurtful impact on real people, with CNN anchor Roland Martin’s Super Bowl tweet about a David Beckham ad. You tell me which you think is a worse ethical infraction. CNN suspended Martin almost immediately. But Slate editor David Plotz rushed out to defend Yglesias. Slate isn’t some independent magazine, like Reason, they’re part of the Washington Post Company, a corporation with a $3 billion market capitalization. Surely there’s a grownup somewhere in the company who thinks that employees should be made to uphold some minimum standard of conduct, or else they risk embarrassing the business. They sure do at other companies.
Come to think of it, they even used to do this at the Washington Post Company.
17 comments
