Urban v's the Commentariat

[J Ed]

How do these twats keep getting away with calling themselves revolutionaries?

Look on the bright side, all this means is that with one decent cull of the rich all this identity politics twittersectionality dies off.

 

[Ole]

Look on the bright side, all this means is that with one decent cull of the rich all this identity politics twittersectionality dies off.

They rarely wind me up any more, but it's a bit worrying how they're saying this stuff so openly and yet they are unchallenged by all these people who are following them on Twitter and able to read what they're saying.

Surely anyone with a left-wing bone in their body would see something like that and think there's something not right here...

 

[J Ed]

They don't have any left-wing bones in their body. They are middle-class (at best) liberal class warriors.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Oh God.

What are you whining for?

You should be proud that so many middle-class members of the commentariat are going to be getting together in one place! It makes them easier to assassinate avoid.

 

[ViolentPanda]

But she's not doing anything, writing on Twitter isn't being a revolutionary especially not when you are getting paid for it ffs

To themselves, as well as to their peers, "writing on twitter" is indeed a revolutionary act.
That some of their tweets are seen by fewer people than read The Catholic Herald is immaterial to their (inflated) sense of revolutionary self-worth.
It's just a shame that so few of them ever bother to engage with a spot of revolutionary self-criticism.

 

[rekil]

trigger warning!!!

Cis scum marxplaining old white devil David Harvey being interview on Novara atm

http://radioplayer.resonancefm.com/console/

 

[Limerick Red]

It's just a shame that so few of them ever bother to engage with a spot of revolutionary self-criticism.

There would have been no need for the cultural revolution if people just admitted they "were on all the painkillers in the world"

 

[Theisticle]

Oh man.

Yesterday, I was contacted separately by two distressed friends, both writers, both women. One is famous, successful, hard as diamond under glass and trying gamely to brush off fantasies of personal and specific violence being sent to her by people nominally on the left. She is discovering that as a woman writing and speaking about serious politics in public, it’s not enough just to be good – you also have to deal with the overheads of abuse, bullying, dismissal and disrespect, all while smiling and being nice and pretending as hard as you can that it doesn’t get to you.

My other friend is just starting out, is very young and very talented. She was in tears, wondering if she should just kick it in altogether because of all the people writing in complaining that she’s “all me, me, me” and a “careerist”. “Careerist” is usually used an insult against women and people of colour – the type of people in media who are not supposed to have careers. If you’re Ezra Klein, careerism is fine – you’re expected to be proud of your work, to promote your brand of journalism, to behave as a professional would. “We have to work on your sense of entitlement,” I told my young friend. “It needs to be bigger.”

No doubt in reference to those earlier tweets. Whilst Penny and I'm sure Crabapple get some horrific, disgusting and truly repulsive abuse, lets not pretend that the abuse from those on the left does might also fall under legitimate critique.

My qualification to talk about all this is that I’ve spent five years working, largely as a freelancer, sometimes within mainstream publications like this one and sometimes outside them, to change how journalism and commentary was done. I’ve been doing this along with hundreds of women, people of colour, trans people and allies who saw a media world that was closed to them and only spoke to them to tell them lies and thought, fuck that, we have the technology to do better. So we did. Except that when we did, we weren’t called ‘the future of media’. If we got hired by establishment outfits it was intitially as mascots, performing seals who weren’t trusted to cover “real journalism”. I’m thinking of the newspaper that hired me on a promise that it would let me do serious long-form reporting and then pressured me to cover only “fluffy” women’s issues, sending me to cover precisely one story in nine months: the Women’s Beach Volleyball at the Olympics.

Modelview. Racialicious. Colourlines. Writers Of Colour. The Vagenda. Meta. Novara. Trans Media Watch. Those are just the first few names I’ve plucked out of the air in terms of exciting new outfits that, whatever you feel about their content, are real journalism and criticism and commentary, and are undeniably startups, changing the way media is done.

Vagenda?! Are you shitting me? They are published in the New Statesman and Guardian. Hilarious they are considered 'real' journalism, but I digress.

Yes, there needs to be better diversity in the media but I hardly think Penny is the best person to make the argument. Why not let one of the above groups write the article instead? No matter what you think, you are mainstream, Laurie.

http://www.newstatesman.com/media/2014/04/where-are-real-outsiders-new-media

 

[J Ed]

http://www.newstatesman.com/media/2014/04/where-are-real-outsiders-new-media

“We have to work on your sense of entitlement,” I told my young friend. “It needs to be bigger.”

This is why private schools all need to be physically demolished and banned.

 

[weepiper]

Dull, dull, dull, irrelevant, dull. And I speak as a female blogger.

 

[Theisticle]

Careerist journalist positions herself as radical. What a load of bullshit posturing. Considering she's contributing editor to the News Statesman and friends with Helen Lewis, she's in an ideal position to lobby for such writers. She can actually affect change in one institution or another where she commands authority.

Penny might already, but this article smacks of trying to earn good ally points, instead of addressing her own privilege as a journalist.

Once again inserting herself into the story.

 

[equationgirl]

Careerist journalist positions herself as radical. What a load of bullshit posturing. Considering she's contributing editor to the News Statesman and friends with Helen Lewis, she's in an ideal position to lobby for such writers. She can actually affect change in one institution or another where she commands authority.

Penny might already, but this article smacks of trying to earn good ally points, instead of addressing her own privilege as a journalist.

Once again inserting herself into the story.

I thought the second 'friend' sounded a lot like P herself

 

[andysays]

Dull, dull, dull, irrelevant, dull. And I speak as a female blogger.

You've got a blog?!? I've been reading your comments here for the past year and it comes as news to me. You need to take a few tips off LP, mate, post links here to your every utterance and really get out there and raise your profile, build your market share, etc. All in the interest of spreading the message, of course, not in any way to serve your ego or anything.

Just as long as you don't get careerist about it

 

[andysays]

I thought the second 'friend' sounded a lot like P herself

How dare you As if LP would ever use herself and her experiences to make a point

 

[Belushi]

You've got a blog?!? I've been reading your comments here for the past year and it comes as news to me. You need to take a few tips off LP, mate, post links here to your every utterance and really get out there and raise your profile, build your market share, etc. All in the interest of spreading the message, of course, not in any way to serve your ego or anything.

Just as long as you don't get careerist about it

This is good advice. Also start calling people out more, they may be friends but all's fair in love and blogging.

 

[equationgirl]

You've got a blog?!? I've been reading your comments here for the past year and it comes as news to me. You need to take a few tips off LP, mate, post links here to your every utterance and really get out there and raise your profile, build your market share, etc. All in the interest of spreading the message, of course, not in any way to serve your ego or anything.

Just as long as you don't get careerist about it

You forgot about 'building a personal brand'

 

[andysays]

You forgot about 'building a personal brand'

How could I forget that one? at self.

Clearly, LP is the master* at this, and we should all studies her collected works and learn from them.

*I fully expect to get called out for using this word. There is, unfortunately, no gender-neutral equivalent which conveys the meaning I'm seeking. *shakes fist at patriarchal language conventions*

 

[rekil]

sending me to cover precisely one story in nine months

A dishonest slagging of the Indy here I suspect. It's a journalist's job to go out and come up with stories not sit around waiting for the editor to drop them into her lap. And has she done any 'serious long form reporting' since then for the NS?

 

[Bakunin]

You forgot about 'building a personal brand'

Can anybody explain to me how it's possible to claim to be a radical leftie journo while adopting corporate practices like building a personal brand?

Penny Dreadful's a radical leftie or climbing the greasy pole as a professional hack while doing the Rebel Sell. It isn't possible to be both.

 

[captainmission]

Clearly, LP is the master* at this, and we should all studies her collected works and learn from them.

*I fully expect to get called out for using this word. There is, unfortunately, no gender-neutral equivalent which conveys the meaning I'm seeking. *shakes fist at patriarchal language conventions*

How about artisan self promoting hack?

 

[Limerick Red]

Can anybody explain to me how it's possible to claim to be a radical leftie journo while adopting corporate practices like building a personal brand?

Because my pal, real communism has never being realised

"From each according to their ability, to each according to their personal brand"

 

[andysays]

How about artisan self promoting hack?

It doesn't quite convey the meaning I was going for, but I like your use of "artisan" to distinguish LP from more run of the mill self promoting hacks.

It doesn't actually mean anything, of course, but it adds a certain something which appears to raise it above the mundane, as long as you don't look too closely or think about how superficial it really is

 

[Bakunin]

A dishonest slagging of the Indy here I suspect. It's a journalist's job to go out and come up with stories not sit around waiting for the editor to drop them into her lap. And has she done any 'serious long form reporting' since then for the NS?

It is a dishonest slagging of the Independent, yes. And I'd have thought, as an experienced freelancer (I happen to be one. by the way) that she'd be well used to the idea of coming up with her own ideas, working them into pitches and suchlike and then running them by an editor for their approval or decline as that's what freelancers do. If you're freelance then you'll likely spend as much time looking for ideas and pitching them to people as you will writing. It's part of the job to find and develop your own ideas into something editors might be interested in.

And I don't recall Penny Dreadful managing much in the way of 'serious long form reporting' in any capacity, if I'm honest.

 

[rekil]

On the other hand, slagging off her former employer and not giving a hoot about how unprofessional or unwise it is proves that she's a proper revolutionary autonomist communist.

 

[Idris2002]

I'll just leave this here.

Ida Minerva Tarbell (November 5, 1857 – January 6, 1944) was an American teacher, author and journalist. She was one of the leading "muckrakers" of the progressive era. She wrote many notable magazine series and biographies. She is best known for her 1904 book The History of the Standard Oil Company, which was listed as No. 5 in a 1999 list by New York University of the top 100 works of 20th-century American journalism.[1] She depicted John D. Rockefeller as crabbed, miserly, money-grabbing, and viciously effective at monopolizing the oil trade.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Tarbell

 

[Bakunin]

On the other hand, slagging off her former employer and not giving a hoot about how unprofessional or unwise it is proves that she's a proper revolutionary autonomist communist.

I'm also curious as to why they kept her around for so long if they only sent her out to cover one story. Newspapers don't usually employ people for nine months with the intention of seldom using them at all unless their competence is doubtful or they're a nightmare to work with.

 

[andysays]

I'll just leave this here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Tarbell

That's all very well, but how many twitter followers did she have?

 

[Theisticle]

Penny was writing at least 1 or 2 articles a month for the Indy. It looks like she had free range on the topic matter.

http://www.independent.co.uk/biography/penny?pageNumber=1

She's incredibly bitter about one article she had to write. http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...u-really-need-to-ask-why-im-here-7986148.html

 

[Ole]

A technical question - what would happen if I went steaming in at these cunts on their Twitters when they reveal themselves as undercover class warriors for the 'successful' - I mean tactfully though, no naughty language or anything. Would they just be able to censor me anyway?

Are any of you lot already doing it?

I'm not having them pissing on the left like this without any aggravation.

 

[DotCommunist]

you'll be blocked swiftly