Matt Taibbi has left Rolling Stone and gone independent.

[PufPuf23]

Taibbi has ebbed as a favorite at DU. IMO Taibbi is one of the few investigative journalists.

Announcement to Readers: I'm Moving

Substack is now my full-time job.

From now on, my online writing will be published on Substack. This is my full-time job now.

I first started writing for Rolling Stone in 2003 and will continue a relationship with my good friends there, contributing print features and also maintaining the Useful Idiots podcast with Katie Halper. I love Rolling Stone and have been proud to represent the magazine over the years. If anyone cares to know, I wasn’t asked to leave.

I’ve been thinking about this for some time. Having had experience with Substack – I’ve serialized two books here in the last few years, including Hate Inc.– I believe the path for independent journalists is in a subscriber-based model.

more at: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/announcement-to-readers-im-moving

[msongs]

1. media minister for bernie? nt

[Tommy_Carcetti]

2. But is he really "independent"?

Much like Robert Parry became "independent"?

[PufPuf23]

4. Please bring me up to speed on Robert Parry.

Thank you in advance.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

5. At one point, back in the 1980s, he was a respectable investigative journalist.

Worked for the AP and Newsweek, won a Polk Award for his stories on Iran-Contra.

Somewhere in between 1990 and 2014--not sure exactly when--something happened.

He left Newsweek, opened up his own outfit called Consortium News.

In 2014, he began running stories falsely categorizing the mass Ukrainian demonstrations against their autocratic leader Victor Yanukovych as a Western sponsored coup (echoing the Kremlin line), and subsequently defended the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea. When Russian sponsored militants shot down Malaysian Air Flight 17 over Eastern Ukraine in the Summer of 2014, Parry openly speculated that it was actually the Ukrainian military who shot down the plane because he claims they mistook it for Vladimir Putin's presidential airplane.

Parry continued to frequently parrot Russian state media propaganda lines up until his death in 2018.

My guess is that he somehow became compromised at some point down the line by the Russian government, and spent the last years of his life helping to disseminate their disinformation to gullible Westerners, including many people here at DU.

[PufPuf23]

11. Thank you. Had not followed Parry much in recent years

and did not know Parry RIP nor the connection with Consortium News (that cannot recall last time I read).

My partaking of Parry pretty much follows over time his regard and attention at DU.

IMO to state compromised is too often a negative spin on difference of perspective. It is good to have more than one perspective to consider.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

13. Agree that it is good to consider more than one perspective, but Parry in his latter years...

...was only considering the perspective of the Russian government above all others.

And he was repeating claims from them that were quite easily debunkable as complete nonsense. The MH17 conspiracy theory being a prime example. No right minded person actually believed that.

[JHB]

23. It's been a few years since I read stuff by him, but...

...but I do recall thinking "All he's doing is undermining his earlier work."

[Indykatie]

6. I Agree That "Independent" is A Stretch If Describing MT. I'll Take David Corn Any Day Over MT.

[snowybirdie]

3. Used to like his work

but in recent years, he's gone further left. Haven't like his positions. Too radical for me. Good luck!

[texasleo]

7. No Pravda?

[still_one]

27. +++

[UTUSN]

28. ****texasleo -----------WOW!**** A legendary DUer!

[dweller]

30. oy

✌🏼

[50 Shades Of Blue]

8. He can take his rancid misogyny and disappear forever AFAIC.

[sloopy]

32. Totally agree.

good riddance

[ismnotwasm]

9. Eh.

Probably for the best

[HarlanPepper]

10. Is he going to TASS or PRAVDA?

Or maybe RT with a daily show?

[PufPuf23]

12. I had no idea that Taibbi had fallen so far in regard at DU. nt

[Hortensis]

22. For any pundit, monitor for lies.

Truth serves the liberal Democratic Party far, FAR better than it does the illiberal left and today's right.

Notably, extremism, on the rise in this dangerous era across the spectrum, requires dishonesty to exist. Truth always goes mainstream, and those indulging or supporting extremism must reject and defeat mainstream thinking, whatever it is.

[Stevegberg]

24. "Truth always goes mainstream."

?

[Hortensis]

31. Sooner or later, but most sooner. Think about it.

[burrowowl]

14. Kick

[Hortensis]

15. For me the division between strong but responsible radicalism

and something very different, whether extremist or other orientations, is easily identified by abandonment of honesty. When someone must support his position with lies and attacks, as Taibbi too often does, he's a toxic political agent for something that should not be supported.

There really is a strong connection between truth and right, truth and good, truth and understanding. And between deceit and betrayal.

In contrast, Thomas Jefferson is often pointed to as radical, and he unquestionably was for that age. But he was always honest and honorable, and so respected by a broad spectrum of his peers that leaders in both Virginia's 250-year-old, wealthy elite colonial government and the revolutionaries forming a national government repeatedly pleaded for him to work with them.

Taibbi is no Jefferson, and we know from his writings that Jefferson would have nothing to do with him. If Taibbi's divorcing himself from whatever editorial control Rolling Stone had over him, it's not going to be for the good.

[demmiblue]

16. He has written some good stuff, but I will never see him in the same light...

after reading about his time in Russia.

[Dem4Life1102]

17. Good riddance!

Never trusted or liked him. Too damn smug.

[UTUSN]

18. Have only seen some YouTubes of him. He wasn't original, incisive or intreresting.

[PufPuf23]

19. Who are your favorite investigative journalists? nt

[UTUSN]

21. I'm not immersed.

[DarthDem]

20. Bet this was Rolling Stone's idea

It certainly should have been, anyway.

[rufus dog]

25. Does the new job pay in USD? NT

[grantcart]

26. My guess is bit coins lol

[sweetloukillbot]

29. I vaguely remember an interview where he started he was libertarian

He’s one of those who aligned somewhat when criticizing Bush, but then was equally critical of Obama abs showed his true colors.
Kinda like Greenwald.