E141. Matt Taibbi Discusses The Failure of Traditional News Media

Matt Taibbi, author and journalist, drops in to discuss the state of modern journalism, why it's increasingly difficult to source news you trust, "soft" censorship, link rot and stories that disappear, the instinct to conformity that is an epidemic in newsrooms right now, and why eventually the mob will always come for you. They cover Matt's background, how he comes from a family of reporters, what he learned from his dad about how to treat sources, his 10 years in Russia running his own newspaper, how Americans don't have any sense of what it means to lose their ability to speak openly, the evolution of Substack, when the "subscriber bubble" will burst, the disincentives to doing in-depth, long form reporting these days, an audience's ability to parse nuance, their willingness to question their own motives, and why the problem with the rhino is the problem with everything. Check out Matt's Substack here.