A Newsletter With An Eye On Political Media from The American Prospect
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A NEWSLETTER WITH AN EYE ON POLITICAL MEDIA

MARESA PETTERSON

Goodbye and Thanks

And Victor Navasky remembered

So, this is my last Altercation newsletter. I'm not being fired or
anything. It's just that the foundation that was paying for it, the
Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, made a two-year commitment to
the Prospect right before it spent down all its funds. This month also
marks, almost exactly, the 30-year anniversary of the moment I first
began my now-ended streak of having my own column. It began with Mother
Jones <[link removed]> in 1993 and
then Rolling Stone <[link removed]>
a year later and eventually resulted in long stints with The Nation
<[link removed]> (25 years), MSNBC.com
(12 years; no archives), the Center for American Progress
<[link removed]> (14 years),
and much shorter stints at-as I count them-seven other publications
and/or websites during the same period.

I was thinking of trying to write something deep and meaningful, but
then, first thing Tuesday morning, I received a call that Victor Navasky
<[link removed]>
had died. Victor published my first-ever piece in a national magazine
back in March 1983 before hiring me and giving me a column 12 years
later. Since then, he's been a dear friend, a mentor, and a role
model; not merely as a journalist and a scholar, but also-and I know
this is weird given what different personality types we are-a person.
I could go on about this for pages and pages, but I'll just say this:
The fundamental genius of Victor that I have always tried (and most
often failed) to emulate was his ability to care about little things as
much as he cared about big things; he cared about individual people as
much as he cared about millions of people; he had an incredible gift for
being interested in almost everyone and finding something worthwhile in
spending time listening to their thoughts and doing what he could to
help with their problems. If he could not help you with something, he
reached into his unimaginably enormous network of friends and
professional acquaintances to find someone who maybe could. This was
true whether you were his friend or just someone who needed help. His
generosity was matched only by his wiles and parsimony. Victor's
memory is already a blessing, not only to me and the thousands of lives
he touched personally, but also to the millions of people who live on a
nicer, fairer planet thanks to his (literally) undying efforts.

Here <[link removed]> is the
best profile of Victor I've so far come across, and the photo above of
the two of us was taken at my 60th birthday party, just over three years
ago.

[link removed]

**** As for me, my career in journalism (as opposed to my contiguous
career in academia) has had, as I understand it, three phases. In its
earliest one, I began believing that the truth would set us free. By
that I mean that better information provided to citizens via good
journalism would lead them to pursue politics in a more sensible, and
possibly humane, fashion and that my job would be to be such a provider.
That's nonsense, of course. I should have listened harder to Paul
Simon when he instructed us that "a man hears what he wants to hear
and disregards the rest <[link removed]>" back in 1970.
(I've now used that quote as an epigraph for two of my books, spaced
exactly 30 years apart-so you'd think I would have understood it
better.)

In my second phase, I had hopes that by focusing attention on the lies,
dissimulations, ideological assumptions, and cowardice of the mainstream
media-particularly given its members' desire to kowtow to their
conservative critics who evinced no respect or even interest in either
the craft of journalism or truth itself-I might be able to embarrass
these same journalists into doing a better job. I was willing to make
enemies in the service of this cause, even, when necessary, with the
folks who buy ink by the barrel
<[link removed]>.
But eventually, it became clear to me that MSM journalists are
ultimately unembarrassable. The weaknesses of the MSM are more
pronounced than ever. Every week for the past two years, when I have
looked for a lead item for Altercation, I've been overwhelmed by
potential examples. For instance, were I doing a detailed disquisition
this week, I could have picked:

This ridiculous piece in Politico
<[link removed]>,
which compares Republican and Democratic (though actually bipartisan,
since we're talking about the January 6th Committee) investigative
techniques without taking note that one of them was investigating a
violent attempt to overthrow the duly elected government of the United
States while the other one wants to focus on dick pics-among other no
less relevant issues as they relate to the actual governance of the
United States-in the laptop computer of the president's son, a son
who played no role whatsoever in the government. (This is in contrast to
Jared Kushner, who did and received payments in the billions of dollars
from foreign autocracies in apparent gratitude for his willingness to
help mitigate the reaction to their murder and dismemberment of
journalists and dissidents
<[link removed]>.

Or

This almost unbelievably stupid story
<[link removed]>
about a Tucker Carlson-inspired-I can't believe I'm writing
these words-"scandal" about female names given to M&M flavors,
which the Times poses as a problem for the manufacturer because it
"found itself in the culture wars." A better headline would have
been "Nothing is too ridiculous for Tucker Carlson to pretend to care
about or for The New York Times to write about, as we continue to do
everything to kowtow to right-wing lunatics who hate journalism and
don't care about truth, but somehow intimidate us into making jerks of
ourselves with headlines like this one above stupid stories like this
one" (or something like that).

Or

What about this Times story
<[link removed]>?
My alternative headline: "Biden and Trump's documents cases are
completely different, but we intend to cover them as if they are exactly
the same, because, as with Hillary Clinton's emails, we like to blow
up phony Democratic 'scandals,' to the point where they appear at
least as egregious as, say, the treasonous crimes."

Additionally, does the fact that the Times Twitter feed had to post this
explanation tell you anything about the assumption that underlies its
(and to be fair, most mainstream) journalism? "Correction: An earlier
tweet misstated the nature of recent debt ceiling showdowns. Both
parties are responsible for the debt, but only Republicans are using it
as a political tool. We deleted the incorrect tweet.
<[link removed]>"

I could go on, almost endlessly, but my point here is that in my third
phase, I realized the primary value of what I wrote was in (a) keeping
myself (relatively) sane, and (b) helping my readers to feel that they
were also sane despite what they were reading and seeing elsewhere, and
perhaps even a little less alone in the world as a result.

The key question I want to leave people with is this: Given the lack of
guardrails, how far are these people willing to go? Trump is as popular
as he was before January 6th
<[link removed]>
and has been invited back on Twitter
<[link removed]>,
Facebook, and Instagram <[link removed]>.
His only credible alternative for the Republican nomination at this
point, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, is in many significant respects even
worse
<[link removed]>
than Trump. Kevin McCarthy is elevating lunatic insurrectionists who
fear Jewish space lasers and children's books about loving gay parents
to positions with real power
<[link removed]> and rejecting
people merely because they are competent and committed to the
Constitution
<[link removed]>.
Tucker Carlson, a paranoid, racist co-conspirator of the morally
disgusting Alex Jones
<[link removed]>,
has the highest ratings in cable news. Thanks in part to a great lineup
at the New York Jewish Film Festival
<[link removed]> this
month, I've just recently seen a whole bunch of films about the fate
of fascism in Germany
<[link removed]>,
Austria <[link removed]>,
France <[link removed]>, Ukraine
<[link removed]>, and Poland
<[link removed]>-I'm considering Stalinism
to be a form of fascism here-and another about Eichmann's trial and
death in Israel <[link removed]>, and
elsewhere in theaters about town, about fascism in Argentina
<[link removed]>, in Italy
<[link removed]> (which I wrote about here
<[link removed]>),
and another one about Austria <[link removed]>.
They speak to this question, which has long been on my mind: How far are
these people willing to go and what is to stop them?

My answer is that I really don't know. I just know I never imagined,
when I began writing about the overall awfulness of the American right
and the wimpiness of its left, that my country would ever face a
question like this one.

****

**** In We Are Not One: A History of America's Fight Over Israel
<[link removed]>
news, here's <[link removed]> a nice
long interview Andrew Silow-Carroll did with me for the Jewish
Telegraphic Agency. If you want to see me talk about it, there will be a
Zoom event with David Kraemer of the Jewish Theological Seminary on
February 7 (register here
<[link removed]'s-fight-over-israel-discussion-with-eric-alterman/e453490>)
and another on February 15 with Kai Bird, sponsored by the CUNY Center
for Jewish Studies (register here
<[link removed]>).
If you want to keep up with my future talks or writing, I will be
listing them on my open Facebook page
<[link removed]> and Twitter feed
<[link removed]>. I have also registered an
Altercation Substack page <[link removed]>, and so
can you. It's free, but I have not yet decided how or if I will use
it, as I have always been a fan of Samuel Johnson and I would not wish
him to think me a blockhead
<[link removed]>
should he, Navasky, and I ever share a martini in the great hereafter
...

****

The Music Part

I caught Scott Robinson this week leading the Octet in a celebration of
the tenor sax and flute man Frank Wess, who most people know from his
many years with the iconic Count Basie Orchestra. Wess was one of its
longest-living members and he formed a partnership with the reedist
Robinson, who put together this standout band
<[link removed]> that sends one back into the
past in the best possible way. They'll be playing two sets through
Saturday night at Birdland <[link removed]> to celebrate
Wess's 101st birthday and you can say hello to Wess's widow, Sara
Tsutsumi, after the show. Bonus: Here <[link removed]> is
a video of then 87-year-old Wess and Robinson burning up the joint back
in 2009.

Well, that's about it. But because tramps like me were this
<[link removed]>, I must finally say to all my readers
this <[link removed]>, and finally, offer a heartfelt this
<[link removed]>.

****

~ ERIC ALTERMAN

Read the Altercation Archive <[link removed]>

Eric Alterman is a CUNY Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn
College, an award-winning journalist, and the author of 12 books, most
recently

**We Are Not One: A History of America's Fight Over Israel** (Basic
Books, November 2022). Previously, he wrote The Nation's "Liberal
Media" column for 25 years. Follow him on Twitter @eric_alterman
<[link removed]>

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