[Freddie deBoer] Accountability is a Prerequisite of Respect

There is no mainstream media criticism of BlackLivesMatter. There isn’t. There’s explicitly conservative criticism and “Intellectual Dark Web” stuff, which liberals and Very Serious media types dismiss out of hand, somewhat fairly given that much of it is batshit “BLM is a George Soros conspiracy” stuff. And then there’s a small handful of mostly independent, generally small-audience critics from the left who those same liberals and media types simply assert are part of the former group - if you criticize BlackLivesMatter, you are definitionally conservative. Within the liberal media itself there is nothing. There is almost no honest, adult criticism of BlackLivesMatter within establishment media. I encourage you to look for yourself. The number of pieces that are genuinely critical of BlackLivesMatter (and not simply the unpopularity of Defund the Police or critical race theory or questions about the potential corruption of particular leaders) in the NYT or WaPo or New York magazine or other large establishment media publications is pitiful. The Vox/Buzzfeed-style online only liberal publications and the liberal nonprofit types… forget it, man. Tumbleweeds.

What’s more, there is no meta-conversation about this total lack of criticism from mainstream media’s typical internal critics and media reporters. If an employee at The Atlantic calls himself an Associate Editor on his Tinder profile when he’s just an Assistant Editor, Erik Wemple will run a 3,000 word column about it, but he’s not writing about the entire mainstream press refusing to write critically about one of the biggest stories of the past decade. Ben Smith at The New York Times will wring out a piece about what journalists playing Fortnite in their off hours means for the industry but he can’t be bothered to ask “hey, why are the major newspapers and magazines offering universally positive coverage of a highly-contentious and very important movement?” (I emailed both Smith and Wemple to let them have their say. Wemple didn’t respond; Smith did not want to comment. He did, however, consent to me running his photo up at the top.)

Wemple and Smith won’t ever critique the media for its conspicuous silence on this topic for the same reason that so many journalists and writers who spend their entire lives critiquing won’t do so: they’re scared. Wemple and Smith are afraid that asking why the mainstream media doesn’t critically cover BLM will damage their careers and their friendships. And the mainstream media doesn’t critically cover BLM, in large measure, for the same reason - fear. Who experiences 2020, with its absolute lunatic culture of don’t ask questions, and says “yeah I want to stick my neck out and risk being the subject of a dogpile in this financially crippled industry?” You’d like to think that integrity would mean something, but, well… we’re talking about establishment media.

Those within social justice politics defined broadly, the journalists and writers but definitely the activists and academics, insists that we simply accept all such claims as true at all times, if they come branded with the right buzzwords and phraseology. Isn’t that strange? In what other realm of human affairs do people so often say, “oh, they’re saying that this is the way to end problem X - therefore that must be true, and if others even ask whether it is in fact true, they are guilty of not caring about Problem X or even actively working to make Problem X worse.” Adults ask questions! Especially about important stuff! Especially about politics and justice! What is controversial about asking for that? What is contrarian about asking for that?

When a politician comes out with a tax plan, journalists and analysts look at it and say, “does this tax plan add up? Does it have the markings of an effective tax plan?” They’ll poke holes in it - yes, if it’s from the other party, but also if it’s from their own. Because they know we need tested and robust tax plans. But when Ibram Kendi says, “all of my vague recriminations and radical-sounding racialist woowoo is the solution to racism,” every journalist and analyst you know scratches their beard and says, “ah yes, indeed,” and they don’t even say that very loudly. But where’s the proof that any of Kendi’s rhetoric actually leads to any action at all? That such action does/could prompt positive change? Who is checking his work? What has Ibram Kendi’s ideology accomplished, beyond enriching Ibram Kendi? Can we point to, like, a graph that shows the outcome of his good works? It certainly seems that we can’t. Since this is the case, why does 95% of the journalism that references Kendi make literally no mention of the basic concept of efficacy?