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Business Insider Succumbs to the Mob
It’s becoming a frightening phenomenon for those who care about the future of journalism: opinion journalists are being censured for having unpopular opinions. Recently The Atlantic fired former National Review columnist Kevin Williamson immediately after hiring him. Williamson was the victim of a social media mob to have him ousted. He wrote about the experience for the Wall Street Journal, explaining how the Twitter mob led to the Atlantic’s decision to succumb to the calls for his head.
The Atlantic wasn’t as couragous as the New York Times, who have faced countless calls for the firing one of their opinion editors, Bari Weiss. Since her hiring, there have been calls for her firing. After every semi-controversial tweet or piece, the calls return. She even faced an internal revolt of her colleagues who feigned outrage over a tweet of Weiss’ applauding immigrants. Yes, you read that right.
Now on the chopping block: Business Insider columnist Daniella Greenbaum, in another instance where her colleagues are leading the mob. In a now deleted tweet, one of these colleagues explains why a recent column (still available here) of Greenbaum’s was pulled off the website:
The link is from the Daily Beast, who explain,
In the piece, she criticized the backlash to the decision to cast Johansson as a trans man in the upcoming movie, Rub and Tug.
“The job of an actor is to represent someone else,” Greenbaum wrote. “Johansson’s identity off the screen is irrelevant to the identities she plays on the screen. That’s what she’s paid for. And if she does her job, she’ll make everyone forget about the controversy in the first place.”
Several Business Insider staff told The Daily Beast that some employees were offended by the column.
The publication took down the piece on Friday, and appended an editor’s note to the page on Tuesday saying that “Business Insider removed the column because, upon further review, we decided it did not meet our editorial standards.”
The decision also prompted the publication to alter its own internal editorial policies.
From a purely managerial standpoint, this is a terrible move on the part of Business Insider. A group of offended employees are now determining what posts can stay on the website after they’ve been published. Other opinion editors like Weiss and my husband, the op-ed editor at the New York Post, rightly pointed out how troubling the move was from a journalistic standpoint:
Let me get this straight. @DGreenbaum says ScarJo should be able to play a trans man. @businessinsider pulls her piece because some staffers complain about her entirely anodyne view. What happens when a columnist writes something controversial?https://t.co/06aOiMvREj
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) July 10, 2018
Business Insider looks sooooo bad here. Internal revolts in every opinion section that hires a conservative is expected at this point. But management should stop catering to these garbage babies https://t.co/glpD3J7CWd
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) July 10, 2018
And that Business Insider writer who tweeted about those courageous colleagues who got the piece pulled? She claims it’s because Greenbaum had no expertise in the subject matter of her column. I’ll leave you with this:
Since she's concerned about the author's lack of expertise, I guess she shouldn't write about agriculture. pic.twitter.com/vHPTdwNyqn
— Scroll Past This Tweet (@scrollpastthis) July 10, 2018
Published in Journalism
Business Insider has never been a paragon of journalistic integrity. They’ve always been the “business” version of Buzzfeed and Gawker.
Indeed. Business Insider succumbs to Business Insider.
Who cares about these publications? Their censorship and firing/hiring business decisions are their own as private entities. Seth’s post was spot on, but let these folks live and die by their choices. However, I’m not saying Seth or others should stop their criticisms. Exposing the left’s assault on free speech (or journalism) is a noble cause.
There is no law that says a tranny (yes, I’m using the term) character must be played by a real-life transsexual, so you go Scarlett! I believe Mila Kunis was similarly railed against because her real “race” didn’t match that of the character (wish I could remember the movie).
Whites in blackface are one thing, but did the producers of Tootsie make a mistake when they casted Dustin Hoffman to play the title role instead of a real transvestite?
OTOH, maybe Dustin had an inside track because of his lacy bra and thong . . . just kidding!
But maybe some Hollywood actors and actresses are waking up to the fact their rejections for certain roles could be because they are “not a real XYZ like the character”. Will it happen? Damned if I know . . .
Look on the bright side. If having “zero expertise” is now the criteria for redacting opinion pieces, the amount of reading we’ll have to do will be reduced by about 90%, including virtually all of Business Insider.
I commend Seth for the culturally-appropriate use of the phrase “garbage babies” in his tweet!
Business Insider illustrates the Gell-Mann amnesia effect.
Also, if we’re going to get all worked up, what about the recent revival of The King and I in which Japanese actor Ken Watanabe plays The King? We’re supposed to settle for “just” an Asian male when there must be perfectly acceptable Thai actors out there looking for work? Who speaks for them?
There are no finer casts than Siams.
Transgender people spend large portions of their lives acting the part of the gender they aren’t – or don’t feel right about. So an actor will be doing the same only in the opposite.
I’m a huge fan of the art of acting. (To people who put it down, I say, try it and get back to me. )It’s highly informative and it helps us understand people and psychology.
These people are making Victorian prudes look tame.
Hey if Dustin Hoffman can play a mentally ill man in Rain Man, why can’t Johansson play one in this movie?
If incompetence is exclusionary papers will lose dozens of chaps, perhaps hundreds.
Thousands, even.
Not to mention Lieutenant Sulu being played by a Korean-American in the AbramsTrek movies.
Reportedly, J.J. Abrams was originally hesitant about casting a Korean-American actor as Sulu, but then George Takei gave his blessing to the casting, saying that Sulu “represents all of Asia”.
I mean, if George Takei says it’s ok…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikaru_Sulu#Depiction
How about if ScarJo played the before, Chaz Bono the after, and motion capture Andy Serkis the in-between using a progressive morph of ScarJo and Bono?
Remember the outrage at Alexander Hamilton being played by a Puerto Rican?
I’m sure many of those who protested the original casting for the Broadway production of Miss Saigon went nuts over Hamilton. But not in the same way as they did over Miss Saigon.
You truly need a rulebook to play along with Leftist games.
Only if it is written in pencil, and you have an eraser on hand at all times.
You wish to remember a movie that had Mila Kunis in it?
For your sake I hope you’ve been drinking.
Didn’t the owner of the Red Hen succumb to the wishes of her employees? She took a vote, I believe. So that is how businesses apparently work now.
From here on out, cartoons may only be reviewed by cartoon characters.
This could serve as my entrée for journalism as a second career.
Hey, Ted was distracting a couple of times.
I can’t always be at church, working, coaching flag football, or on a plane, you know!
She was great in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
Indeed, he should have been played by someone from Nevis.
Can you imagine running your house that way? Okay, kids, a vote? What do you want for dinner? Oh ice cream again? Okay then! Democracy rules!
She is “great” in no movies. She is sometimes in movies that rise to greatness.
I wager that she gets so much work because she’s probably a consummate professional on set, and directors like to work with her. Same goes for Leonardo DiCaprio, who I cannot stand but who directors really like to work with.
(Music producer David Foster once said of Celine Dion, “she doesn’t always give me greatness, but she always gives me exactly what I ask for.”)
It was a sham vote. She knew they were going to approve. Any employee who dared to dissent would have been ostracised by the others and “encouraged” to quit their job.
“Consensus decision-making,” is always tyrannical.
My kids sure think they can veto things in my house. It’s a long and painful lesson they’re learning.
I thought she played her part very well!
Speaking of great movies, I loved Prometheus . . .
Whenever I wanted pizza delivery for dinner, I always put it up for a vote because I could count on a 4-1 victory . . .
Yabbut, she didn’t ask them what to do. She told them what she wanted to do and then she asked if they approved. Therefore, the parenting analogy would be more like, “Okay kids, I think we should vacation at Disneyworld. How many of you agree with me?”
If the restaurant owner had wanted to do something that she knew the staff wouldn’t approve, she never would have taken a vote.
The most powerful political position is the officer who decides which votes come to the floor.
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