Firehose #95: Moynihan Goes Deep

Also: Introducing “Hardest Hits”!

The plane! The plane! Moynihan landed the plane!

* Here she is, folks: “How ‘Vice’ Went from a $6 Billion Media Empire to Bankruptcy.” The bottom two-thirds of Herr Moynihan’s long-awaited Free Press piece is behind a paywall, but you can listen for free to his Honestly convo with Bari Weiss (herself a past guest on Fifth Column Episodes #89, #115, #159, #180 and #187). An excerpt from the essay:

None of the founders had graduated college, but the misfit autodidacts were gradually overtaken by business school drones and J-school bores, all of whom assumed that great power demanded social responsibility. 

The boozy parties became less frequent, the content increasingly dreary and humorless, marked by undergraduate ideological obsessions. Vice was slowly transforming itself from the publication that gave America articles about “donkey fucking” and “piss dungeons” to a billion-dollar college newspaper. […]

There was, it seemed, no place for someone from the old Vice. A panel show I hosted was, in 2016, given the green light for a second season, until I was abruptly disinvited from further preproduction meetings, explicitly told that, while everyone liked me and the show was doing good numbers, it was determined that a more “diverse” host was required.

This would happen again four years later, at the start of the Covid pandemic, when Vice jettisoned a political satire pilot I was shooting that skewered both the vulgar populist right and the humorless woke left. The cancellation was never conveyed to me by management—who I didn’t speak to until almost three years later, when negotiating my severance. Meanwhile, those working with me were quietly relocated to a different opinion show, something I discovered from an article in a TV trade journal. That show, called A Seat at the Table, was hosted by a Harvard-educated millionaire whose latest book advocated the abolition of billionaires. The show would “offer regular people a chance to discuss the major issues of the day.” The first episode featured interviews with AOC and Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane. It was canceled after three months. 

So very much more where that came from. Reminder: Those of you who choose this opportunity to subscribe to The Free Press, make sure to tell ‘em who sent ya, since we like to encourage the publication of more Moyni-content. And for those who want to hear even more from the kiss-and-teller, listen to our Members Only Episodes #202 (“The End of Vice”) and #173 (“VICE Disgrace, Racist Boston, Racist Viruses”).

* What’s that you say? MORE, Moynihan verbiage? Indeed there is: As previewed in #457, here’s Ol’ Hollywood in the Washington Examiner, dropping truth-bombs on the new Black Panther hagiography. Solid headline, too: “The Big Cigar and the bullshistory of the Black Panthers.” Excerpt:

The affection between Newton and [Jim] Jones is unsurprising. One wouldn’t know it from the countless slobbering media productions — the pro-Panther films, TV shows, documentaries, plays, comic books — but Newton shared many traits with Jones beyond a penchant for paranoid conspiracy. They were both sexual predators who demanded unwavering loyalty from their adherents. (Jones was called “Father,” Newton “the Servant.”) Both were political simpletons, convinced that a Marxist revolution was peering around every corner. Both were violent fanatics, employing the language of peace while viewing every disagreement, no matter how minor, as an act of war. […]

When The Big Cigar shows Hollywood producer Bert Schneider facilitating Newton’s escape, he does so alongside his partner, the left-wing screenwriter Artie Ross, portrayed by Olli Haaskivi, who is shown to be an initially reluctant co-conspirator but one ultimately convinced of Newton’s moral righteousness. But Ross, who died in 2008, would likely have rankled at this portrayal. According to Ross’s sister Dorien, despite his ideological sympathies, he understood that Newton was essentially one of the bad guys: “Artie’s take on Huey Newton was that he was a crazy person who had killed all the people he said he had killed. Artie felt that he was in the midst of an insane thing because this guy was off the wall, seriously paranoid, got in fights wherever they went.” […]

It’s impossible to imagine a modern film in which the Panthers are the bad guys despite very often being the bad guys. The only film that treats the Panthers as anything other than heroes is a brief scene in Forrest Gump, where the group’s fanaticism and extremist rhetoric are played for laughs, though there is no suggestion that the group is honeycombed with murderers and crooks. On a recent PBS Newshour segment on the “misunderstood legacy” of the group, the academic Panther sympathizer interviewed bizarrely complains that “popular representations of the Black Panthers is wrong [because] so many people find out about the Panthers through Forrest Gump.” Time magazine, too, recently called the Panthers the “most misunderstood civil rights groups in American history” in a story trumpeting their “overlooked health programs.” NPR’s Weekend Edition likewise claimed in 2016 that the group’s “reputation has been mostly misunderstood.”

It’s an odd but persistent talking point, and one not supported by any evidence, that the Black Panthers are routinely dismissed by the media as a ganglike organization, often governed by violent psychopaths (which would, in fact, be a faithful description of the group). So it’s little surprise to see reviewers celebrating The Big Cigar for “help[ing] balance some of the biased media coverage” on the Panthers.

* Last add Pointyhands: The infamous “Dissident Dialogues” debate on Israel/Hamas between Moynihan & Eli Lake (#52, #65, #141, #174, Special Dispatch #51, #326, #368, #407, M.O. #184) versus Jake Klein and Briahna Joy Gray has at long last been released on video:

* Mentioned on both #457 and M.O. #211 (much to Moynihan’s chagrin!) was last weekend’s wild Libertarian National Convention, at which Donald Trump, RFK 2.0, and Vivek Ramaswamy (#411) all spoke, and where after much drama Chase Oliver won the L.P. presidential nomination. Three relevant Reason videos in quick succession, beginning with Zach Weissmueller’s coverage of the Trump speech:

Then Weissmueller joined The Reason Roundtable for a long chat about the proceedings:

Then Zach was back with Liz Wolfe, cross-examining Oliver about all the reasons why the Mises Caucus faction treats the nominee of the party they control with suspicion. Plenty of other topics, including immigration and Israel:

* We also talked a bit toward the middle of #457 about the double-life sentence of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who Trump at the Libertarian National Convention promised to set free. Turns out that Mr. Weissmueller has a short video documentary on that subject, too, dating back to 2020, when the then-president was reportedly considering (but ultimately decided against) a commutation:

* #457 was the first Fifth Column rodeo for pod-producing royalty Andy Mills and Matthew Boll. Here’s a link to “The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling,” here’s Andy’s recent turn on Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em, and here’s their pitch to you, dear listener:

We hope you’ll consider supporting this work, because increasingly, the major institutions either can’t or won’t. It’s one of the reasons we’re going independent: the kind of work we do is becoming disfavored by the dominant media structure. Squeezed by an ad market that makes it difficult to fund in-depth audio journalism, the major players are largely turning away from richly reported and beautifully-crafted shows, in favor of fast-turn talk shows that are much cheaper to make. 

Shows like ours take time, care, and obsessive attention to detail. We believe in the power of long form, open-minded, curiosity-driven audio journalism.

And we think listeners do, too.

* Time for some comic relief. As reffed on #211, here’s SNL’s wonderfully Dadaesque George Will Sports Machine:

* I know I’m heavy on Reason content this weekend, but as we are a video-over-indexing email newsletter, I would be remiss in not sharing the newly posted conversation between Nick Gillespie (S.D. #72, #379) and Glenn Greenwald (#183, #197, #211) about “the failing fortunes of The Intercept, the investigative website he co-founded in 2014 and had an acrimonious break with in 2020, the Israel/Gaza War, student protests on campuses, legacy media's obsession with disinformation ad Russian interference in the 2016 election, and whether a victory by President Joe Biden or Donald Trump would be worse for America—and the world.”

* How bad is the state of contemporary journalism? Read our pal Ben Dreyfuss (#83, #97, #148, #214, M.O. #129, M.O. #140, #392, M.O. #180), in a piece titled “My Dad Is In The News. The Fake News Tabloids Are Lying About My Reaction.” And yes, it gets worse.

* Speaking of crap journalism, I forget if it was in M.O. #210 or #455 or somewhere else, but Moynihan not long ago mentioned articles that injected identity politics into any damn fool thing, leading to variations on the classic joke about New York Times headlines: “World Ends Tomorrow: Women, Minorities Hardest Hit.” He then solicited you people to send us examples, and hoo boy, did you.

So here then is today’s inaugural entry in our new weekend sub-feature, Hardest Hits, from alert listener John S., who flagged this May 29 Stat News piece, “New obesity drugs are seemingly everywhere. Black Americans feel left out.” Let’s create a little template for enjoying such stories, shall we?

The Big ‘But’:

GLP-1 drugs, a class that includes Ozempic, are transforming the treatment of diabetes and obesity. Studies have been finding they have benefits for heart health and other conditions, too. But many Black Americans, including patients like Gustave and medical experts, worry that their community is being left behind. They say, too, that the public’s obsession with the drugs serves as a reminder of how Black bodies are policed and judged by society.

Misery Scorecard:

Black Americans have long had higher than average rates of chronic disease, for reasons that include disparities in income and education; less access to health insurance, housing, healthy food; and the “weathering” of racism-related stress. According to federal health data, 12% of non-Hispanic Black adults had diagnosed diabetes in 2021, a rate surpassed only by American Indians and Alaska Natives; non-Hispanic Black adults have the highest rates of obesity, based on body mass index, at nearly 50%. Recent studies, though, found that Black people with diabetes are less likely to be prescribed GLP-1 drugs.

Expert Texpert:

Fatima Cody Stanford, an obesity medicine physician-scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital, has tracked the nation’s obsession with weight loss over her 20 years as a physician. With the new era of anti-obesity medications, the lines between who has access to it and who doesn’t continue to be defined.

“I think the conversation is definitely missing the Black community,” said Stanford, who has consulted with companies that make GLP-1s. “We hear the privileged white voice in the community because that’s usually who can afford it and who gets the access and care.”

Come Again?:

While we reached out to dozens of Black men, it became clear that Black women’s bodies are policed, surveilled, and judged more often than anyone else. Research shows that anti-Black and anti-fat structures in society have contributed to the distorted view society has of Black women. For example, beauty standards label Black women’s bodies as thick, too thin, or curvy. And media representation has a long history of stereotyping Black women’s bodies as deviant or hypersexual, as detailed in a 2020 journal article, “‘I’m Supposed To Be Thick’: Managing Body Image Anxieties Among Black American Women.”

Listener Comment: “An article with more plot twists than the bizarro Libertarian Party convention.” Thanks, John S.!

* Here are some upcoming events of potential interest. (And yes, yes, we will be making our Aug. 17 Chicago tickets available soon, initially to paying subscribers.) On Thursday, June 6, our beloved Kmele is teaming up with Moynihan’s West Coast galpal Lara Bazelon (#357, #369, #417) in a Free Press debate against Michael Shellenberger and Seneca Scott over whether “criminal justice reform has made our cities unsafe.” That same day, in Washington, D.C., me & the Reason Roundtable crew will be taping a live show, though it’s waiting-list only at this point. On June 11 in NYC, school choice evangelist Corey DeAngelis comes to the Reason Speakeasy to talk about his new book, The Parent Revolution: Rescuing Your Kids from the Radicals Ruining Our Schools.

* Comment of the Week is a tag-team effort, initiated by Søren in his warm bath….

Moynihan should just write some notes and wing a series of digressive solo episodes, one devoted to each guilty party. Seriously might make the project more manageable, push him to do just enough research to get them out, break that writer's block and even serve as the basis for a fun collection of essays on the subjects, if he wanted to tighten things up and cash in.

I'm sure we'd all love it - and I know plenty of slightly edgy Gen-Z types who'd love a cutting, funny, well-read take on why all the sacred cows on campus were far from holy. Grow the pod, have some fun -- why not?

… and completed by AW:

I think each of them should do a solo project like that for the fifdom. And then do a members only podcast with the other two where they can talk about the backstory and process after it premieres.

* Walkoff music is definitely not a metaphor for American politics: