Chris Hughes: crafting a sustainable non-apology
In the larger scheme of things, the TNR flap I wrote about Saturday is minor, although it’s part of a more major trend towards intellectually shallow, market-driven, youth-oriented, agenda-based, media.
But I just couldn’t resist fisking this piece of apologia sans apology by Chris Hughes, the youthful owner of TNR who has managed to deeply offend nearly its entire staff, not only by his vision for the future of the magazine, but by the duplicitous and underhanded way in which he treated the editors he was firing.
Beginning with its title, “Crafting a Sustainable New Republic,” which is a model of Newspeak (“crafting” and “sustainable” being the buzzwords du jour), Hughes’ piece is emblematic of how to “craft” a self-serving pile of verbiage that carefully avoids saying anything honest.
Hughes wants to redo the magazine. Fine. But he acts as though what occurred there under his watch somehow just happened through mysterious and inevitable forces of modernization and progress:
Last week, about a dozen members of the editorial staff of the New Republic walked out in protest over new leadership. By their account, this was a clash of cultures : Silicon Valley versus tradition, and everyone must choose a side. I believe this dangerously oversimplifies a debate many journalistic institutions are having today. They were colleagues whom I personally liked and respected, so I was sad to see them go and regret much of how it happened. But the New Republic is too important an institution to accept their departures as its end.
Hughes is the passive observer of their mysterious departure rather than its catalyst. They “walked out in protest over new leadership,” and who was that new leader? A person could read that entire paragraph and not know it was Hughes himself. And although Hughes says it was a dozen members of the editorial staff who left, Hughes is minimizing here because the exodus actually was much larger than that, involving “the resignation of 19 full-time staffers and 31 contributing editors.” That’s 31 out of a total of 38 contributing editors listed, by the way.
Maybe Hughes has as much trouble counting as he reportedly has in dealing with people. It wasn’t just the “Silicon Valley versus tradition” battle that made them all resign; that characterization of Hughes’ “dangerously oversimplifies” what happened, including this:
While the clash was portrayed by Vidra [and Hughes] as new media versus old media, staffers critical of the moves noted that digital talent also quit.
But really, the best example of Hughes’ mealy-mouthed way of referring to what he did and the editors’ reaction to it is this:
I was sad to see them go and regret much of how it happened.
No Hughes action and editor reaction there, just Hughes’ grief (and crocodile tears). What Hughes regrets, no doubt, is that he’s been fingered by the staff as the reason they left, including his heavy-handed, tone-deaf, and insulting way of treating his fellow human beings.
I’ll leave the matter at that, because I’ve probably wasted way too much time on it already. But weasel words masquerading as earnest sincerity raise my hackles. Unfortunately, they are becoming more and more frequent as time goes on.
No Hughes action and editor reaction there…
Mistakes were made. Sh*t happens…
You’re saying he’ no Donald Trump?
Reading that lame piece by Hughes makes it abundantly clear that he and the veteran staff were in two totally separate leagues from the get-go. You’d think he would have enough moxie to see that the caliber of their writing alone is head and shoulders above his. But I guess no self-knowledge there, otherwise embarrassment would be his reaction. The staff meetings since he took over must have been torturous.
“But weasel words masquerading as earnest sincerity raise my hackles. Unfortunately, they are becoming more and more frequent as time goes on.”
Does it surprise you that some people get upset when apologies like these aren’t accepted?
They’ll make claims that you’re a hard-hearted unforgiving person.
I look forward the free-range, hand-woven, 100% organic drivel that the new New Republic will offer that replaces the old drivel.
Funny that Hughes is so concerned about “sustainability” now, seeing as how he said that wasn’t his priority when he took over TNR in 2012:
Makes his op-ed sort of a crock, doesn’t it?
Yancey Ward:
I much prefer the old drivel.
But maybe the new drivel will be better after all, because it will be so boring no one will read it.
its not dead.. and given that these are employees, its going to continue as he will just hire replacements… those that work are always amazed that they are not the critical cogs they imagine themselves to be. and all these people leaving are a boon, as its not their business, its his. good or ill, they do not get to choose or exist in the job so that its fulfilling their ideas… maybe thats how it WAS when they were bought out, but thats not how it is now.
ultimately… it wont make a bit of difference in the longer run, and people may be surprised that without the ideological hide bound entitlement clique, it eventually finds its footing and does better…
I could give a *#%! about TNR or the fate of its editors and writers, but this episode paints a broader picture of the culture of Silicon Valley that is damning. Pretentious intellectualism and hubris will be their downfall. The scary part is that they are involved with robotics and spying. They represent mind without morals.
“this episode paints a broader picture of the culture of Silicon Valley that is damning.”
Liberalism dominates Silicon Valley, Seattle (where Microsoft is) and Massachusetts with its high-tech companies.
I’m more than willing to acknowledge their technical brilliance and imagination, but they’re about moral agnosticism or moral relativism.
And I’m more than willing to acknowledge that Hollywood puts out some excellent movies that stir the emotions while controlling the narrative.
Following a trail of links, of I came to yet another link; this one, embedded in a Tim Dickenson authored Rolling Stone follow-up article rebutting a Koch Industries rebuttal of a yet earlier Rolling Stone story on Koch.
That’s a link supposedly exemplifying bad behavior, contained within a rebuttal of a rebuttal.
Anyway, Dickenson, accusing Koch of a breach of ethics in publishing their e-mail correspondence with him, nevertheless leads us to this interesting passage contained in the Koch e-mail exchange with him. Koch says to Dickenson regarding some of his potential sources,
What’s the last name there?
Oh yeah, the relatively new owner of The New Republic. The same guy whose management actions incited a mass resignation of fellow progressives from the staff of the liberal opinion journal.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/05/the-new-republic-implodes.html
Sad or not, and I think it is more comical than sad – it certainly is ironic.
I have been long on the look out for a man to appear who will carry out my ideal of government by journalism
I am certain that such a man will come to the front some day, and I wonder if you are to be that man. You have many of the qualities such a man must possess. You have youth, energy, great journalistic flaire, adequate capital, boundless ambition – yes, you have all these. But – but, I am not sure you have got a soul, and if you have not a soul all the other things are as nothing – William Thomas Stead to William Randolph Hearst
what is this “Government by Journalism”?
They decide what their readers shall know, or what they shall not know. One man is a favourite with the press, and his speeches are reported in the first person. Another man has offended the reporters or the editor, and his remarks are cut down to a paragraph. – William Thomas Stead
But in the inmost soul of him—and he has a soul and has found it—there is a desire to serve the common people. He is a Jeffersonian Democrat, a natural demagogue, and a man who is proud of being the tribune of the people. – William Thomas Stead
Chuck
they are only following Henri de Saint-Simon…
– “The Coming Of Post-industrial Society” – Daniel Bell
Like the quasi-demise of Newsweak, this is the inevitable transition for yet another BELTWAY publication — written (largely) for the Beltway crowd. (and ideological fellow travelers)
More than anything — the travails are that of the old guard versus the next crew.
One aspect of that shift will be a SEVERE trimming in the wage packets for the staff.
I, for one, don’t believe for a second that Hughes’ antics with the old guard were anything but a larger strategic move.
It’s SO much cheaper when the old guard quits on their own.
I once had an employer who went out of his way to pull such antics for this very reason. He’d lay off any ordinary soul. But for long time troopers that he’d had a ‘change of heart’ he refused to fire them. Instead, he went oven the top with insults — in word, deed, and status.
He could not contain his glee when he succeeded yet again.
From first to last, Hughes manipulated the TNR staffers. What a shock must come when these toffs discover that they’ve re-entered the prole class.
The ranks of poverty stricken Leftist scribes are boundless. No doubt additional apparats will troop on in.
One should also expect a MAJOR trimming in the TNR rent, too. (Shades of Newsweak.)
Oh, my — Dana Milbank calls Hughes “a dilettante and a fraud.”
Yep, Hughes sounds like a douche. And yet…..still can’t muster any sympathy for the TNR crowd. As a liberal/progressive publication they’ve likely been (since I’m not a reader) behind other progressive efforts to overthrow (or “modernize”) American and Judeo-Christian values and culture. And they thought their industry, their cherished perch at TNR would be immune to “change we can believe in.” What fools.
Hughes as TNR Editor and Publisher reminds me of other young, not terribly experienced folks whose position exceeds their qualifications, such as Josh Earnest, Jen Psaki, Marie Harf, Tommy Veitor, Ben Rhodes…
If we can hold on long enough, the progressives will self destruct and our grandchildren can rebuild a society based upon life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Meanwhile, those who get their ‘news’ from rolling stone or jon stewart still flock to the false narrative of the leftists.
Chris Hughes thinks he is smart because he is rich. Nothing could be further from the truth.
But he reads Balzac in French, don’t cha know.
“Hughes’ piece is emblematic of how to “craft” a self-serving pile of verbiage that carefully avoids saying anything honest.”
Heh, that sounds exactly like his political idol—and the people that particular idol surrounds himself with.
Maybe he envisions TNR being more along the lines of Rolling Stone.
And I’m more than willing to acknowledge that Hollywood puts out some excellent movies that stir the emotions while controlling the narrative.
Hollywood is a village idiot playing with sh, compared to the great art in the rest of the world.
Remember that when the Left talks about corporate sharks and mega corporations ruling over the people, they are mostly thinking of themselves. They know these people exist, because they are them or they know someone like that on their side, this resource exploiting lizard in executive dress.