Discussion for article #229584
Wow. I worked at a place once where every friday you had to spend an hour updating the status of all the items on your Fourteen Month Plan.
That said, you do have to wonder at least a little about a business plan that involves someone known for being a brilliant, incendiary writer as the manager of any large, complicated enterprise.
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Greenwald? Oy vey. He must be loving this, the little drama queen.
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Yeah, it was a bit clueless to imagine that Taibbi would be much of a team player with his corporate overlords. Some people just don’t belong in management. Frankly, I find it odd that Taibbi even found himself in that situation. Or that he’d fight for management oversight even after they demoted him.
Some people are just better off working for themselves, particularly when they don’t like to compromise. Such people shouldn’t have bosses or employees, as they’ll eventually encounter friction when neither side wants to compromise.
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All in all - the concern for most is that Matt will still be around to write the hard hitting articles that many of us have always looked forward to reading and learning from.
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I kinda wondered if this would be a good fit for Taibbi. He is a good journalist who really doesn’t give a f_ck what people think. He calls them as he sees them. Who else was exposing GS the way he was…only he could come up with the Vampire Squid comment that will live far beyond most of us
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Man, first of all I’m surprised they attempted to create some sort of douchey corporate climate there to begin with, but seriously, they thought TAIBBI was a good fit for that? Taibbi’s personality is NOT well suited to uniformity and conformity, anybody who’s followed him over the years to know anything about him should’ve known that. Over at Rolling Stone they pretty much let him do what he wanted on his own schedule, and it worked great.
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With all the rules, guidelines and strictures, the New Look sounds pretty much like the “Old Look!” I love Taibbi’s work and am looking forward to his next article in Rolling Stone. I’m also very glad that RS abandoned it’s “music only” format and has jumped back into politics with abandon! GO TAIBBI AND ROLLING STONE! May you be forever young.
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Is Pareene still at this First Look venture? Or did he follow him out the door on principle? Cause if he’s still there, he looks to be the next to be demoted for running afoul of management. Pareene should go back to Salon…I’m sure they’d take him back too.
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This is only an unfolding saga if you give a shit about Mat Taibbi
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I’m actually enjoying this…
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I’m sure Omidyar is much more used to people kissing his ass than thumbing their nose at him. Also, Taibbi, clearly does not play well with others.
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And why wouldn’t you? The world in which you live is a better place for his work.
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We used to call them “individual contributor” where I worked before I retired twenty years ago.
Since he is the reason I first subscribed to the magazine and also is the reason I used to encourage my friends and family to subscribe to the magazine, you can bet I’m happy he’s back.
I’m not a bit surprised to find him back being an “individual contributor” to Rolling Stone, Sorry, Matt, but I never expected your venture to work. You are precisely the reason I did not cancel the magazine this year.
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exactly… taibbi is not a manager. honestly, from the description, it sounds like a chaotic and disorganized place to work. he’s better off at rolling stone.
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Jesus, it sounds like every major name First Look has managed to hire is making a concerted effort to piss off the people who hired them.
But FFS, what were they thinking? Hiring Alex Pareene, Matt Taibbi and Greenwald and his closest associates and then proceed to treat them like Initech employees and hand them a stack of TPS Reports? What did they think was going to happen? In what universe does that not result in epic verbal skewering?
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Would be nice if the people that report/analyze the news didn’t become the news. Taibbi has a massive ego, but I’ve never found his stuff to be compelling. Somebody once wrote that the stuff thats interesting of Taibbi’s isn’t true, and what’s true of his isn’t interesting. Pretty much. But he’s able to find a bunch of strawmen to back his conspiracy theories. When he blames Goldman Sachs, he sure is letting a bunch of people off the hook (Bush, Clinton, Greenspan, Congress banks, SEC, regulators, real estate appraisers, brokers, US consumers, etc). But yeah, focus on the spaghetti monster squid whatever, whatever (Goldman Sachs).
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“Somebody once wrote that the stuff thats interesting of Taibbi’s isn’t true, and what’s true of his isn’t interesting.”
Yeah, I’m in agreement.
Taibbi is a perfect fit for Rolling Stone. He gives them faux lefty cred without actually ever doing any damage to the corporate powers that lavish advertising dollars on the Stone.
The Kochs and the rest love over-the-top, poorly reasoned and researched polemic broadsides against them. Splits up their opposition, give them material to dole out to their base for outrage purposes (like we do with Krazee-Eyes Bachman, to be fair), and never, ever results in a remotely practical agenda that could be actually use to, ya know, IMPROVE things.
Taibbi is a very useful idiot to them. Does know how to turn a phrase, though, I’ll give him that.
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Since he is the reason I subscribed to RS, I am glad he is back.
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Ha Ha! Are we talking about the same Mike Taibbi, the journo who regularly beats up on your beloved president?