so yes support the nyt boycott. but also i've got feelings about it and i'm going to toot below
extremely frustrating to see nyt workers ask us to support a boycott in solidarity when they've stood by and done nothing while their paper prints article after article of transphobia, pro cop, pro imperialist propaganda
like, you want solidarity now from the people you've been harming?
i know that the stronger labor is, the more editorial control they'll have, which will hopefully result in a shift in these topics and others. away from the perspective of ruling elites and toward the perspective of working class people
it'd be extremely counterproductive to stand in opposition to a labor movement. so yeah, do the boycott
but if i said my first reaction were anything other than, "fuck you" i'd be lying
@leftistlegume do you really think the NYT recruits working class journalists? Not the sons and daughters of well-connected socialite families who can get their kids into Yale? The culture there will reflect that regardless of how much control the journalists have over editing and which stories to publish. That’s why they recruit from the elite in the first place.
@destroy @leftistlegume They recruit from 'the elite', but not exclusively the elite who sustain themselves by ownership; at least some proportion of the 'elite' they hire do actually have to find some kind of work for a living, which makes them (at least potentially) part of the working class, right? The part that I'm worried about isn't 'elite culture' stuff so much as the 'guard labour' component of any kind of media job.
@destroy @leftistlegume Eg plenty of cops 'come from working class backgrounds' rather than 'Yale', but the fact that they are employed as guard labour (and like, strikebreakers) means that they will basically always be a problem for organised labour no matter how strong the police union is; the question isn't 'are the journalists coastal elites' or whatever, but 'are the journalists guard labour'.
@destroy no i don't think that, by and large, nyt recruits working class journalists. but i've also heard of certain stories being quashed, certain sources being ignored because of "journalistic standards," certain people getting unquestioned access to editorials. it of course wouldn't solve the problem overnight, but if working conditions improve then i'm sure journalistic practices would too. it's not a binary of either they're good or they're evil