Monarchy & Oligarchy in Editing

Glenn Greenwald's Exodus

Over the past 10-12 years Glenn Greenwald has been one of my favorite journalists, and depending on how you define that class of work he may be amongst the remnant in 2020. He has a Pulitzer Prize to speak on his behalf, for those who believe in signaling. Alongside award winning investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill and award winning documentarian Laura Poitras, and with the patronage of billionaire Pierre Omidyar, they founded The Intercept. This was my go-to print for issues like: endless war abroad, the domestic drug war and carceral state, panopticonical surveillance, and Brazil. Greenwald has exited stage left.

Now, he is writing, like me, here at substack. At the Intercept he says he was making $500k/yr (plus $300k for private security) , and walked away from that fat salary to take a risk and at least initially less pay ($300k-$400k), to protect the integrity of his writing. He started writing (blogging) as a side-hustle, whilst he was an attorney in NYC during the Bush II regime. He later agreed to be hired at Salon, the Guardian, and eventually the Intercept, and each time only conditional upon having monarchic editorial privileges; with the nigh sole exception being putting the organization at legal risk.

I have been in progressive newspaper, journal, and academic spaces. Even church spaces. The oligarchy does not like it when you call a spade a spade. The oligarchy likes passive aggressive language that disguises their grip on power. The oligarchy loves democracy, collaboration, collegiality, and deliberation. But, when push comes to shove, they will express their majoritarian power to snuff out dissenting minority voices.

In this case, Greenwald’s adversaries are progressives, or ‘liberals’, whose number one task is getting Joe Biden elected, and not pursuing any stories that could jeopardize that, be they fact or fiction. Greenwald is biased against centrists like Biden, and critiques them from the left. The Democratic Party, especially its establishment wing, has left an acrimonious taste in his mouth, and he does not care whether they win or lose in Nov. 2020. He cares instead, that a spotlight be shined upon entanglements with foreign powers, plutocracy, corruption, war, surveillance, police brutality, the carceral state et cetera.

He says at Salon and the Guardian, and the Intercept till this occasion, his monarchy in editing (for content not grammar) had been respected. Now that he is at substack, it will be respected again. Check out what the oligarchs, and their friends, say about him. Check out what he says. See which set of facts and opinions presented meld more with your worldview. Ask yourself how often great ideas have come from the majority, and what an organization should do to air dissent and protect the minority.