Time for a corona/protest break to examine Ben Smith's media column about investigative reporter/failed talk show host Ronan Farrow, published in the New York Times. Smith claims that Farrow is a practitioner of "Resistance journalism," eschewing fairness in the pursuit of attacking people who popular opinion considers bad. Is Smith's article fair, or does he engage in the same techniques for which he criticizes Farrow? Also, why is he such a bad writer?
Then it's on to a brief diversion to the land of Twitter celebrities. Can someone even get Twitter famous anymore? The brutal bomb and "funny" tweets of Rob Delaney are explored.
Finally it's Ellen DeGeneres time! Is she as evil as everyone alleges? Or is she just a standard Hollywood jerk getting metaphorically #MeToo'd by a voracious press?
Also: Charles goes insane ranting about George W. Bush, Isaac thinks Ronan Farrow is a schlub, and the show identifies the next "nice" media figure going to be revealed as secretly evil.
Ben Smith's NYT column: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/17/business/media/ronan-farrow.html
Glenn Greenwald's response: https://theintercept.com/2020/05/18/ben-smiths-nyt-critique-of-ronan-farrow-describes-a-toxic-corrosive-and-still-vibrant-trump-era-pathology-resistance-journalism/
Charles's appearance on Heather Marulli's podcast listening to cringey audiobook clips: https://soundcloud.com/heather-marulli/our-new-lord-and-savior-ronan-farrow-with-charles-disney
Daily Beast Ellen article: https://www.thedailybeast.com/people-are-finally-starting-to-see-the-real-ellen-degeneres-and-it-isnt-pretty
Twitter thread about Ellen: https://twitter.com/KevinTPorter/status/1241049881688412160
Variety article about Ellen: https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/ellen-crew-furious-over-poor-communication-regarding-pay-non-union-workers-during-coronavirus-shutdown-exclusive-1234582735/
Glurgey New York Times piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/13/movies/tom-hanks-mister-rogers.html