Post

mm yes more of that populism I've heard so much about

The New York Times@nytimes.com

The Senate voted Thursday to strike down a rule capping most bank overdraft fees at $5, a measure adopted late last year by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that had been expected to save Americans billions of dollars per year.

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as always the NYT does a great job "both sidesing" the banking industry's corrupt dismantling of a popular rule preventing price gouging, leaving it open to reader interpretation as to whether fucking consumers over at scale is bad

this may come as a surprise but journalism doesn't have to involve letting paid liars for companies with long, rich histories of fraud blow smoke up everybody's ass with obviously false claims

Like the times could just quote a respected, objective academic with decades of expertise on this subject who will clearly tell you modern banks are notoriously fucking bad and the rule was popular and good

They could also add a paragraph about how this is obviously glorified corruption in an era of faux-populism as useful context, but that might upset ownership or a source and then where would you be

Coincidentally, I just ran across the perfect H. L. Mencken quote: "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed – everything else is public relations." So, yeah, I’m seeing a lot of PR these days.

As someone who used to really admire Glenn Greenwald, I will personally hand him a "Fell For It Again Lifetime Achievement Award" should I see him in person again.

Matt Stoller also promised everyone the GOP was very serious about reining in corporate power, I'm sure he'll own his miscalculation in a very direct and public way