Be it Resolved: Don’t Trust Mainstream Media
My opening remarks for the Munk Debates in Toronto tonight
Tonight at the Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto, I’m teaming up with The War on the West author Douglas Murray in the prestigious Munk Debates. Our opponents are Malcolm Gladwell, bestselling author and New Yorker staff writer, and Michelle Goldberg, MSNBC contributor and columnist for the New York Times. The subject tonight: “Be it resolved: Do not trust the mainstream media.”
You can probably guess which side I’ll be arguing. Below, a transcript of my opening remarks (you’ll receive this as the event begins). More on the event after its completion. Thanks to everyone for being patient this week as I prepared.
“Be it resolved: don’t trust mainstream media.” My name is Matt Taibbi, I’ve been a reporter for 30 years, and I argue for the resolution. You should not trust mainstream media.
I grew up in the press. My father was a reporter. My stepmother was a reporter. My godparents were reporters. Every adult I knew growing up seemed to be in media. I even used my father’s TV mic flag as a toy. I’d go in the backyard, stand with my back to the house, and play “live shot”:
Chet, I’m in Norwell, Massachusetts, where firefighters are battling a three-alarm blaze…
I love the news business. It’s in my bones. But I mourn for it. It’s destroyed itself.
My father had a saying: “The story’s the boss.” In the American context, if the facts tell you the Republicans were the primary villains in this or that disaster, you write that story. If the facts point more at Democrats, you go that way…
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