Quick about me: Comms guy in Washington, D.C. Former journalist at Washington Free Beacon, work also published in New York Times, Washington Post, National Review, Fox News, Federalist and more. Past hedgefund flameout (Bridgewater Associates), Capitol Hill staffer and public affairs consultant. Thread guy on X (née Twitter).
About Holden Court
The problem: I don’t think the current state of media criticism is very good. I think a lot of the issue is that the criticism most people usually hear starts from the premise that the media is bad, or biased, or something similar, rather than focusing on what actually happened, set in context. I fear that what we write (and tweet) about the media isn’t resonating beyond those who are already given over to agree with the conclusion.
Perhaps because polls consistently show that people of all political stripes have lost faith in the media when asked directly, we forget that a majority of all Americans trust the information they get from national media.This duality means that those of us who want to criticize the media for a broad audience need to recognize that we have to build a more robust argument than what may play well online.
The good news is that there’s a bounty of bad media coverage to work with, from Covid lockdowns, to the lab leak theory, to “Russian collusion” and a host of other Trump-based conspiracies, and beyond.
Part of the reason we aren’t having more impact, I think, is that our criticism of the media tends to be impressionistic: we all feel that the media is a certain way as a collective, and when new examples seem to confirm that expectation, we drop them into the mental model we’ve always used for the media: they’re biased or corrupt or evil or some other word that means “bad” generally.
But what causes the media to miss, especially in cases where they miss all-together in unison, matters, and I think a more robust analysis of what the press gets wrong will help illuminate why they do. And I think that richer understanding can help other people (including journalists) see and grapple with the current state of the media. I recognize that sounds something between haughty and idealistic but I think it’s a goal worth pursuing.
The second goal of this Substack is simpler: to chronicle what actually happened.
I worry that our present sense impression criticism also causes us to forget the actual evidence that’s offensive. I worry we’re losing the recent history of both media malpractice and media criticism. Especially in the wake of Covid, I think it’s more important than ever to be clear-eyed about the recent past and what was said about it.
The goal: I hope to use this space as a community to talk through what ails journalism — hopefully with some journalists taking part — in a way that’s grounded by what outlets are actually saying and doing, making the criticism as specific and granular as possible.
I want to better understand why the media messes up in the specific ways it does: dubiously believing things that see, to support Democrats or their worldview, rushing to denounce things that work in the other direction absent (or contra) evidence. If you’re interested in hearing more about how I think about media failures broadly, I talked through it with the Federalist’s Emily Jashinsky and the Intercept’s Ryan Grim on Hill Rising a few years ago:
To combat that forgetting, I want to revisit major media moments in a textually driven way, to help reestablish what happened and why it matters. X is great, but it isn’t much of a record-keeping institution. As is my wont, I’d like to archive things a little better.
(H/T McMurphy_Pat on X)
The bulk of this Substack will be focused on that richer, less reactive and topical, approach to the big media moments that matter. Some of those are, obviously, yet to happen. But I don’t plan to chase every story that might have a media angle and expound on why it does or doesn’t fit with my theory of the case.
But I will make one-off exceptions for those that I think highlight something important, even if a particular piece or moment may not capture the broad arcs I’m primarily interested in. Paid subscribers will get more articles that unpack specific pieces to explain what I think they’re emblematic of, and why we should take note.
I also worry that those of us who are quick to point out media missteps lose sight of the number of hard-working, earnest, intelligent journalists who are pursuing their craft — often at great financial (and more serious) expense. I plan to highlight good journalism, too, from mainstream media sources to new outlets doing great work.
Why read?: You may be coming here because you like the threads that I post on X chronicling media errors (some examples, if not, here, here, here and here). My goal is to add depth and richness to the threads, which are necessarily pithy. Limited to 280 characters per tweet and 25 tweets per thread (and let’s be honest, you stopped reading before the end) there’s only so much context and nuance you can capture.
If you’d like to hear how I think about the threads as a journalistic correction, I discussed it a few years ago on the “Tangled” podcast with Isaac Saul. That conversation still by-and-large captures what I’m trying to do:
https://www.everand.com/listen/podcast/574442658
So, why pay?: I’ve been doing the threads as yeoman’s work for a long time, and I’ve learned a lot from doing so. But as I get older, and in the wake of some health concerns (more on that below), I’ve got to be realistic about where I spend my time and energy, and what the return looks like for the effort. The threads are a ton of work, and sometimes get really good engagement (3.5 million views on X on the last one) but the payoff is just the feeling that I’ve done something good and some internet validation. I want to keep bringing them to all of you, without a paywall, while doing more work to make them better and more impactful. That includes investing time to build out a more robust analysis of how the media got it wrong. Your funding will make that possible.
I’m hoping that this Substack will be the kind of thing you can share enthusiastically with people of all political persuasions, particularly those who have faith in the media as an unbiased arbiter of truth, either as an affirmative belief or an unchallenged assumption.
I’ll also be writing about other subjects from time to time, if you’ll indulge me. Some of that will be about other politically related subjects, I’m sure.
Some of it will likely be personal. About two years before I launched this page, I found out I had an inoperable brain tumor, and went through chemotherapy and radiation. I’m (as of this writing) almost a year in remission. The tumor was super responsive to treatment, and I was incredibly fortunate to receive world-class care, be surrounded by an unbelievably supportive system of friends and family and reassured by my faith in a time of crisis. I haven’t written or talked much about it all, but I would like to.
But most of what I plan to focus on is the media. So if you’ve enjoyed the threads, or share my worries about the media or criticism thereof, or are simply a news reader who would like to be more informed, I think you’ll enjoy this space. Subscribe here:
