Tomorrow night, the annual self-obsessed bacchanal in D.C. journalism circles will be held. The White House Correspondents' Association Awards Dinner will be staged, with all manner of peacocking puffery taking place. The comedy is that President Trump is attending the Nerd Prom for the first time, and there are journalists upset about this. A number of them (most no longer in the game) cut a letter demanding attendees get in Trump’s face.
They want to do this on a night when they will be touting the First Amendment and freedom of the press.
During a week when there is an endless stream of parties with the press celebrating themselves, David Folkenflik of National Public Radio appeared on “All Things Considered” to complain that new media sources are involved in the White House press pool. The problem, according to Dave, is that these outlets are diluting the question process and not holding the president accountable. Apparently, some news outlets should be silenced?
He is saying this before the night when they will be touting the First Amendment and freedom of the press.
Then things take on a mirthful tone. In a piece written in the Washington Post Creators portal, Dylan Wells lays out something that played out two years ago ahead of the WHCA cotillion. The executives at Substack petitioned for a table at the event but were told, on no uncertain terms, that Substack was not at all welcome.
Wells writes, "Executive Director Steve Thomma rejected the pitch. 'He said that independent journalists were not news, would never be news, and would never be invited to the dinner.'"
He declared that about the night when they will be touting the First Amendment and freedom of the press.
As a result, Substack staged its own event on the same night, and Saturday will see the platform stage its third consecutive gala, an invite-only affair where it is touting the power of independent journalism. The absolute comedy of that claim, as well as the WHCA playing the role of “Mean Girls” kool-kids table elitism, is that the players Substack is pushing and reliant upon as "new media" are the very same mainstream voices we have been subjected to all the while.
In recent years, as news outlets and networks continue to struggle with dwindling reader and viewer support, we have seen layoffs and firings regularly, and many of those distaff journos have sought the savanna of Substack to ply their trade. Yes, they are operating in a solitary existence, but to call these voices “independent” is a laughable claim.
One of Substack's promoted guests is regular CNN fixture Kara Swisher, who now has her own show on the network. Another is Mehdi Hasan, who was even too radical for MSNBC to keep on the air; he has created his own media outlet, Zeteo, a hyper-left enterprise that cobbles together a number of other journalists let loose by primary organizations.
Others attending Saturday’s bash are in the same vein. Across the board, these are journalists who have not suddenly become centrists, freed to report the truth. Instead, the opposite has occurred; no longer hemmed in by corporate propriety, most of these journos have raced further out on the left wing once they were off the chain.
Jim Acosta has been so desperate to retain his former CNN clout that he was willing to degrade himself by “interviewing” the AI version of a student who died years ago in the Parkland high school shooting. Chuck Todd was set free from NBC last year, and he has since become a perpetual left-promoting voice. Jennifer Rubin has become such an avowed anti-Trumper that she is in need of medication to rein in her compulsion. These are the names Substack holds up as the “new” generation of “independent” voices. Please.
This is a trend that begins at the top. That executive from Substack who first approached the WHCA a couple of years ago was Catherine Valentine, the Substack Head of News and Politics. A look at her journalism history is not just connected to the entrenched news elites; she was imbued in it. Valentine hails from the Washington Post, CNN, and Politico. You cannot get much more mainstream than that, and it explains Substack becoming a version of those news titans.
Looking over the top political accounts on the platform, you see that independent is a rather laughable label. On the site’s Best Seller list, you get a murderer’s row of left-leaning and mainstream adjacent voices. After The Free Press in the top slot, which is arguably somewhat independent, what follows is nothing but familiar sources – #2 is The Bulwark, #3 is liberal historian Heather Cox Richardson. She is followed in the top 10 by MeidasTouch and Mehdi Hasan. We also see Paul Krugman and Robert Reich.
As a possible voice qualifying for their independent label, there is Matt Taibbi in the top 20, but then it is a flood of the usual leftist voices. You need to dig down to eventually come across the Huckabee Post (#41) and Christopher Rufo (#50).
A few years ago, Facebook was in a tizzy because internal metrics showed the top 10 accounts getting traffic on the platform were almost exclusively conservative voices. It then took steps to alter its algorithm and shunted news to a segregated channel on the platform. But Substack servicing leftist voices almost exclusively is not seen as a problem; it's actually celebrating it. The fact that these "new media" accounts are hardly a wave of new voices broadening the media landscape is revealing, and the dearth of anything being heard from anyone even slightly on the starboard side of the center is hilariously revealing.
So, Substack is staging a huge party to celebrate independence in this invite-only, and very insulated environment, on the night when they will be touting the First Amendment and freedom of the press.