Tag: daily beast

Why do progressives still love the new oligarchy?

Ever since I began paying attention to issues related to the digital age, I have been scratching my head as to why, of all people, it is political progressives who revere Big Tech, even while appropriately mistrusting just about all other powerful, corporate interests.  Why the most powerful of powerful gets a free pass is something of a mystery, but perhaps more stories like this one from The Daily Beast will help.  I understand many view the internet and social media as an extension of themselves, but this psychological phenomenon is precisely how an oligarchy can get away with just about anything — by convincing the public that it’s all for the greater good.

“Today’s tech moguls don’t employ many Americans, they don’t pay very much in taxes or tend to share much of their wealth, and they live in a separate world that few of us could ever hope to enter.”

See article at The Daily Beast.

Journalism in the Digital Age with Christopher Dickey (Podcast)

Christopher Dickey has been a writer and reporter for nearly 40 years. He is the Paris Bureau Chief and Middle East Regional Editor for Newsweek Magazine and The Daily Beast. He has worked for The Washington Post and written for several other publications including Vanity Fair,  The New Yorker, and Foreign Affairs.  He is a frequent commentator on CNN, MSNBC, and NPR as well as other radio and television networks worldwide. Dickey is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is arguably one of the world’s non-military experts on terrorism and counter-terrorism.

The author of six books, Dickey’s most recent non-fiction work, Securing the City, details the transformation of the NYPD into the world’s “gold standard” of counter-terrorism operations in the wake of 9/11.  His other books include  The Sleeper and Innocent Blood, both novels; Summer of Deliverance, a memoir of his father, the poet James Dickey; Expats, an account of foreigners living in the Arab world; and his first non-fiction work, With the Contras:  A Reporter in the Wilds of Nicaragua, published in 1986.

With a career that begins well before public use of the Web, Dickey is an old-school journalist who fully embraces the flexibility and editorial potential of new and social media.  His Shadowland Journal blog provides supplementary content corresponding to his columns on terrorism, security, and fanaticism that appear in Newsweek and The Daily Beast; he is an avid user of Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook. Dickey is among an elite group of journalists I recommend following for anyone who wants to dig below the headlines.  Visit Christopher Dickey’s website.