To Read or Not to Read
The Substack controversy, mass media and genocide.
Our government need not pursue a policy of stamping out dissidence – the uniformity imposed on opinion by the “private” media conglomerates performs that job efficiently. – Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism, Sheldon S. Wolin
In a time of perpetual bad news, this might be a big ask, but do you remember the Substack controversy? Back in December, many readers bailed on the platform in protest, and a number of newsletter writers, as well – including journalist Jonathan M. Katz, who kickstarted the affair with his article in The Atlantic, “Substack Has a Nazi Problem”.
For my part, I was one of the original signatories to an open letter in response to the controversy, but, like many, decided to stick around (more on that later). And, while we should respect anyone’s right to choose what they read and where they publish, I’d like to reconsider the logic of leaving, with some distance between now and then.
The TL;DR of it: While Substack has its issues, so does every major media platform, and when it comes to real-world effect, the papers and magazines “of record” – e.g. The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and, yes, The Atlantic – are much, much worse.
But first, some Media Studies 101. In Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky explain how mass media represent powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive function in (ostensibly) liberal democracies. They do this based on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, without overt coercion, in order to create and curate public opinion – or, manufacture consent.
As it turns out, the past ten months offer a case study of Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model, namely in the coverage of Gaza. Comparison to Ukraine provides the perfect starting point – generally speaking, we encounter two contrasting melodies, almost invariable in their theme: support and pity for the people of Eastern Europe; accusation and dehumanization for the people of Palestine.1 The Family Guy meme, more or less, with concern for the shades of white and disdain for the darker pigments.
True to Herman and Chomsky’s thesis, the mass media have served the role of stenographer to Western powers (i.e. Eisenhower’s “military-industrial complex”), actively manufacturing consent for genocide. Let’s consider some examples.
In April, The Intercept reported on a leaked memo that instructed New York Times reporters to “restrict the use of the terms ‘genocide’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ and to ‘avoid’ using the phrase ‘occupied territory’ when describing Palestinian land”. The Times has been, in fact, one of the worst on Gaza – to the point that a dedicated counter-publication, The New York War Crimes, was created to criticize their coverage.2
The Times is not alone, however; as demonstrated in another analysis by The Intercept, other major American newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post, show “consistent bias against Palestinians”. And we can’t leave out Katz’s The Atlantic, in which staff writer Graeme Wood argued in May that – and I quote – “it is possible to kill children legally”.
In Canada, a similar tune: Former CBC producer Molly Schuman wrote in The Breach that the public broadcaster “whitewashed” Israel’s crimes in Gaza, describing a “Palestine exception”. The National Post, unsurprisingly, has been heavily pro-Israel; we need only consider the genocidal op-ed by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper (!). Canadian news organizations have also silenced pro-Palestinian journalists: For instance, Global News fired Palestinian-Canadian Zahraa Al-Akhrass over posts on social media, and the same happened to Yara Jamal at CTV.
I hope, at this point, that the forest is taking shape. Of course, we each determine the moral calculus behind our choices – we all have to sleep at night – and those calculations are, I think, imperfect by nature. But, avoiding Substack for ethical reasons while reading, subscribing to or publishing in media that runs cover for genocide – well, the math isn't mathing, in my view.
An aside: the Trans Panic
Substack has also taken criticism for anti-trans content; fair enough. However, I would welcome readers to weigh that influence against major publications like, again, The New York Times, which has demonstrated an increasingly transphobic bias in recent years.3 Or, again, The Atlantic, which introduced the moral panic to the mainstream in 2018.4 (For more on the mass media and transphobia in general, consider Lexi McMenamin’s op-ed in Teen Vogue here.)
It bears noting that many progressive writers, aware of Substack’s issues, decided to stick around. But beyond that lies another, obvious question: Where else would they go?
On what legacy platform, for example, could you publish comprehensive, up-to-date reporting on anti-trans legislation or abortion rights? Or adversarial takes on mental health culture or the climate crisis? Or antagonistic reporting on Canadian politics when, like Nora Loreto, you’ve basically been blacklisted from major publications?
Indeed, the fact that numerous, high-profile journalists have moved to Substack only underscores this point. Take Chris Hedges, for instance, former Middle East Bureau Chief for The New York Times. Or Mehdi Hasan, who launched Zeteo in February after MSNBC cancelled his show. Similarly and more recently, Ryan Grim and Jeremy Scahill left The Intercept to found Dropsite News.
Now, we “Substackers” could, of course, move our writing to an independent website and pay for hosting and design (Substack is free in that regard); we could fight and scrape to draw attention to our writing on what feels, increasingly, like dying social media applications on what feels, increasingly, like an already Dead Internet; we could pretend that this represents, somehow, a blow to the “tech-bros” in Silicon Valley – when, unless we already have a large-enough following, it really just becomes a step backwards into obscurity.
And isolation: For, among the pros of using Substack, one of the biggest for me is the sense of community. The platform connects me to fellow travelers, as such – in fact, some of us created a WhatsApp group (our motto: “We persist”). Substack also exposes my work to established writers – and, as anyone in the game can tell you, those interactions (a positive comment, a share, a recommendation) can fuel the fledgling writer for weeks on end.
So, leave? In yet another act of individualistic, performative (a)politics? Yeah, no thanks.
But, if we take a few steps back, there’s a bigger picture here – and I state the following in full awareness of the dangers of hate speech. Perhaps you’ve noticed: Things grow dark around us. Material conditions worsen, crises increase and compound. In a figurative sense, it feels not only as if the walls are deteriorating, but closing in.
Now, more than ever, we need people to tell the truth. And places to tell it.
Consider the following headlines from The Guardian UK on the bombing of hospitals: “‘No words for this’: horror over Russian bombing of Kyiv children’s hospital” (8 July 2024); “IDF says it has entered Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital in ‘targeted’ operation against Hamas” (5 November 2023).
Most notorious might be “Screams without Words”, the report on “weaponized sexual assault” by Hamas; as later described by Mondoweiss, the story repeats “testimonies that have been previously published and already debunked and discredited,” representing “nothing more than a repetition of fake news and government propaganda”.
cf. Episode 5 of the podcast series The Anti-Trans Hate Machine, “Capturing the New York Times” by Imara Jones; I’d argue the bias has only worsened since that podcast, largely due to the arrival of reactionary centrist Pamela Paul.
cf. the cover story “When Children Say They Are Trans: Hormones? Surgery? The choices are fraught—and there are no easy answers” by Jesse Singal.
Really appreciated this 🙏🏻