Useful Idiots

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Matt Taibbi vs Mehdi Hasan
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Matt Taibbi vs Mehdi Hasan

Unmasking a corporate propagandist's charade of journalism

Katie Halper's avatar
Aaron Maté's avatar
Katie Halper
and
Aaron Maté
Apr 13, 2023
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Useful Idiots
Useful Idiots
Matt Taibbi vs Mehdi Hasan
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Perhaps naively, Matt Taibbi accepted an invitation to appear on MSNBC with Mehdi Hasan. Before the interview aired, he wrote in a piece forebodingly titled Eat Me, MSNBC: “I accepted the invitation because it would have been wrong to refuse, on the off chance he was planning a good-faith discussion. If you’re reading this, things have gone another way.”

The MSNBC corporate-pro-censorship-CIA-propagandist took the route that most corporate-pro-censorship-CIA-propagandists tend to take: attack the journalist instead of the work, lie when challenged, interrupt at all costs.

What Hasan blindsided Taibbi with were two minor errors (one of which turned out to be not an error after all), and paraded them in an attempt to discredit Matt’s months of work on the Twitter Files. When other independent journalists took to Twitter to explain that Hasan’s errors were not only meaningless but incorrect, Mehdi Hasan admitted to his mistake and apologized.

Just kidding, he blocked them on Twitter.

And in the interview, when Matt responded by confronting Mehdi about MSNBC’s years of Russiagate lies, Mehdi said he wasn’t on the network then so he has nothing to apologize for…

When Matt confronted Mehdi about the censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story, Mehdi claimed he never wrote a word on it…

But when this was pointed out, Mehdi again apologized for his mistake and resigned from MSNBC, announcing journalists must be held to a higher standard.

Lucille Bluth Wink GIFs | Tenor

A Useful Idiot was attacked, which means Katie and Aaron are here to throw down. It’s our Thursday bonus episode. Let us know in the comments what corporate media monologues, interviews, or anything else you want to see on the next Thursday Throwdown.

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