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Comment by TheOtherHobbes | Hacker News Reader

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TheOtherHobbes

You could ask the same about Fox - which is hardly ground zero for sanity itself.

Does it represent a movement, or a TV channel?

If it's a movement, by what process was it elected?

Point being I doubt anyone at Fox was unhappy with how the Doreen interview turned out.

Did they ask to interview anyone else from the sub?

All this really does is highlight the difference between online opinionation - always easy - and effective activism. The latter is much harder and absolutely needs informed - ideally effective and professional - handling of public presentation and messaging.

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> Point being I doubt anyone at Fox was unhappy with how the Doreen interview turned out.

Yeah, and what else could you expect from Jessie Waters? He's a smug propagandist, and people like Doreen Ford are perfect for his message. It's pretty stupid to cooperate with him unless you 1) agree with him, or 2) have good reason to believe you're up to effectively representing yourself to a hostile audience through a sleazy host, all of whom are more interested in mocking you than listening to you. And frankly, if they ask you for an interview, it that's probably good reason to believe #2 is false.

Fox is a selective amplifier like most news media. They pick topics that make their beliefs look good and much more importantly topics that make their enemies look terrible (see the antiwork interview)

And on more than one occasion, I've seen them pick interviewees who seem completely unqualified to speak on a topic. For example, I once saw an advocate for free universal college interviewed. It was some idealistic college student still going for their undergrad talking about how it's what "everyone deserves" and would "make the world a better place". The interview was a brutal public lashing. Regardless of where you stand on the topic of free universal college, I think we can all agree that it makes sense to speak to an expert on the topic, not someone in their late teens still trying to find their footing in this crazy world. That interview was uninformative and just plain cruel.

"The latter is much harder and absolutely needs informed - ideally effective and professional - handling of public presentation and messaging."

That sounds like a ton of work.

Yes activism is hard, which is one of the reasons why social media gave rise to slacktivism instead. It's a low effort gratification that is reinforced by ones social network.

It's one of the issues with subreddits as they get larger. Low effort "look how great I am for standing up to my boss" posts win the day.

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