As I said to journalist Eoin Higgins at one point during our recent conversation, in this case the call is coming from inside the house. I didn’t just mean that one journalist was interviewing another — about a book that is, itself, largely about the world of journalism — although that’s true enough. Or even that three articles that originally appeared in Salon (by way of Higgins’ previous gig at the Institute of Public Accuracy) now appear in his new book, "Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left," although that’s true too. (One such Salon article is linked below.)
What I meant was that Higgins and I (who have never met in person, for the record) feel uncomfortably close in some ways to the subject of his book, which tells the story of how the semi-legendary crusading journalists Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi gradually drifted toward the MAGA-friendly right, and made lots of money in doing so. It’s not just the story of two cantankerous dudes becoming far more cantankerous — although, as Higgins himself suggests, that’s undeniably part of the story — but it’s also not some MSNBC propaganda narrative about dissident left-wingers actually being paid shills for Russia (as has been suggested, I believe, about both of those guys).
