Talk:Matt Taibbi

2024 Samizdat Prize

On March 7, 2024 Taibbi won the inaugural Samizdat Prize along with Jay Bhattacharya (Stanford) and Miranda Devine (New York Post reporter). The RealClear Media Fund awarded the Prize. I added this sentence to Taibbi's page along with a link to the Award and the link was deleted. So far there has been no third-party source covering the event that is acceptable, but the event did happen, the Prize was awarded.--Kmccook (talk) 00:53, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Family background

Re 2600:100C:B02A:4E55:BD64:825:E17A:DA3C (talk · contribs · WHOIS): "literally described as a fact"..."that his father was likely". Do you not see the point I was making? Likely is not a definite statement of fact. I would argue that level of supposition could warrant its exclusion from the article. Οἶδα (talk) 03:14, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Hello, I'm the IP in question, on roaming. With regards to your argument, I feel this is out of keeping with N:POV, because:

The source describes as fact that an American serviceman is likely the father of Mike Taibbi, and even identifies this man by a surname. The source for this is a head of the Foundling Hospital. That would make this a WP:SECONDARY source -- a high quality one at that.

Although you could argue that the word "likely" opens this claim up to speculation, we would require a reliable source that disputes the factual nature of the Foundling Hospital's claims, to omit this information from the Wiki. Without such, we are omitting details based on our point of view, rather than what the reliable sources say.

At the end of the day, a fact is still a fact, whether it is likely or not. If NBC published as factual that Mike's mother was a Filipino-Hawaiian woman, and that his father was likely an American serviceman with the last name "Denny", we should relay that information to the reader, regardless of what we think is likely. Omitting 50% of Mike Taibbi's parentage leaves questions for the reader where factual answers have been provided by reliable sources; and these answers aren't disputed anywhere by a reliable source. I feel like the father's existence matters. 2600:100C:B037:58FE:104A:FFDE:83B:3EE9 (talk) 15:13, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, and I appreciate that you changed the wording to include "likely" because your initial and second edits did not reflect that. You wrote that "his father was an American military serviceman", a definitive claim not exactly made in the NBC article. Otherwise, I agree with retaining the current information and as such have not attempted to remove it.

I have tried my best to maintain a level of conciseness in the ancestry section of this article because, for many years now, it has been subject to constant revision by editors who I believe have needlessly compounded and obscured the information. I had reverted your first edit because I believed "mixed" was concise enough, followed by his mother's ethnic Filipino/Hawaiian background. And I was considering the fact that "American military serviceman" is not revealing of any ethnicity, which is what these few sentences center on. That is what I was getting at. I appreciate your thoughts on this matter and never meant to suggest that we omit 50% of Mike Taibbi's parentage. Οἶδα (talk) 10:55, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Adoptive father is adopted?

Since MT is himself adopted, I'm not sure I follow this logic: "According to Taibbi, his surname is a Sicilian name of Lebanese origin; however, he is of neither Sicilian nor Lebanese descent because his father was adopted." My personal logic balks at that because I feel the key reason that MT is not of Sicilian nor Lebanese descent is actually because his adoptive father is not biologically related to MT; to me, the innate ethnicity of an adoptive parent is generally a non-issue although cultural aspects could theoretically be a factor. I'm guessing the point of mentioning that is merely to address the ethnicity of the surname, which is interesting to those of us who are curious about such things. It's also interesting that his adoptive father is adopted. Or am I not understanding and this instead a reference to his biological father? I'm just a bit confused by this part. And, as I read it, it was his adoptive parents who separated when he was young, correct? (I just have trouble deciphering whether or not he knows the identity of his biological parents because of the specificity of information provided about them.) Thirddaughter (talk) 19:00, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

@Thirddaughter: You seem to be confused. Matt Taibbi was not adopted. His father, Mike Taibbi, was. Οἶδα (talk) 18:29, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Twitter Files?

"The nineteenth installment of the Twitter Files, "The Great Covid-19 Lie Machine, Stanford, the Virality Project, and the Censorship of "True Stories" raises questions about the government and social media censorship"

So my just-now research of the "Twitter Files" shows that the files were given to several journalists, not just Taibbi. I did this research because the above statement seems to indicate that Taibbi published a work titled "The Twitter Files" with many (more than 19) "installments".

Is this the actual title of Taibbi's work? Are there two such bodies of work, one the trove of tweets released by Musk to multiple journalists, and the second being something separate and distinct by Taibbi alone? Because this passage reads like there was only one, published by Taibbi, and yet there is a complete Wikipedia Article on the trove released by Musk/Twitter, so that can't be right.

This Article is unclear, is the point, and should be/could be cleaned-up and clarified.

2603:8081:3A00:30DF:342C:AE9A:9842:607 (talk) 19:38, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

It is repeatedly clarified that the mentioned installments are "by Taibbi". We do not need to mention other installments by Shellenberger, Weiss etc. This is an article for Taibbi, not the "Twitter Files" itself or the other writers. Nothing needs to be improved except the reading comprehension of some, which is not the job of Wikipedia. Οἶδα (talk) 22:43, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

History - Racket News

@Οἶδα thanks. My reasoning for noting History as "redundant" and restructuring the section was that these entries below seem more appropriate under the Racket News section, which is present and active, rather than historical in context, as you said. Can I make another change to these paragraphs without adjusting other parts of History? Or help me understand why these would be historical? Thank you-

On August 12, 2022, the podcast America This Week was added to TK news. It is a weekly national news wrap-up with Taibbi and Walter Kirn, novelist and literary critic, that is released on Fridays. A transcript of the podcast is also published at Racket News. It is also available on Apple Podcasts.

Taibbi is one of the most popular writers on Substack and earns much more from the platform than he did writing for Rolling Stone. Yachtahead (talk) 19:33, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi Yachtahead. Thanks for the message. I reverted your edit as it removed context of when Taibbi moved away from Rolling Stone. This is clearly necessary information and is mentioned in the lead. If I were to read your revision[1] I would have no way of knowing when that shift happened. Considering I reverted your entire edit, I have now restored the restructuring. If there is anything else you would like to adjust go ahead. Οἶδα (talk) 21:00, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

@Οἶδα thank you. Yes i had simply copied that up to the Self-publishing section, as part of his transition from Rolling Stone to his independent efforts. Looks very good now, many thanks! Yachtahead (talk) 20:02, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Of course! Thank you. Οἶδα (talk) 04:09, 14 October 2024 (UTC)