If someone admits to watching Ben Shapiro it just draws their entire being into question. A gay black man watching a homophobic white supremacist? Don.... Either you're lying or you're really telling on how much you hate yourself.
Everyone is entitled to bad taste. Money and intelligence do not keep someone from making a golden toilet, and they don't keep Don from idolizing idiots.
What's wrong with listening to the opposition? I try to get a taste from the left, right, and everything in the middle, that way I'm informed of things each side leaves out. That seems to be what Don Lemon is doing here.
If you just casually listen to garbage or propaganda like shapiro, some of it you'll retain without retaining the source. Some of his bullshit will land in your brain under "Oh yeah I heard somewhere [complete bullshit]". Especially if it's something that gets repeated a lot.
Also if you're listening uncritically, some of the entry level bullshit might land with you. He might lay blame on some outgroup and you might be like "huh that does make sense". If you don't go and do the work to research his claim to contextualize and possibly debunk it, now you've got right wing nonsense planted in your brain.
If they have some sort of reason or logic, sure. Most right-wing talking points are absurd though, and after so many decades of it - no. We’re done here.
As far as I can tell the original source of this is... puck.news, which I have never heard of before, and is apparently some kind of snooty, recently started, New York based ... 'high society' oriented, long form journalism style website that seems to be trying to basically be the New York Times editorial section, but better.
Heres the actual source that claims that Don Lemon said he now watches Ben Shapiro.
Here is the relevant part, buried amidst a gigantic list of basically advertisements for various products with apparently celebrity endorsements for all of them, from, you know, a startup 'journalism' outfit that seemingly no one has ever heard of before.
Since leaving corporate media I cut the cord. I have an extensive, eclectic streaming palate now: Fellow Travelers on Showtime; PBD Podcast (it’s very conservative); The Ben Shapiro Show (I want to hear his take on Israel); Pivot (of course); Piers Morgan Uncensored (very real, authentic conversations you don’t get in corporate media); Pod Save America (obvi); The Daily (every single day); Smartless (the best); The Adam Friedland Show (smart, irreverent, funny; download the Chet Hanks episode for evidence). –Don Lemon, journalist
Ok, so then, within a matter of days, this gets heavily editorialized and ran with by the NYPost, a bunch of local Fox affiliates, and a slew of other right wing grifter/rage generation outlets.
And now here it is on BlueSky, which is basically a twitter knock off clone founded via basically a grifter who is really good at appealing to technically incompetent people (they lied and misrepresented their technical abilities/structure and what makes them stand out in ways that are ludicrous and obvious to those who know tech) and also via focusing on essentially mastering appeals to those easily swayed by inclusive language, and the current mass trend of woke scolding.
Basically, this all stinks to high heaven and seems to be a perfect example of the internet doing the internet thing, starting with a dubious source and then the story grows and morphs to suit the needs of whatever particular audience needs to hear to propogate it further.
Even if there is actual truth to the fundamental claims, I fail to see how a basically centrist journalist who has been in the industry for years and now says he is interested in expanding his media diet ... how does that make him a grifter?
He would be a grifter if he /intentionally and knowingly promoted false stories and misleading narratives, for thr aim of making money/.
If he starts /doing that/ then yes he would be a grifter... but he isnt. He seems to have retired.
I think the “grifter” comment comes from—if this quote is to be believed, which I appreciate your due diligence on—the man turning to the well-worn path of a person of color finding profitability and open arms as a conservative-come-lately.
Again, the whole quote changes the context, because Pod Save America is establishment liberal as it comes, but if he were to go from the consistent state of righteous indignation over conservatism/trumpism on air for CNN to proudly hawking Ben Shapiro’s show, it would’ve suggested his well dried up in the liberal market, so he switched to milking the conservatives for cash.
Again, I don’t think the whole quote (if even that is to be fully believed) lends itself to this, but to just take the worst item in the list and turn it into a blurb about how Don Lemmon “bashes liberal media, praises Ben Shapiro after CNN ousting” is very much an internet news thing to do. It gets clicks. Engagement. Anger. And it’s very much a liberal/conservative thing to do. “My team rules, anyone not falling in line is dead to me” etc.
I agree with you, I get that the story as it has evolved now would place Lemon into that basically 'sold out my principles to make more money' narrative...
...but the problem is that /even if the Lemon quote is real/, it still does not actually, factually back up that narrative!
See this is why I got thrown out from being a copy editor at my University newspaper almost two decades ago now, I actually valued journalistic integrity and the truth over being misleading.
The actual quote is that he is interested in hearing Shapiro's views on a subject.
That, to a former person working in the field of journalism, could very possibly simply indicates he wants to understand Shapiro's presentation style, or his market demo and how they get appealed to.
Without any actual evidence he is planning on like becoming a fucking featured guest on Shapiro's show, or getting his own show under Shapiro's media company or something, I see no way you can be actually valid in claiming Lemon is now on the grifter path.
It plays into the narrative disingenuously.
Which is why its perfect to suspect some bullshit is going on.
If there is /any/ actual evidence Lemon is actually planning on becoming a grifter... you would run with that instead!
At least if you actually cared about not being journalistically irresponsible.
Oi vei, now I am back in that dingy unused classroom arguing with my former editor again, fuck.
Not surprising. He was/is good friends with Chris Cuomo, brother of the disgraced ex-NY governor. The same guy who abused his powers at CNN to aid his brother, and then was also fired. There's no integrity among them, and Don never appeared all that smart to me. Now we know he was fake on top of everything else.
He was a news anchor on CNN (American). Iirc he said some things about no body wanting women when they’re old and then wasn’t at CNN anymore. Turns out he watches far right nut job Ben Shapiro
I listen to Ben each day and have done so for years. So I know from first hand experience that this is not the action of a serious person and he is actively harming his mental health by doing this.
Sadly I can't do that. I have a history of keeping my enemies closer. But I'm also a trained professional. I survived a dozen years of Rush Limbaugh. I'll survive Ben.