Readers, we’ve come to the end of the line at Citable.
As of Wednesday next, Citable shall cease to be. This, unfortunately, is the last time I’ll hunch awkwardly over my desk to address you directly.
Citable — in all its attempts to achieve objective neutrality — was not conceived to be an attempt to promote some form of enlightened centrism. The team behind it held various conflicting views, thus keeping us all in check. Our goal? To present the reader with the ‘fact.’
How to interpret that fact was then up to the individual to decide. As with the Bible, many interpretations are possible within even a small section of text. At a minimum, however, a voter armed with the fact can actively and meaningfully engage in shaping policy that benefits their own set of specific interests and sensibilities. The fact can hold immense power. There’s no right or wrong way to wield it. The point is that all parties acknowledge that it exists – varying interpretations aside.
We hope we imparted some sense of that and sidestepped the poorly veiled hero worship that various better-established news outlets can display for their favorites. We hope we adequately disguised any contempt we may have held for certain actors/policies. We are only human, after all.
From an outsider’s perspective (not one of us in the news team here is American – for us, a helpful degree of separation), it’s been curious to witness and delve into the American approach to picking a side to support. As I see it, there seems to be a sizeable demographic who rally behind either side as they would a sports team. Packers vs. Bears. The star quarterbacks of the moment, Biden and Trump. Stickers emblazoned on their daily commuter vehicle, flags on the lawn. Advertisements, opinions, chants – the policy playbook lying unopened and dusty.
I understand it can be tough to be concerned with the playbook while your team is ahead, but there’s little space for cross-aisle cooperation within that embattled and impassioned mindset – even when there’s common ground. It’s Al Pacino in ‘Any Given Sunday,’ and both sides are willing to fight for every inch.
“On this team, we fight for that inch. On this team, we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that inch.”
And so, there’s a lingering risk one party could end up cutting its nose off to spite its face. So long as the other team loses, it’s justifiable within this ruleset. In the background, a policy decision is pushed through while the crowd is distracted by the action under the floodlights. The majority wouldn’t have voted for it, but it’s done now.
We noticed a tendency to attempt to reduce complex and ever-changing geopolitical situations to their simplest elements – one side is objectively ‘good,’ whereas the other is the bogeyman. And thus, the propagandist's job is complete. The IDF then represents the will of the entire Israeli population, and Palestinians are all Hamas sympathizers. To express sympathy for Israel is Zionistic. To criticize its policy is antisemitic. Just like that, the debate closes. There’s no scope to explore the gray area or to humanize those in the constantly rolling ticker tape of statistics. Again, we’re picking teams, but few are actually winning.
With Citable, we took you through the awkward ‘there are 100,000 Russian troops stationed at the Ukraine border’ phase of the conflict, right up to the current ‘Ukraine says Russia is torturing hostages’/’Russia says Ukraine murders babies’ point. Through this, we had to refrain from acting as a discount store Nostradamus and outright saying, ‘Hey, maybe Russia is gonna march on in there.’ No. It wasn’t the fact. Not at that point in time, at least.
The fact, despite its potential utility, is boring. Take a look at headlines elsewhere, and you’ll see buzzword-laden phrases like, ‘Tlaib is a terrorist sympathizer,’ The government WILL shut down,’ and the classic ‘Biden falls over again.’ They’re raw. They’re almost fun. And they don’t require the reader to challenge any deep-rooted beliefs. The fact can’t compete with that – nor should it. We were not here to entertain, just for the news.
On a personal note, I’m looking forward to extracting myself from the news scene entirely. Seeing as no news is good news, by doing nothing at all, I may just accomplish my best work yet.
This journo will soon be found ranting in the comments section, the caps lock engaged, having only read the headline.
Peace,
Ben Byrne – Your bitterly pessimistic (former) news editor