WTF Is TFN Doing?

Oh Lord Jesus, why hast Thou created The Fucking News?

William Holden, top, and Peter Finch, not top, in MGM’s “Network.”

As we near the end of the year and next month’s first anniversary of the TFN Substack, I want to make explicit some of what I’m trying to do with TFN.

As I explained, introducing myself earlier this week, yes, the most pressing reason for doing TFN every weekday morning (and more!) is financial. In January 2024, my position as managing editor of The Young Turks, overseeing original reporting¹ there, ceased to be.

Since then, I’ve been looking for work, an interesting experience even aside from its obvious anxieties. The demise of mainstream, corporate-owned TV news — my prior field and the one to which I’ve sought a return — has been well chronicled, with implications for the future of Earth but also complicating my job search. This demise means fewer job opportunities but also forces me to question what sense it makes trying to board a rocket that’s rapidly Earth-bound.

The answer, it turns out, is some. For one thing, I’m arrogant enough to think I could reverse the descent of TV news². More pressingly, it definitely makes some sense to jump on board even a plummeting rocket when said rocket offers health insurance!

On the other hand, I’m at a different place in my career than I was for past job searches. Early on, I had a fairly generic resume. I wrote for GMA. That kind of thing. But then I helped make Countdown with Keith Olbermann a big enough deal that its gravitational pull shifted the entire orbit of MSNBC, where I then helped create Up w/ Chris Hayes.

So what’s anyone supposed to do with that guy today? Any big corporate media outlet hiring folks to shake things up? Billionaire owners might say they want that…and yet, they’re billionaires, so we keep our expectations low and find ourselves unsurprised that they somehow manage to make news not interesting despite these oh-so-interesting times.

And just in case anyone thinks I’m some journalistic saint, I have actively tried to sell out. I mean all the way the fuck out. Comms job at a Wall Street firm? Where do I sign?

Unfortunately for me and my family and our futures, it turns out I am bad at selling out. So bad that I’m pretty sure I sent at least one Wall Street firm a résumé of mine that included my work explaining how Wall Street tanked the economy in 2007/2008.

All of which leaves TFN. In a future post I’ll share some of the metrics I’m probably not supposed to share about TFN’s growth, but I want to focus first on what it is and isn’t.

It’s not a cheerleader. TFN isn’t loyal to parties or politicians. It’s loyal — or strives to be — to ideas and ideals and, yes, you Newsfuckers, the folks who make TFN possible.

TFN might be clear about who should win an election, but that doesn’t mean we won’t criticize or share information about those people. And I want to note there is a lot of pressure to cheerlead. The most successful Substacks tend to avoid criticizing their “team” and revel in piling on the other. It pays, dear Newsfucker. It pays well.

And that’s, let’s be honest, in part because a lot of readers and news consumers simply don’t want to hear anything negative about their team. Which, of course, is how you lose. But that’s the reality of this moment — and TFN’s mission includes helping people hear news they don’t like and might otherwise be inclined to shut out.

I should disclose that I reject cheerleader-ism not because I’m a saint. It’s because I am a journalist and share certain, often-antisocial personality flaws with good journalists. If I see Biden or Harris or anyone on the left making what I consider grievous errors, I have a compulsion to say so.

Part of it’s my aforementioned fealty to Newsfuckers and my commitment to keep them informed. And I think we get a bad universe when people in power never experience criticism from their own “side.” But also sometimes I’m just kind of a dick. Which may not be great for a career, but has its journalistic advantages in compelling me to be that guy and point out things others might politely ignore.

That said, TFN does ignore plenty of shit. Specifically, stupid shit. That’s a core part of TFN’s mission.

There’s a lot of stupid shit out there, in both corporate and whatever-we’re-calling-not-corporate media. You do not need to hear about every outrageous thing everyone says.

Pissing matches — especially between extremist randos — are non-essential news. (Some, like the immigration battle TFN wrote about on Friday, merit attention because they reveal ideological/political rifts. If it’s just two online yahoos calling each other grifters…pass.)

Likewise, a lot of oxygen gets upsucked by “news” that’s really just tea-leaf reading, bits of information that feel like they tell us what’s gonna happen or who someone “really” is. I think of this as predictive or essentialist news and it’s almost always bullshit. (Beware news focused on whether someone’s a hypocrite. We’re all hypocrites; mystery solved.)

So, TFN tries to ignore bullshit “news” and recommends that Newsfuckers shun the outlets that dwell on bullshit because because bullshit is easier than the alternative. Which is substance.

Substance is context and history and data around policies or officials with direct impact on people’s material lives. It’s news that makes sense of the world in systemic terms. The reason we don’t see this as much as we should is because it’s hard!

That’s true for me, too. I’m by no means a policy wonk, so part of the TFN work you often don’t see is seeking out that wonkery, because TFN’s mission is to share with Newsfuckers wonkery relevant to our lives about policies and officials that matter.

In light of all that, the demise of mainstream media is potentially a very, very good thing — in that it reduces the attention given to outrage, pissing matches, prediction, and essentialism.

But it’ll be a bad thing if mainstream media is replaced by others doing the same thing — outrage, pissing matches, prediction, essentialism — but with more extremism, more ideological agendas, and more-opaque backing.

Because TFN likes America and wants Americans to have good things, TFN aspires to provide substantive news — doing so with cursing and snark and humor and stupid gifs and whatever other shit I can come up with to render substantive news compelling and engaging. So far, it’s working. As other rockets descend, TFN’s growing.

So, thank you for every donation and paid subscription and free subscription and restacking and social-media share. That, to me, is newsfucking. Yes, “The Fucking News” refers to the fucking news in which we’re awash but also to the fucking state of the news industry and also to our work together as Newsfuckers fucking the news as it is and creating something new-ish:

News that’s substantive but not stultifying. That takes sides but doesn’t demonize. That pushes back on prevailing conventional wisdom, demanding that we comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable … no matter which team they’re on.

So, when TFN smacks your favorite politician, it doesn’t mean we think they’re “bad” or went them to fail. It means I think you should know about it. Because my loyalty lies with Newsfuckers. (And because I’m kind of a dick.)

What Newsfuckers Can Do

I have more end-of-year thoughts/revelations I wanna share with you Newsfuckers as I juggle the newsletter and original reporting with all the holiday traveling and visiting (trips today and tomorrow! Sheesh!). As we leave 2024 and hold our noses for the stinky year to come, we’re also approaching the one-year anniversary of the TFN Substack. So, to steel you Newsfuckers for the aforementioned stinky year ahead, I’m going to post about just how much newsfucking you’ve made happen this year. That’s to assure paid subscribers that financial support really, really matters but also because I’m constantly amazed by the love all you Newsfuckers have shown me financially but also with your kind and generous words. So I want to repay that just a bit by reminding everyone what we’ve done together. Thank you.

1. Text-based, that is. Video-based reports from the field didn’t fall under my purview.

2. I’m formulating a series of posts about how, which I’ll get to when there isn’t timely reporting I’m prioritizing.