The Nonstop, Dangerous Trump "Liestream" is Same as it Ever Was / a Book on Musk's Destruction of Twitter

A quick look back at a 2020 conversation on what happens when a president, or now an extremist candidate for the presidency, floods the zone with shit

Click the ♡ button if you appreciate what I’m trying to do here. Supposedly it helps drive visibility on Substack.

In April 2020, New York University journalism professor and media critic

Jay Rosen

told me this on Sustain What:

I think we're facing the biggest propaganda moment in modern U.S. history from now until November... and I don't think the profession of journalism or the media system as a whole is in any way prepared for that.

The dynamic is different because Trump is not president (yet~) and the prime threat is no longer the pandemic and White House-driven misinformation - the focus of our chat.

But the lie-stream from Trump and J.D. Vance and their proxies feels even worse and more dangerous in some ways as we head toward THIS November - as I explored here.

And of course there is still, by almost all accounts, a 50/50 chance Trump will win, so reviving this conversation is important preemptively, as well. Here’s the full discussion, which also included Daniel Castro, a vice president at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation:

Rosen is still a dogged force on X/Twitter, pressing for news media innovation amid the turmoil generated online. He’s also cross-posting occasionally on Threads for what that’s worth (still not much, to my eye).

If you’re interested in tracking best and worst practices in journalism and finding ways forward, also be sure to subscribe to

Mark Jacob

’s

Stop the Presses

dispatch here on Substack. Here’s a relevant example from this former Chicago Tribune metro editor:

Fox keeps getting better — at lying

Finally, please read

Parker Molloy

’s glowing review of Character Limit - How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter, by New York Times reporters Kate Conger and Ryan Mac. I’m going to work hard to get Conger and Mac on a Sustain What webcast.

Book Review: 'Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter' by Kate Conger and Ryan Mac

Here’s a key point that syncs well with conversations I had on Sustain What with former Twitter employee Jim Moffitt - an engineer working for years to boost the value of Twitter data during unfolding disasters and extreme weather:

What makes Character Limit particularly compelling is how Conger and Mac avoid the trap of treating Musk as a quirky eccentric who just happens to be running a tech company. Instead, they focus on the real-world consequences of his actions and how they align with his political leanings…. They leave readers with the unsettling realization that what Musk has done to Twitter is emblematic of a larger societal issue: the concentration of power in the hands of those who are willing to wield it irresponsibly. It’s a cautionary tale, not just about Twitter, but about the future of any platform that plays a critical role in shaping public dialogue.

Despite all the damage, I still remain a very active user of the polluted platform now called X, even though I’ve blocked the billionaire who now owns and routinely abuses it in ways that are spectacularly divisive and dangerous. I even think there’s a chance that the dynamic called Twitter may still rise from the ashes of X someday.

I’ve written many posts here on why I persist there. Here’s just one: