Axios CEO Jim VandeHei destroyed Elon Musk over his ridiculous claims that Twitter-turned-X is replacing the media.
It has been over two years since Musk took over Twitter and transformed it into X. Most agree that the site has greatly deteriorated under his ownership. In addition to value and ad revenue plummeting, the platform has steadily morphed into a right-wing propaganda site. It lacks content moderation, allowing misinformation, hate speech, and harassment to spread unchecked. Millions of users have left X, citing the immense toxicity of the platform as their reason for departing. Right-wing extremists were already overrunning the platform when Musk proudly joined them and endorsed MAGA. His election interference raised many eyebrows as he used his power and platform to post deepfakes of Kamala Harris and “joke” about assassinating her while promising to give away $1 million to people who signed his pro-Trump PAC.
X has also proven that its rampant misinformation can endanger lives, as Musk and his followers contributed to spreading FEMA conspiracy theories that inhibited hurricane relief efforts and led to FEMA employees facing death threats. Yet, Musk had the gall to claim that X is going to replace legacy media.
Jim VandeHei slams Elon Musk’s ridiculous claims
Since Trump won the election, Musk has pushed “citizen journalism” and claimed that X is a replacement for the media. He has penned posts, writing, “Citizen journalism is the path to a better future!” and “Be a citizen journalist.” Musk and his followers have begun comically claiming “X is the media now,” even though people are abandoning their X accounts to get away from the harassment of Musk’s so-called “citizen journalists.”
Finally, someone decided to squash Musk’s outrageous claims. VandeHei, who co-founded the news website Axios, lashed out at Musk while speaking at the National Press Club. He started by describing the importance of being a journalist. VandeHei poignantly describes journalism: “But at the core of that is maybe transparency, maybe a free press, maybe the ability to do your job without worrying to go to jail. Maybe the ability to sit in a war zone and tell people what’s actually happening so they’re not just looking at distortion, matters. It matters profoundly.” He acknowledges a lot of journalists “don’t love” the downfalls of the job, like getting up at “3 or 4 in the morning,” reporting on difficult topics, or having everything they do being “under fire.” These people do their job because they know it’s important and matters.
The importance of journalism makes it all the more outrageous when “Elon Musk sits on Twitter every day or X today saying like, ‘We are the media. You are the media.'” VandeHei’s response to Musk’s claim is: “Bulls**t! You’re not the media; you having a blue checkmark, a Twitter handle, and 300 words of cleverness doesn’t make you a reporter any more than me looking at your head and seeing that you have a brain and telling you have an awesome set of tools makes me a d**n neurosurgeon, right?” He explains that it takes a lot of “hard work” and “care” to be a journalist, stating, “You have to get up every single day and say, ‘I want to get to the closest approximation of the truth without any fear, without any favoritism.'” He points out you don’t just automatically become a reporter by “popping off on Twitter” or “having an opinion.”
VandeHei’s statement was an excellent takedown of Musk that needed to be said. Most journalists are hard-working, underappreciated individuals whose work isn’t always easy. Some journalists physically risk their lives or put themselves in the line of harassment and hatred just to tell the truth. For Musk to claim that the incels on X living in their mother’s basements and fangirling over Trump all day long are equivalent to real, hardworking, trained journalists is beyond outrageous and unhinged. As VandeHei put it, claiming a bunch of ignorant social media trolls with hateful opinions are the new “media” is just plain “bulls**t.”
Published: Nov 26, 2024 11:16 am