Why I Axed Axios Today

I was a huge, early-adopter of Axios' and their "smart media."

I quit them today.

Here's their mission: "Axios gets you smarter, faster on what matters."

Smart and fast are often contradictory. Smart requires deliberation. When I'm smart, I don't jump at the first inflammatory thing that's said - by Fox, by MSNBC, by my sister in Geneva or my brother in Plymouth, or by any 30-second spot. I make an exception that I trust anything Meryl Streep says, except when she's playing Miranda Priestly.

Daniel Kahneman wrote Thinking, Fast and Slow in 2011. For his efforts he won the Nobel Peace Prize. Malcolm Gladwell popularized (though some would say distorted) many of Kahneman's points in his Blink...Thinking Without Thinking - awesome subtitle requires slow-thinking. I will simplify the commonality in what both were pointing out. A part of our brains - one of the earliest to grow in homo sapiens, one most like our animal relatives - works lightning fast to see patterns and especially to see threats. This part is awesome when you taste something foul, smell smoke, see a gun, feel a hot surface, hear an explosion. (Get the sensory parts?)

That part of your brain doesn't do a very good job when it needs to solve a Rubic's cube, think through health policy, deal with conflict with your teenage child, or resolve differences with your co-founder about your firm's strategy.

I like Axios' mission of taking complex ideas yet boiling them to their essence. That's really hard work to do, let alone to do in this thing we call the "news cycle," which runs like a treadmill on 10. Axios can do it remarkably well. But they are just as bad as Fox, MSNBC, Trump, or the trying-to-reform-itself-Facebook when they repeatedly overstimulate the brain's most basic fears and blatantly inflame them. Let me note/admit that I am using the word "inflame" to paint a picture, a super-triggering image, as we in the west and southwest US understand every day. Language works like this - stimulating our cognitive-slow brain but also our instinctive-fast brain.

Pictures go straight to the brain stem. Today Axios posted two photos - one on top of the other - with almost ZERO analysis or perspective. One, a white, right-wing militant outside Churchill Downs wielding an automatic rifle, flanked by apparent allies; oh, yes, and, thanks Axios for the hyperlink to their website. Beneath that, a black militant group with an even more - aka fast brain - terrifying photo. The latter is shot head on, as if the man is about to "shoot" YOU. In apparent journalistic fairness, the black group's url is also provided.

How many truths does this fucked-up bullshit photojournalism conceal? (Note: "fucked up bullshit journalism" are words consciously intended and admittedly used to (a) show my rage and hopelessness (b) to trigger by shocking, exciting, and (c) to oversimplify the issue.) How many images does this fast-but-not-smart trick of photojournalism completely conceal from your view? How many peaceful, unarmed speakers were at the Kentucky Derby, or for that matter in Rochester, Kenosha or Portland? And how many people aren't in this picture who just wanted to watch a horse race, for God's sake? How many millions of grandmothers, black mothers, schoolboys and schoolgirls are left out of this picture? People who are already traumatized by the media's sensationalization, magnification and distortion of some truly scary underlying problems?

But if we can slow-think for 2 minutes and 28 seconds, let me welcome Axios to 1972. Watch the powerful slow-thinking of Angela Davis. Davis was repeatedly asked - by white men who controlled all the news microphones at the time - to talk about whether Blacks condoned violence. She unmasks the false equivalence - are you really asking about the violent nature of people whose homes were bombed because they were black? 50 years later I thought we were finally comprehending the plight of our black American citizens and the ways in which our white silence has enabled that violence to continue. I thought "smart" people were getting this from their smart news.

Then today, in this incredible feat of false equivalence, Axios plays right into that fast-thinking trope (of violent blacks) that needs to be talked about slowly and intelligently. How many black violent groups are out there? How much black-on-white police violence is there? Trump thanks you, Axios, for awakening that old white fear of angry black men. The white racists thank you for justifying their self-proclaimed vigilance. In the false equivalence, most Blacks do not thank you; they have not seen this band of black revolutionaries, but they now "get" to defend themselves, once again, thanks to how you have invited them to be seen, as dangerous violent perpetrators. Meanwhile, you show photos of police and protesters in Rochester. So, that's the story? Have you seen (you haven't shown it) the police body cam video of Daniel Prude's inhumane last 30 minutes of life? Perhaps you judged it too harsh to watch? Maybe you were afraid people would puke in disgust or break down in tears. Or, maybe it's just not news any more. You have moved on to Trump's new trope - the radical left and those scary people who are going to bring their guns to the suburbs.

And here's perhaps the biggest impact of the "fast-thinking" pair of images you have shown: The frightened are now just a little more frightened!!! White, black, suburban, city - they are just a little less smart and a lot more scared - thanks to your clever photojournalism.

Is this how YOU want to "sell papers?" You who have been castigating Google, Facebook, Instagram and all the rest for 18 months? Revealing that their "good intent" still evokes horrific unintended consequences? I'd encourage you to consider your former high ground, because I think you have abandoned that position. With photojournalism like this you magnify Lawrence O'Donnell and Tucker Carlson, as they attack the "other" side. If you were different, I thought you were, you aren't any more. You inflame the belly of fear. You won't feed my gut any longer. I'm disgusted by your "smart" journalism, and I'd rather think slow if this is smart.

Are people not frightened enough? Is Covid, the economy, the violence, the injustice not fear-inducing enough? You've poured your can of gasoline @Mike Allen. Your hands wreak of the smell of it. I no longer find Axios to be Axios a Greek word - like hubris. You know axios is translated "deserving" or "worthy of," and was in later centuries adopted as an expression of jubiliation when a person was elevated to bishop. I used to cry "axios." No more.

Dear reader: If this hasn't been TLDR (Too long didn't read) here's my standard for what I want to ingest in the next 60 days of madness: I will read what makes me think slow. Calms me down. Asks me to question the grotesque oversimplifications. Helps me to turn from my groupism. I want to read things that make me want to listen to people. To ask them why. To investigate the underlying facts. To help me understand their point of view and thus grow my own.

If you feel similar to me and want a lot of good information, I encourage you to read Morning Brew. (Disclosure: I have no monetary or other relationship to them.) They bring levity, which you can tell my ranting self is in need of. They are what I thought Axios was going to be...a smart aggregator of things I'd like to know.

I'm not in search of my rose-colored glasses. I'm just tired of being asked by left and right - and yes, the flipping media salespeople, too - to hate my fellow American. F that! Virtual hugs to all.

Peace out.