[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

There are opinion pieces that treat their subjects fairly and reasonably disagree with them. There are also opinion pieces that deliberately set out to smear their subject by finding as much ammunition to fire at them as possible, while trying to present that ammunition in the worst light possible for the subject. The latter is called a "hit piece". It's a cheap tactic to try to foist an opinion onto an audience, rather than expressing the opinion fairly and allowing the audience to decide if it agrees or disagrees.

You seem to be saying "this is nothing new, there are a lot of articles like this, why are you surprised". If that's your point, I agree completely, there are many such articles, which is why there's a category called a "hit piece". It's not novel, but it's still a dishonest and deleterious addition to any public conversation.

Just taking the "huckster" thing as an example, it's an unfair charge to level at someone... that is, unless you explain what you mean, and make substantive criticisms as to how they present their message. Referring again to Lindsay's piece, he says something quite similar:

That's a reasonable concern, well expressed. He fleshes it out further later when he evaluates Peterson's epistemology. As you say, Lindsay's was obviously the better article (if you can even call the G&M one an article), and this is why. If all you do is call the guy a huckster and absurd and not worth taking seriously over and over again, paragraph after paragraph, you might as well not write an article at all, because it can all be boiled down to "this guy is bad and I hate him".

Well I'd tend to argue that the G&M piece was likely working within the confines of a word count and trying to generate clicks. Even the title of the piece is obviously clickbait. So I guess I'd concede that the article itself contains quite a bit of inflammatory and irrelevant words regarding Peterson as a person but it's overall take on the content of his work isn't inaccurate.