Matthew Colin Taibbi (; born March 2, 1970) is an American author, journalist and podcaster. A former contributing editor for ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...

'', he is the author of several books and publisher of ''Racket News'' (formerly ''TK News''). He has reported on finance, media, politics and sports. Taibbi began as a freelance reporter working in Russia. He later worked as a sports journalist for the English-language newspaper ''

The Moscow Times ''The Moscow Times'' (''MT'') is an Amsterdam-based independent English-language and Russian-language online newspaper. It was in print in Russia from 1992 until 2017 and was distributed free of charge at places frequented by English-speaking to ...

''. In 1997, Taibbi and Mark Ames co-edited the tabloid newspaper ''

The eXile ''The eXile'' was a Moscow-based English-language biweekly free tabloid newspaper, aimed at the city's expatriate community, which combined outrageous, sometimes satirical, content with investigative reporting. In October 2006, co-editor Jake ...

''. In 2002, Taibbi returned to the United States and founded the Buffalo-based newspaper '' The Beast''. He left a year later to work as a columnist for the ''

New York Press ''New York Press'' was a free alternative weekly in New York City, which was published from 1988 to 2011. The ''Press'' strove to create a rivalry with the ''Village Voice''. ''Press'' editors claimed to have tried to hire away writer Nat Hento ...

''. In 2004, Taibbi began covering politics for ''Rolling Stone''. In 2008, Taibbi won a National Magazine Award for three columns he wrote for ''Rolling Stone''. Taibbi became known for his brazen style, having branded

Goldman Sachs The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered in Lower Manhattan in New York City, with regional headquarters in many internationa ...

a "vampire squid" in a 2009 article about the Wall Street firm's outsized role in the

2008 financial crisis The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...

. His work often has drawn comparisons to the gonzo journalism of writer Hunter S. Thompson, who also covered politics for ''Rolling Stone''. In 2019, he launched the podcast ''Useful Idiots'', co-hosted by Katie Halper, before leaving in 2022, where he was succeeded by Aaron Maté. In 2020, he announced that he would no longer release his writing through ''Rolling Stone'' and had begun self-publishing his online writing. In recent years, Taibbi's writing has focused on culture war issues and

cancel culture Cancel culture is a cultural phenomenon in which an individual thought to have acted or spoken in an unacceptable manner is ostracized, boycotted, shunned or fired, often aided by social media. This shunning may extend to social or professio ...

. He has criticized

mainstream media In journalism, mainstream media (MSM) is a term and abbreviation used to refer collectively to the various large Mass media, mass news media that influence many people and both reflect and shape prevailing currents of thought.Noam Chomsky, Choms ...

including its coverage of

Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections The Russian government conducted Foreign electoral intervention, foreign electoral interference in the 2016 United States elections with the goals of sabotaging the Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign, presidential campaign of Hillar ...

. Between 2022 and 2023, Taibbi released several installments of the Twitter Files. Taibbi has authored several books, including '' The Great Derangement'' (2009); '' Griftopia'' (2010); '' The Divide'' (2014); '' Insane Clown President'' (2017); '' I Can't Breathe'' (2017); and '' Hate Inc.'' (2019).

Early life and education

Matt Taibbi was born in 1970 in

New Brunswick, New Jersey New Brunswick is a city (New Jersey), city in and the county seat of Middlesex County, New Jersey, Middlesex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Taibbi's father, Mike Taibbi, is an NBC television reporter whose biological mother was of mixed Filipino and

Native Hawaiian Native Hawaiians (also known as Indigenous Hawaiians, Kānaka Maoli, Aboriginal Hawaiians, or simply Hawaiians; , , , and ) are the Indigenous peoples of Oceania, Indigenous Polynesians, Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands. Hawaiʻi was set ...

descent, while his father was likely an American serviceman. Mike Taibbi was adopted by an

Italian-American Italian Americans () are Americans who have full or partial Italians, Italian ancestry. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeastern United States, Northeast and industrial Midwestern United States, Midwestern ...

couple in New York. According to Taibbi, his surname is a Sicilian name of Lebanese origin; however, he is of neither Sicilian nor Lebanese descent because his father was adopted. He has also claimed Irish descent through his mother. Taibbi grew up in the Boston suburbs. His parents separated when he was young and he was largely raised by his mother. Because Taibbi was troubled with behavioral and academic problems, his parents sent him to

Concord Academy Concord Academy (also known as CA) is a coeducational, Independent school, independent University-preparatory school, college-preparatory school for boarding and day students in Concord, Massachusetts. CA educates approximately 400 students in ...

. He first attended

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

but was "unable to deal with being just one of thousands of faces in a city of millions" and transferred after his freshman year to

Bard College Bard College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains within the Hudson River Historic District ...

, where he graduated in 1992. He spent a year abroad studying at Leningrad Polytechnic University, where he finished his credits for graduation from Bard.

Career

Russia

After completing his college work midsemester, Taibbi moved to New York City where he spent two months working as a waiter to save money for a plane ticket to Russia. In 1992, missing his college graduation, Taibbi moved to

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

. Seven months later, Taibbi moved to

Tashkent Tashkent (), also known as Toshkent, is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uzbekistan, largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of more than 3 million people as of April 1, 2024. I ...

, Uzbekistan, where he began selling news articles more regularly. He returned to Saint Petersburg five months later, after being deported by the Uzbek secret police for writing an article for the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...

that was critical of President Islam Karimov. At the time of his deportation, Taibbi was the starting left fielder for the Uzbekistan national baseball team. Six months later, Taibbi moved to Moscow to take a job at the English-language newspaper ''

'', where he worked as a sports editor for five months. Taibbi moved back to the U.S. doing part-time landscaping work before suffering a nervous breakdown and moving north, where he had an affair with a married woman. He then moved back to Russia to play pro baseball for two Russian clubs, Spartak, and the Red Army, in 1995. After five months in Russia, Taibbi moved back to the East Coast, where he worked as an investigator at a Boston-based private detective agency. After seven months as a private detective, Taibbi moved to Russia to "write a book about serial murder" and began working for ''The Moscow Times'' again, as a news reporter. He returned to the U.S. again after five months to resume his relationship with the divorcée but they broke up and Taibbi returned to Russia to work for ''The Moscow Times'' for the third time. He initially planned to return to America in the summer of 1996 to rekindle their relationship, but found himself too busy covering the 1996 Russian presidential election. Taibbi then moved to Ulaanbaatar,

Mongolia Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...

, where he played professional basketball in the Mongolian Basketball Association (MBA). Taibbi became known as "The Mongolian Rodman", was paid $100/month to play, and said he also hosted a radio show while there. He later contracted pneumonia and, in early January 1997, returned to Boston for surgery to correct an empyema. Doctors had suspected he was infected with bacterial meningitis, but later determined he was only a carrier of the bacteria and he recovered after a course of antibiotics. Shortly after his 27th birthday in March 1997, Taibbi returned to Moscow to take on a job as editor of the tabloid ''Living Here'', which had gone defunct at the time. That same year, he left the ''Living Here'' and joined Mark Ames to co-edit the English-language Moscow-based, bi-weekly

free newspaper Free newspapers are distributed Gratis versus libre, free of charge, often in central places in cities and towns, on public transport, with other newspapers, or separately door-to-door. The revenues of such newspapers are based on advertising. T ...

, ''

,'' which was written primarily for the city's

expatriate An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person who resides outside their native country. The term often refers to a professional, skilled worker, or student from an affluent country. However, it may also refer to retirees, artists and ...

community. ''The eXile''s tone and content were highly controversial. For example, a regular column reported on a member of staff at ''The eXile'' hiring a Russian prostitute and then writing a long "review" of the woman and the details of the sexual encounter. Its content was considered either brutally honest and gleefully tasteless or juvenile, misogynistic and even cruel.''Rolling Stone'' Magazine, issue 800, November 26, 1998. (see als
Hamann's site
) Taibbi wrote in English and Russian. He also contributed to '' Komsomolskaya Pravda'', '' Trud'', ''Stringer'' and '' Kommersant''.

''The Exile'' book

Taibbi's first book, '' The Exile: Sex, Drugs, and Libel in the New Russia'', co-authored with Ames, was published in 2000. A film based on the book was under development by producers Ted Hope and James Schamus of Good Machine but did not materialize. He later stated that he was addicted to

heroin Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a morphinan opioid substance synthesized from the Opium, dried latex of the Papaver somniferum, opium poppy; it is mainly used as a recreational drug for its eupho ...

while he did this early writing. In 2010, journalist James Verini wrote in '' Vanity Fair'' that during an interview in a Manhattan restaurant, he told Taibbi that ''The Exile'' was "redundant and discursive". Verini wrote that Taibbi became enraged, threw his coffee and a "Fuck you!" in Verini's face, followed him for half a block after he left the restaurant, and said "I still haven't decided what I'm going to do with you!" Taibbi later described the incident as "an aberration from how I've behaved in the last six or seven years". In 2017, Taibbi was criticized for excerpts from a chapter written by Ames in the book ''The Exile: Sex, Drugs, and Libel in the New Russia'' that described sexual harassment of employees at ''The eXile''. In a Facebook post responding to the controversy, Taibbi apologized for the "cruel and misogynistic language" used in the book, and said the work was conceived as a satire of the "reprehensible" behavior of American expatriates in Russia and that the description of events in the chapter was "fictional and not true". In 2017, the ''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' published an article by journalist Kathy Lally about Taibbi and Ames' time at the eXile. Lally wrote that the "eXile's distinguishing feature, more than anything else, was its blinding sexism — which often targeted er and that "so many of their sins were real". Although the book presents itself as a work of non-fiction, emails obtained by '' Paste'' in 2017 include a letter from the book's publisher stating that "This book combines exaggerated, invented satire and nonfiction reporting and was categorized as nonfiction because there is no category for a book that is both." Two women portrayed in the book told ''Paste'' magazine that none of the sexual harassment portrayed in the book " verhappened" and that it was a "ridiculous passage written by Mark". Taibbi's publisher, Penguin Random House, dropped him after the controversy.

United States

In 2002, he returned to the United States to start the satirical bi-weekly '' The Beast'' in Buffalo, New York. He left that publication a year later, commenting: "Running a business and writing is too much." Taibbi continued as a freelancer for ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...

'', ''Playboy'', ''New York Press'' (where he wrote a regular political column for more than two years), ''Rolling Stone'', and '' New York Sports Express'' (as editor-at-large). In March 2005, Taibbi's satirical essay, "The 52 Funniest Things About the Upcoming Death of the Pope", published in the ''New York Press'', was denounced by

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, lawyer and diplomat. She was the 67th United States secretary of state in the administration of Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, a U.S. senator represent ...

, Michael Bloomberg, Matt Drudge, Abe Foxman and Anthony Weiner. He left the paper in August 2005, shortly after his editor Jeff Koyen was forced out over the article. Taibbi defended the piece as "off-the-cuff

burlesque A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects.

of truly tasteless jokes," written to give his readers a break from a long run of his "fulminating political essays". Taibbi also said he was surprised at the vehement reactions to what he wrote "in the waning hours of a Vicodin haze". In February 2008, Taibbi contributed a three-minute segment to ''

Real Time with Bill Maher ''Real Time with Bill Maher'' is an American television talk show that airs weekly on HBO, hosted by stand-up comedy, comedian and political satire, political satirist Bill Maher. Much like his previous series ''Politically Incorrect'' on Comedy ...

'' in which he interviewed residents of

Youngstown, Ohio Youngstown is a city in Mahoning County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Ohio, 11th-most populous city in Ohio with a population of 60,068 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The Mahoning ...

before the Ohio primary. He was invited as a guest on

MSNBC MSNBC is an American cable news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. Launched on July 15, 1996, and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, the channel primarily broadcasts r ...

's '' The Rachel Maddow Show'' and other MSNBC programs. He has also appeared on '' Democracy Now!'' and '' Chapo Trap House'', and was a contributor on '' Countdown with Keith Olbermann''. Taibbi has appeared on the Thom Hartmann radio and television shows and the '' Imus in the Morning Show'' on the Fox Business network. Taibbi wrote a column, "The Sports Blotter", for the free weekly newspaper, '' The Boston Phoenix''. He covered legal troubles involving professional and amateur athletes.

''Rolling Stone''

In 2004, Taibbi began covering politics for ''

''. A

contributing editor A contributing editor is a newspaper, magazine or online job title that varies in its responsibilities. Often, but not always, a contributing editor is a "high-end" freelancer, consultant, or expert who has proven ability and has readership dra ...

, he wrote feature-length articles on domestic and international affairs. He also wrote a weekly political online column, "The Low Post", for the magazine's website. Taibbi covered the

2008 United States presidential election Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 4, 2008. The Democratic ticket of Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, and Joe Biden, the senior senator from Delaware, defeated the Republican ticket of John Mc ...

in ''Year of the Rat'', a special ''Rolling Stone'' diary. After conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart died in March 2012, Taibbi wrote an obituary in ''Rolling Stone'', entitled "Andrew Breitbart: Death of a Douche". Taibbi also wrote: "Good! Fuck him. I couldn't be happier that he's dead." He wrote that the obituary was "at least half an homage", which gave respect to aspects of Breitbart's style and also alluded to Breitbart's own derisive obituary of Ted Kennedy. In a

postscript PostScript (PS) is a page description language and dynamically typed, stack-based programming language. It is most commonly used in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm, but as a Turing complete programming language, it c ...

, Taibbi wrote that some fans of Breitbart were angered by the obituary and responded with "threats and insults".

Financial journalism

In his reporting in the wake of the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis and subsequent

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of market decline in economies around the world that occurred from late 2007 to mid-2009.

, Taibbi described

as "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money". In financial and political media the expression "Vampire Squids" has come to represent the perception of the financial and investment sector as entities that "sabotage production" and "sink the economy as they suck the life out of it in the form of rent." Tackling the assistance to banks given in foreclosure courts, Taibbi traveled to

Jacksonville, Florida Jacksonville ( ) is the most populous city proper in the U.S. state of Florida, located on the Atlantic coast of North Florida, northeastern Florida. It is the county seat of Duval County, Florida, Duval County, with which the City of Jacksonv ...

to observe the " rocket docket". He was brought in to observe a hearing with attorney April Charney. He concluded that it processed foreclosures without regard to the legality of the financial instruments being ruled upon, and sped up the process to enable quick resale of the properties, while obscuring the fraudulent and predatory nature of the loans. In February 2014, Taibbi left ''Rolling Stone'' and joined First Look Media to head a financial and political corruption-focused publication, ''Racket''. However, after management disputes with First Look's leadership delayed its launch and led to its cancellation, Taibbi returned to ''Rolling Stone'' the following October.

''Useful Idiots''

In August 2019, Taibbi launched a political

podcast A podcast is a Radio program, program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an Episode, episodic series of digital audio Computer file, files that users can download to a personal device or str ...

, ''Useful Idiots'', co-hosted with Katie Halper and released through ''Rolling Stone''. The podcast has since featured interviews with various guests including Liz Franczak, Andre Damon, David Dayen,

Cornel West Cornel Ronald West (born June 2, 1953) is an American philosopher, theologian, political activist, politician, social critic, and public intellectual. West was an independent candidate in the 2024 United States presidential election and is an ou ...

, Glenn Greenwald, and Aaron Maté. In March 2021, Taibbi announced that ''Useful Idiots'' would no longer be released by ''Rolling Stone'' and would be self-published. With a few changes in program support staff, it is published as both audio and video that features both a free subscription and a paid subscription. In January 2022, he announced a sabbatical leave to write a book, and that in his absence, Maté would fill in for him.

Self-publishing

In 2018, Taibbi began publishing a novel, ''The Business Secrets of Drug Dealing: Adventures of the Unidentified Black Male'', as a serialized subscription via email and a website with an anonymous partner. The novel is fictional with true-crime elements. Taibbi continued publishing the novel on a Substack website that he titled initially The Taibbi Report and then The Fairway. As he then published the book "Hate, Inc." in serial form on his Substack, that was used as the title. In 2019, when "Hate, Inc." completed, the Substack was still being published in addition to other assignments. It went through additional name changes as Taibbi published both one-off posts and started projects that sometimes remained unfinished, until becoming TK News. In April 2020, Taibbi announced he would no longer publish his online writing through ''Rolling Stone'', and henceforth, would publish his online writing independently. He stated that he would continue to contribute print features for ''Rolling Stone'' and maintain the ''Useful Idiots'' podcast with Katie Halper. (In April 2021, ''Useful Idiots'', under its same name, but with some support staff changes, also would move to self-publication.) Taibbi stated that his decision to move his writing to a self-published newsletter service was made independently and that he was not asked to leave ''Rolling Stone''. Taibbi branded his newsletter ''TK News'', after a term used in manuscript preparation for publication and journalism, TK, that stands for '' "to come"'', indicating that ''more will follow''. After a period of publication with free subscriptions only, Taibbi introduced an additional, paid subscription featuring content that will not be provided as part of the free subscriptions. As of October 2021, ''TK News'' had more than 30,000 paying subscribers. On January 24, 2023, the name was changed from ''TK News'' to ''Racket News''.

''Racket News''

''Racket News'' is a newsletter, blog, podcast, and book collection made available largely for free and the rest by subscription at www.racket.news. ''Racket News'' is published online. It is among a growing number of worker-owned journalism outlets including, '' 404 Media'', ''

Defector Media ''Defector Media'' is a subscription-based sports and culture blog and media company founded in September 2020 and based in Manhattan. The Defector blog is primarily written by former employees of the ''Deadspin'' sports blog. In October and No ...

,'' and '' Hell Gate NYC''. In addition to Taibbi, contributors include Jane Burn, Ford Fischer, Walter Kirn and Eric Salzman. Other contributors include Emily Bivens, Andrew Lowenthal, Jared Moore, cartoonist Daniel Medina and Matt Orfalea. On August 12, 2022, the podcast ''America This Week'' was added to ''TK news''. It is a weekly national news wrap-up with Taibbi and Walter Kirn, novelist and literary critic, that is released on Fridays. The duo also discuss a short story at the end of each episode. A transcript of each episode is also published weekly and the podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, in addition to ''Racket News''. Taibbi is one of the most popular writers on Substack and earns much more from the platform than he did writing for ''Rolling Stone''.

Twitter Files

On December 2, 2022, Taibbi began tweeting about and

screenshot A screenshot (also known as screen capture or screen grab) is an analog or digital image that shows the contents of a computer display. A screenshot is created by a (film) camera shooting the screen or the operating system An operating sys ...

ting emails that executives of

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

sent each other concerning content moderation in 2020. The emails were provided to Taibbi by Twitter CEO

Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman. He is known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk has been considered the wealthiest person in th ...

and documented parts of the discussions among Twitter's communication team about how Twitter should handle a ''

New York Post The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is an American Conservatism in the United States, conservative daily Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates three online sites: NYPost. ...

'' article about a laptop computer that had been owned by Hunter Biden. The documents, dubbed the " Twitter Files" and retweeted by Musk, were selected from "thousands of internal documents obtained by sources at Twitter". Taibbi's report was in the form of a Twitter thread with screen shots of email exchanges between Twitter executives. Taibbi noted, "in exchange for the opportunity to cover a unique and explosive story, I had to agree to certain conditions" that he did not specify. Taibbi's presentation largely confirmed what was already known and did not contain any significant new revelations on the Hunter Biden laptop story. Jeffrey Blehar, writing for ''

National Review ''National Review'' is an American conservative editorial magazine, focusing on news and commentary pieces on political, social, and cultural affairs. The magazine was founded by William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955. Its editor-in-chief is Rich L ...

'', said that Taibbi's reporting "contained few, if any, explosive revelations for people who have been tuned in to the debacle surrounding Twitter's suppression of the ''

'' story on Hunter Biden's laptop". Taibbi's thread included emails from Ro Khanna to former Twitter executive Vijaya Gadde, in which Khanna expressed concern about Twitter's decision to limit the circulation of the ''New York Post'' article about Hunter Biden. Khanna wrote that Twitter's actions violated " 1st Amendment principles". The third installment, released on December 9 by Taibbi, highlighted events within Twitter leading to

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

's suspension from Twitter. The sixth installment, released on December 16 by Taibbi, described how the FBI contacted Twitter to suggest that action be taken against several accounts for allegedly spreading election disinformation. Taibbi's ninth installment, released on December 24, relates to the CIA and FBI's alleged involvement in Twitter content moderation. The fifteenth installment, released on January 27, 2023, by Taibbi, reports on the Hamilton 68 Dashboard maintained by the Alliance for Securing Democracy. The sixteenth installment, released on February 18 by Taibbi, reports on messages to Twitter by Maine senator

Angus King Angus Stanley King Jr. (born March 31, 1944) is an American lawyer and politician who has served since 2013 as the Seniority in the United States Senate, junior United States senator from Maine. A Independent politician, political independent, h ...

and U.S. State Department security engineer Mark Lenzi expressing concern regarding Twitter accounts they deemed suspicious. The seventeenth installment, released on March 2, by Taibbi, reports on the Global Engagement Center, which was established by the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act. The nineteenth installment of the Twitter Files, "The Great Covid-19 Lie Machine, Stanford, the Virality Project, and the Censorship of "True Stories" raises questions about the government and social media censorship. On March 9, Taibbi testified, with Michael Shellenberger, before the

United States House Committee on the Judiciary The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, also called the House Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. It is charged with overseeing the administration of justice within the federal courts, f ...

Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government in a hearing on the Twitter Files. Several Democrats at the hearing criticized both Taibbi and Shellenberger, including Stacey Plaskett, who referred to both as "so-called journalists." Mehdi Hasan of

interviewed Taibbi on April 6, presenting several errors in the Twitter Files reporting. Taibbi asserted that these errors were trivial. The next day, Taibbi announced he was leaving Twitter within days in response to Twitter banning links to Substack after it announced its new feature Notes, which has been characterized as a competitor to Twitter. Musk unfollowed Taibbi later that day. Taibbi received a visit from

Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting Taxation in the United States, U.S. federal taxes and administerin ...

(IRS) agents the day he testified to Congress about the Twitter Files.

Jim Jordan James Daniel Jordan (born February 17, 1964) is an American politician who has served in the U.S. House of Representatives as the representative for since 2007. He is a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party. ...

, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, has demanded that IRS turn over copies of documents related to its search. In February 2024, Taibbi revealed that he and Musk had a falling out which culminated in Musk messaging him, "You are dead to me. Please get off Twitter and just stay on Substack". Taibbi later said Musk had been "very disappointing" on the issue of free speech.

Political views

Since the mid-2010s, Taibbi's reporting has increasingly focused on culture war topics and

. He has also criticized

and their coverage of

and

. His writing has since polarized readers and fellow journalists.

Media

Taibbi argues that both sides of the political media spectrum are complicit in dividing the country and fueling hate. In 2019, Taibbi self-published the book '' Hate Inc.'', a critique of the mainstream media landscape. Reviewing the book for '' Paste'', Jason Rhode called it a "brilliant indictment of American media", praising the majority of the book but criticized Taibbi for " pendinga section of his book both-sidesing both

and FOX". During the Munk Debates on November 22, 2022, Taibbi and conservative Douglas Murray successfully argued in favor of the motion "Be it resolved, don't trust Mainstream Media". In a June 2023 interview with ''The Hub'', Taibbi said that "I want the mainstream media to succeed. I think it needs to. The countries are not healthy if they don't have a functioning mass media and nobody believes them. And I think increasingly that's kind of the problem, is there's this lingering worsening trust issue that can only be addressed by dealing with some of the factual issues."

Donald Trump and Russian election interference

Using the term "Russiagate", Taibbi covered the story around

and criticized the mainstream media coverage of the Special Counsel investigation. Taibbi's book ''Hate Inc.'' includes a chapter, "Why Russiagate Is This Generation's WMD", in which he compares "Russiagate" to 2002–2003 allegations that Iraq had access to weapons of mass destruction, which were used by George W. Bush's administration as the most prominent rationale for the Iraq War. In October 2019, Taibbi argued that the

whistleblower Whistleblowing (also whistle-blowing or whistle blowing) is the activity of a person, often an employee, revealing information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe, unethical or ...

in the Trump–Ukraine scandal was not a "real whistleblower" because the whistleblower would have had their life affected by prosecution or being sent to prison. Taibbi also quoted former CIA analyst Robert Baer who argued that the whistleblower was part of a "palace coup against Trump". In response to the March 30, 2023, indictment of Donald Trump, Taibbi said, "If presidents think they will be chased into jail under thin pretexts as ex-presidents, they'll try even harder to never leave office. This is how autocracies are born."

Hunter Biden

Regarding the Hunter Biden laptop controversy, Taibbi said that the problem "is not even so much whether or not that story was important or whether it was terribly damning, it was more the behavior of the media during that story that was really troubling. Not just turning a blind eye to it being suppressed, but also as we found out, planning these what they call a tabletop exercise to 'How should we all respond when this story comes out?'".

Congressional testimony

Taibbi has testified before congress on multiple occasions on the topic of censorship.

Assessments

In 2021, Ross Barkan of '' New York'' wrote, "Taibbi is—or was, depending on your view—one of the most celebrated investigative journalists of his generation." He continued, "Taibbi's critics view him as a reporter turned red-pilled culture warrior chasing subscriptions", while "Taibbi's defenders say he hasn't changed. Rather, it's the world that has grown more illiberal and hysterical." Taibbi argued that he had not changed, but rather that reactions to Trump had "fundamentally changed the business". In 2023, Nick Gillespie of ''

Reason Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing valid conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, religion, scien ...

'' wrote that when Taibbi attacked Hillary Clinton "as a sellout, argued that the Russiagate narrative was mostly bullshit, and equated the manipulative tactics of right and left media personalities, progressives gave him the cold shoulder."

Libel lawsuit

On April 1, 2025, U.S. Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove accused Taibbi of being a "serial sexual harrasser" during a hearing on a subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. On April 3, Taibbi announced a $10 million libel suit against her.

Personal life

Taibbi is married to Jeanne, a family physician. They have three children. Taibbi previously lived in

Jersey City Jersey City is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, second-most populous

, New Jersey. As of 2021, he lives in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey. In a 2008 interview with Hemant Mehta for Patheos, Taibbi described himself as an " atheist/ agnostic".

Awards

*2008: The National Magazine Award in the category "Columns and Commentary" for ''Rolling Stone'' columns. *2009: The Sidney Award for "The Great American Bubble Machine." *2020: The Izzy Award—honors the independent journalism of I. F. Stone for work outside of corporate control. The Award is given by the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College. Taibbi was honored "for his exceptional stories on media bias in conservative and liberal news that culminated in his book, ''Hate, Inc.''" *2023: The inaugural Dao Prize of $100,000 for the " Twitter Files" to Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss and Michael Shellenberger. The prize is awarded by the conservative group National Journalism Center in partnership with the Daofeng and Angela Foundation. The prize began after Gabe Kaminsky, an investigative reporter, was awarded the National Journalism Center's inaugural prize for excellence in investigative journalism in 2022. *2024: The inaugural Samizdat Prize from Real Clear Politics for First Amendment Courage with Miranda Devine and Jay Bhattacharya.

Bibliography

* Foreword by Eduard Limonov. *''Spanking the Donkey: On the Campaign Trail with the Democrats'', (). A campaign diary from the

2004 United States presidential election Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 2, 2004. Incumbent Republican President George W. Bush and his running mate, incumbent Vice President Dick Cheney, were re-elected to a second term. They narrowly defeated ...

, published by New Press in 2005. *''Spanking the Donkey: Dispatches from the Dumb Season'', (). Published by Three Rivers Press (August 22, 2006). *''Smells Like Dead Elephants: Dispatches from a Rotting Empire'', (). Published by Grove Press, Black Cat in 2007. *'' The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire'', (). Published by Spiegel & Grau in 2008. *'' Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America'', (). Published by Spiegel & Grau (2010). *'' The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap'', (). Published by Spiegel & Grau (April 8, 2014). *'' Insane Clown President: Dispatches from the 2016 Circus'', (). Published by Spiegel & Grau (January 17, 2017). *'' I Can't Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street'', (). Published by Spiegel & Grau (October 24, 2017). *'' Hate Inc.: Why Today's Media Makes Us Despise One Another'', (). Published by OR Books (October 8, 2019). *

References

External links

''Racket News''
* * *
Interview with Taibbi
'' In Depth'', June 4, 2017,

C-SPAN Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American Cable television in the United States, cable and Satellite television in the United States, satellite television network, created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a Non ...

*
"Hearing on Twitter Documents About Content Moderation Decisions."
U.S. House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.

. March 9, 2023.
Matt Taibbi on Challenges to Free Speech in America
October 4, 2024 , Part of ''Washington Journal.'' * *
Matt Taibbi, "News Inside," and CPI Accept 12th Izzy Award
" Park Center for Independent Media, Ithaca College, 2020. {{DEFAULTSORT:Taibbi, Matt 1970 births Living people 20th-century American journalists 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American journalists 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American newspaper founders 21st-century American non-fiction writers American agnostics American atheists American columnists American expatriate sportspeople in Mongolia American expatriate sportspeople in Russia American expatriate sportspeople in Uzbekistan American finance and investment writers American free speech activists American male journalists American media critics American online journalists American people of Native Hawaiian descent American political podcasters American political writers American writers of Filipino descent American writers of Irish descent Bard College alumni Concord Academy alumni Journalists from Massachusetts Journalists from New Jersey New York Press people People deported from Uzbekistan People from Mountain Lakes, New Jersey Rolling Stone people The Moscow Times people New York University alumni Writers from Boston Writers from Jersey City, New Jersey Writers from New Brunswick, New Jersey