Barry Ritholtz Calls S.H.A.M.E.’s Expose of Megan McArdle “One of the Most Brutal Takedowns I Have Ever Seen” and “Absolutely Must Read Material”

S.H.A.M.E. / September 24, 2012

By Yasha Levine

This past Friday, S.H.A.M.E. Project’s expose of Megan McArdle got a shout out from financial blogger/commentator Barry Ritholtz, who called our profile of the Newsweek/Daily Beast hack “one of the most brutal takedowns I have ever seen.” Ritholtz—author of the excellent 2009 book Bailout Nation, frequent Bloomberg TV pundit, and the man behind the popular finance blog The Big Picture—advised his readers that “if you have any interest in media or journalism, it is absolutely must read material.”

Ritholtz wrote that the SHAME exposé revealing McArdle’s profound corruption and conflicted ties to the Kochs was so shocking and devastating that he vowed to stop reading any outlet that continues to publish her:

I never cared for McArdle’s work — I always found it shallow and intellectually dishonest (see below). I erroneously assumed that some of her less intelligent statements were the result of ignorance. But I never suspected her to be an utterly corrupted pseudo journalist.
Now I know better. She is simply appalling, and any publication that publishes anything in the future under her byline is off my reading list.

This is exactly why we launched the S.H.A.M.E. Project in late May. As we wrote back then, the purpose of S.H.A.M.E. is not to merely document media crimes, nor simply to humiliate or call out hypocrisy. The project is about providing useful and effective tools the public can use to protect itself from being manipulated by sophisticated public-relations con-artistry. Our job is to provide the down-low on media corruption so that people can decide for themselves whether someone can or cannot be trusted.

As a side note: Barry Ritholtz called McArdle’s profile “one of the most brutal takedowns” he had ever seen. But it’s brutal because it’s true. One thing that we’ve come to realize while doing these profiles is that, in the end, the truth always turns out to be weirder, more disturbing and much more shocking than we have ever anticipated going into it. It’s a sign of just how corrupted and degraded our media has become, and why we need S.H.A.M.E. now more than ever.

If you haven’t done so already, check out Megan McArdle’s S.H.A.M.E. Profile™ for yourself:

***

Yasha Levine is an editor of The eXiled, co-founder of S.H.A.M.E. and author of The Corruption of Malcolm Gladwell.

Click the cover, buy the book!

Got something to say to us? Then send us a letter.

Want us to stick around? Donate to The eXiled.

Twitter twerps can follow us at twitter.com/exiledonline

23 Comments

Add your own

1. G.G. Allin | September 24th, 2012 at 11:35 am
Could you please put any further photos of Megan around spoiler tags or something? She’s repulsive to look at.
2. Galtic Warrior | September 24th, 2012 at 12:54 pm
THAT’S SEXIST
(reads user name)
…nevermind
3. Anderson | September 24th, 2012 at 2:06 pm
The Exiled Takedown of Megan
4. super390 | September 24th, 2012 at 4:44 pm
The SHAME crusade against faux progressives may be gaining momentum. Here’s Juan Cole lighting into the supposed “equal-opportunity offender” Bill Maher and his contrasting blind spots towards Islam and Judaism:
http://www.juancole.com/2012/09/muslims-are-no-different-or-why-bill-mahers-blood-libel-is-bigotry.html#comment-124853
5. darthfader | September 24th, 2012 at 5:12 pm
Man, the Koch drones just SWARMED into Barry’s comments section within minutes of that link going up. He’s done a great job swatting them down, but the whole online undergraduate hit squad they’ve hired must be on highest alert because of S.H.A.M.E.’s story, all posting the same lookalike comments.
Just more evidence that McArdle is the favored tool of the Kochs right now (sucks to be them, huh?) and one of their most highly-placed operatives in American media. Hopefully she can be shooed out the door without leaving too much of a slime trail behind her.
6. Galtic Warrior | September 24th, 2012 at 7:47 pm
Mark Ames, why do you attack the hapless?
Only under a facist state are the defenseless persecuted under a facist state by the vicious. As evident here as in schools when a weakling “sticks up for themselveS” by harming entire groups of students!
Any moral SCRUPLES YOU PREEND TO HAVE ARE NOT valid because you are worse than those you “expose”! I will ask again. Have you ever shopped at Wal-Mart? Do utilize a bank?
Oh, and is that you posing as me? That’s not funny.
7. Hosswire | September 24th, 2012 at 11:19 pm
Great job, Yasha! Just shining a light on that McArdle cooze was enough to make every decent person recoil in disgust. Keep up the good work!
8. Erik | September 25th, 2012 at 10:43 am
Glatica,
Its not like Megan McArdle is hapless. She is well paid, well funded and a “child of privilege”. (her own words) so it is not like we are going to be seeing her in line for day-old bread anytime soon even if Levine’s SHAME expose gets her fired (which it won’t…if it did she would be placed on “Wonkfare” at some Think Tank which is how servants to power are rewarded once they fall out of favor with the rabble.)
If this had been an expose of a bitter retired Bus driver in a taxpayer funded mobility scooter protesting against “Obamacare” I could see your point about attacking the hapless.
Everyone who has lived in rural America has shopped at Wal-Mart and knows it beats the hell out of Pamida anyday, but that doesn’t mean we have to like the plantation because they serve good food now does it?
9. Garlic Worrier | September 25th, 2012 at 12:42 pm
WHOS-A SHE TINK-A SHE-A FOOLIN WITT-A DOSE GLASSES? NOW LISA LOEB-A, SHE-A SPICY MEATBOL! I LIKE-A SLAPPA DOSE TITTIES, WHEN-A I DO IT, DAGO WOP WOP WOP WOP…
10. tomm | September 25th, 2012 at 1:02 pm
Wonder if Ezra and Yglesias will be able to, or want to, abrogate any link-buddy arrangement made with McArdle back in their budding take-power days.
11. tomm | September 25th, 2012 at 1:04 pm
Wonder if Yglesias will ever come close to labeling any Wall Street behavior as anything worse than “goofy.”
12. Galtic Warrior | September 25th, 2012 at 8:28 pm
Erik, Meagan WORKED for her wealth and `positions`.
She isn’t as well off as a college student who didn’t study enough, failed the test, and now lives off social security! She can’t control were she was born, can you? Her parents WORKED hard so that whatever children they had could have a better life.
Those bitter retirees don’t have any ground to stand on. AGREED. They’re moochers interfering with the Pharma industry from competering with other companies to lower the prices of over the counter medicines.
Mark Ames, that Italian stereotype mocking was just immature. And you call Charles Koch racist……hippocritical much?
13. JohnGaltGarglesBalls | September 26th, 2012 at 12:06 am
“Erik, Meagan WORKED for her wealth and `positions`.”
So did Jerry Sandusky. Yeah…we know. Psychopaths are industrious, especially when they have to compensate for small dicks and barren wombs.
“She isn’t as well off as a college student who didn’t study enough, failed the test, and now lives off social security! ”
More well off than a few hundred bucks a month? Doubtful. Oh and you have to be in the workforce long enough to be eligible for SS, not that you would know about the outside world, writing from the cushion fort in your parents den. Go outside and put down Ayn’s shitty Chronicals of Narnia for MBAs.
14. Matt | September 26th, 2012 at 12:07 am
@Gaylord warrior,
So Republicans think that everyone should have to work hard to enjoy success and wealth. Unless of course they’re children of successful parents then they’re just children of privilege. They’re (OMFG!) entitled to it.
But don’t republicans just fucking hate when people are entitled to shit?
You can’t even get your fucking talking points straight troll.
DASA-ONE SPICY… ah fuck it Mark said it best.
15. Erik | September 26th, 2012 at 1:41 pm
Galtic,
You seem to have a hard time understanding the word you used “hapless”
McArdle may have worked hard, her parents may have worked hard but she is not now nor has she ever been hapless.
We cannot control who our parents are or how we grew up but we can control what we do and what we say. McArdle works hard to defend the strong from the hapless. She does this by attacking the hapless as needed. She makes these attacks seem like they are solely a logical conclusion and not at all biased by her former and current benefactors.
16. Strelnikov Eden | September 26th, 2012 at 9:42 pm
I agree w/Galtic Warrior Erik’s argument is not Valid
17. Erik | September 27th, 2012 at 6:41 am
Strelnikov Eden,
You mean my argument that Galtic does not know what hapless means?
Galtic claims McArdle is hapless and Ames attacks the hapless like McArdle.
Hapless tends to mean unfortunate or unlucky. McArdle is not unfortunate and could be considered quite lucky. Ames would then be attacking those who are hap-full or happy but not attacking the hapless.
McArdle attacks the hapless and gets paid to do so. She is the journalistic equivalent of a mercenary stealing blankets from the indigent so as to discourage idleness. (I wrote that sentence specifically to encourage vocabulary “prosperity” among the wretched.)
18. Strelnikov Eden | September 27th, 2012 at 9:35 pm
Boring you havent written anything that everyone doesnt already know
19. DK | September 28th, 2012 at 10:08 am
Galtic used the word hapless because he doesn’t know what the word hapless means.
It’s that simple.
20. Cavoyo | September 28th, 2012 at 3:43 pm
Going Postal Watch: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19757651
21. doogin | September 29th, 2012 at 6:35 pm
mark,
these days are strange days for the good ship exiled
please donot abandon pathetic exholes
please effect national bolshevik takeover of nsfwcorp
plse post pictures of self in military uniform + getting shot with arrows like saint sebastian
pls stage coup
thank you
good night
mr. doogin
22. rehmat1 | September 29th, 2012 at 6:40 pm
jake levine jake levine
when you step outside
all the ladies scream
because they want the dna of jake levine
and jake levine
and jake levine
jake levine
if you saw me at the bus stop at night you would probably scream
and i think we are in love with jake levine
cute bald jake levine
and jake levine
jake levine
you lied about having the scabez but its ok because your blog post redeemed
and i think we want more jake levine thnk you
23. Megan McOddle | October 2nd, 2012 at 11:01 am
I myself am on the record as saying that being a CEO does not make you a good president. And yet, I do think there is something to this complaint. Obama has almost no experience with the private, profit-making sector: a few summer jobs, and one year as an editor at a business intelligence service. I, on the other hand, have sold my mouth to Bernard Kerick for $350/hour (BBBJ) and my anus to every fundamentalist Republican politician for $500 a pop, which earned me $6,890,750 in the Summer of 2011 alone. Romney? He’s weird: No pussy, mouth, or anal desires. He wants to “downsize my tits.” Only Nathan Branden had this fetish, so I said: “Mittens, that’ll cost you $5,000,000 for my services plus medical expenses.” He said, “No problem, Paul’s PAC will pick up the tab.” But I’m really hungering for Allen West’s big black member to dismember me.
(to be continued on Politico)