Columbia Journalism Review takes an inside look at Kirn’s ‘County Highway’ publication. They focus on the close connection with RFK, which happened after I stopped reading it.
I subscribed at first, hoping it would have the qualities of a real newspaper. After reading the first two editions, I decided it fails the test in every way. It fails in the basic physical way. As an old typesetter I’m offended by poor choices of font and layout. More broadly, it doesn’t include the mix of news and comment and features that made real newspapers valuable. It’s a long-winded literary journal disguised as a newspaper.
The CJR article quotes the publisher:
Rosenfeld told me that he always looks forward to the paper when it arrives at his door. County Highway “tricks you,” he told me. “You think you got a newspaper, and it’s something else.”.
Yeah, that’s exactly the problem, asshole. I didn’t pay to be tricked.
RFK matches the characters who started the ‘newspaper’. Taibbi and Kirn are fake independents, using the imagery of rebellion like CIA-funded 60s folk singers. They’re disappointing, not destructive. RFK is deadly because he has top-level power and connections. He’s an evil Pied Piper tricking rebels into Gaian orthodoxy. RFK is running a classic FBI sting operation.
Polistra's Mill 