Tuesday, April 30, 2002
'MANUFACTURING DISSENT': That's the great headline on this piece from "Boston Phoenix" media critic Dan Kennedy. It seems a "Boston Globe" reporter asked a resident angered by the razing of an old synagogue to gather up some protesters for a photo-op. Again, I'm reminded of Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities" and that hilarious description of a made-for-TV protest.
'THE J-SCHOOL BLUES': Ana Mantica, a student at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, is questioning the value of her expensive education:
After three years, one thing I still haven't figured out is why people in the business who meet me and find I attend Medill first widen their eyes, then follow with a snide comment, smirk, or just a simple "Why?"
It's possible, Ana, that the snide, smirking people have worked with j-school grads who behave as if their "prestigious" degrees should grant them automatic access to the higher levels of journalism. Possibly, they're journalists who've slugged their way up through the ranks for several years, then had to watch as some snot-nosed kid with a j-school degree prances into a job it took the experienced journalist several years of hard work and shitty pay to reach. Then, when said snot-nosed kid falls flat on his or her unblemished face because they have zero real-world experience, said experienced journalist is pressed into action to serve as a "mentor" to this cretin. Then, said experienced journalist wonders, "where was MY mentor when I was working for $11,000 a year at that shit-hole afternoon paper in a dead-end town? Why isn't this 22-year-old asshole in a Saab down there learning the craft the RIGHT way?"
In some warped netherworld, there are high-school students who have come to the conclusion that they can become journalists simply by attending a prestigious j-school.
Well, Ana...THAT'S BECAUSE THEY CAN!!! I've seen it over and over again! Got a j-school degree from Chapel Hill? Chose the "right" internships as an undergrad? Well, hello, "Charlotte Observer." Sure, it may be one of their less-than-prestigious bureau jobs, but it's a sight better than dipping a toe at, say, the "Hickory Daily Record."
After getting out of the classroom and working in the "real world" a few times at various internships, I realize that many of you are probably laughing because you already know that you don't need a j-school degree to be a good journalist. Now I know it's true. Sure, it'll open a few doors along the way that might otherwise have been locked, but it takes more than just a "big-name school" to become a well-respected journalist. It requires putting into action every skill we've learned in class -- and "backing up" the degree. And it takes more work than any Medill class ever required.
I salute Ana for realizing that a j-school degree is just the beginning of a career in newspapers, and I'm sure she'll make a fine reporter. But I think the real problem is the way newspapers over a circulation of about 50,000 genuflect before journalism schools. They hire kids straight out of these prestigious institutions, and far too many of them fail - miserably. It's a real problem, and the fact that big daily papers serve as "internship farms" for colleges doesn't help.
I have a modest proposal. I think j-school grads should be required to put in a year at the 12,000-25,000-circulation level before making the jump to a bigger paper. (Heck, I spent more than four years at that level, and I turned out OK.) Small papers are often the object of scorn, and most of it is deserved. Pick up any "community" newspaper in the USA and you'll see the entire panorama of journalistic sins. But that's how you learn to do your craft. You screw up, get chewed out by one of the paper's old-timers, and then go out the next day and do a better job. After a year or so, you don't screw up as often.
After three years, one thing I still haven't figured out is why people in the business who meet me and find I attend Medill first widen their eyes, then follow with a snide comment, smirk, or just a simple "Why?"
It's possible, Ana, that the snide, smirking people have worked with j-school grads who behave as if their "prestigious" degrees should grant them automatic access to the higher levels of journalism. Possibly, they're journalists who've slugged their way up through the ranks for several years, then had to watch as some snot-nosed kid with a j-school degree prances into a job it took the experienced journalist several years of hard work and shitty pay to reach. Then, when said snot-nosed kid falls flat on his or her unblemished face because they have zero real-world experience, said experienced journalist is pressed into action to serve as a "mentor" to this cretin. Then, said experienced journalist wonders, "where was MY mentor when I was working for $11,000 a year at that shit-hole afternoon paper in a dead-end town? Why isn't this 22-year-old asshole in a Saab down there learning the craft the RIGHT way?"
In some warped netherworld, there are high-school students who have come to the conclusion that they can become journalists simply by attending a prestigious j-school.
Well, Ana...THAT'S BECAUSE THEY CAN!!! I've seen it over and over again! Got a j-school degree from Chapel Hill? Chose the "right" internships as an undergrad? Well, hello, "Charlotte Observer." Sure, it may be one of their less-than-prestigious bureau jobs, but it's a sight better than dipping a toe at, say, the "Hickory Daily Record."
After getting out of the classroom and working in the "real world" a few times at various internships, I realize that many of you are probably laughing because you already know that you don't need a j-school degree to be a good journalist. Now I know it's true. Sure, it'll open a few doors along the way that might otherwise have been locked, but it takes more than just a "big-name school" to become a well-respected journalist. It requires putting into action every skill we've learned in class -- and "backing up" the degree. And it takes more work than any Medill class ever required.
I salute Ana for realizing that a j-school degree is just the beginning of a career in newspapers, and I'm sure she'll make a fine reporter. But I think the real problem is the way newspapers over a circulation of about 50,000 genuflect before journalism schools. They hire kids straight out of these prestigious institutions, and far too many of them fail - miserably. It's a real problem, and the fact that big daily papers serve as "internship farms" for colleges doesn't help.
I have a modest proposal. I think j-school grads should be required to put in a year at the 12,000-25,000-circulation level before making the jump to a bigger paper. (Heck, I spent more than four years at that level, and I turned out OK.) Small papers are often the object of scorn, and most of it is deserved. Pick up any "community" newspaper in the USA and you'll see the entire panorama of journalistic sins. But that's how you learn to do your craft. You screw up, get chewed out by one of the paper's old-timers, and then go out the next day and do a better job. After a year or so, you don't screw up as often.
READ THE PAPER: Tunku Varadarajan of the "Wall Street Journal" has a wonderful piece today on why newspapers remain important. Among the reasons listed:
You meet some of the best contemporary writing and thinking in newspapers. You also meet some of the cleverest wordsmithery. "Headless Body in Topless Bar"--a famous New York Post headline--has endured far longer than anything Paula Zahn has said, or Bill O'Reilly.
Truer words have never been written.
You meet some of the best contemporary writing and thinking in newspapers. You also meet some of the cleverest wordsmithery. "Headless Body in Topless Bar"--a famous New York Post headline--has endured far longer than anything Paula Zahn has said, or Bill O'Reilly.
Truer words have never been written.
THE 'FREE PILE': The amount of free crap that marketing departments send to newspapers is truly amazing. (James Lileks did a riff on this the other day. Go check it out.) Over the past two years, I've probably added 30 decent CDs and 10-20 books to my collection just from perusing the "free pile" over in the corner of the newsroom. (Best CD find in the past 12 months: Jon Mayer's "Room For Squares." I got it last August, and it's finally getting a lot of positive radio play.) But I just scored my greatest piece of "swag" yet: a bobbing-head George Washington doll, courtesy of The History Channel. It's a promotional item for the upcoming "Founding Brothers" series. This is going in the rear window of the Corolla tonight, much to the horror of the Amazing Techie Girlfriend.
Monday, April 29, 2002
JOURNALISTS SELL SOULS FOR DOUGHNUTS: The "Minneapolis Star-Tribune" has a piece on the fawning coverage the Krispy Kreme doughnut franchise has received while setting up shop in the Twin Cities. It includes this quote:
Cops get stereotyped as having a doughnut jones. But we now know journalists can be had for 39 cents' worth of dough and glazed sugar.
I'm kind of ashamed to admit it, but it's the truth. Especially when it comes to Krispy Kreme and journalists who've had little exposure to this delightful confection. I grew up in a Southern city that had several KK's, so they never seemed that special to me. But now that I live where there's only something like two Krispy Kremes, I really appreciate how vastly superior they are to Dunkin Doughnuts, which are located on virtually every corner around here. People really seem to go nuts over KK, and journalistic objectivity vanishes. On the rare occasions that someone has brought a couple dozen Krispy Kremes to work, the scene is always reminiscent of that spot-on description of "The City Light" newsroom from Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities":
Rows of diode-light computer terminals in putty-gray "2001" sci-fi casings lent the city room of "The City Light" a gloss of order and modernity. It never survived a second glance. The desks were covered in the usual litter of paper, plastic cups, books, manuals, almanacs, magazines and sooty ashtrays. The usual shell-backed young men and women sat at the keyboards. A numb dull clattering - thuk thuk thuk thuk thuk thuk thuk thuk thuk - rose from the keyboards, as if an immense mah-jongg tournament was in progress. The reporters, rewrite men, and copy editors were hunched over in the age-old way of journalists. Every few seconds a head would straighten up, as if coming up for air, and yell out something about slugs, headline counts, or story lengths. But not even the excitement of deadline pressure could survive for long. A rear door opened, and a Greek wearing a white uniform came staggering in carrying a prodigious tray full of coffee and soda containers, boxes of doughnuts, cheese Danishes, onion rolls, crullers, every variety of muck and lard known to the takeout food business, and half the room deserted the computer consoles and descended upon him, rooting about the tray like starving weevils.
Cops get stereotyped as having a doughnut jones. But we now know journalists can be had for 39 cents' worth of dough and glazed sugar.
I'm kind of ashamed to admit it, but it's the truth. Especially when it comes to Krispy Kreme and journalists who've had little exposure to this delightful confection. I grew up in a Southern city that had several KK's, so they never seemed that special to me. But now that I live where there's only something like two Krispy Kremes, I really appreciate how vastly superior they are to Dunkin Doughnuts, which are located on virtually every corner around here. People really seem to go nuts over KK, and journalistic objectivity vanishes. On the rare occasions that someone has brought a couple dozen Krispy Kremes to work, the scene is always reminiscent of that spot-on description of "The City Light" newsroom from Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities":
Rows of diode-light computer terminals in putty-gray "2001" sci-fi casings lent the city room of "The City Light" a gloss of order and modernity. It never survived a second glance. The desks were covered in the usual litter of paper, plastic cups, books, manuals, almanacs, magazines and sooty ashtrays. The usual shell-backed young men and women sat at the keyboards. A numb dull clattering - thuk thuk thuk thuk thuk thuk thuk thuk thuk - rose from the keyboards, as if an immense mah-jongg tournament was in progress. The reporters, rewrite men, and copy editors were hunched over in the age-old way of journalists. Every few seconds a head would straighten up, as if coming up for air, and yell out something about slugs, headline counts, or story lengths. But not even the excitement of deadline pressure could survive for long. A rear door opened, and a Greek wearing a white uniform came staggering in carrying a prodigious tray full of coffee and soda containers, boxes of doughnuts, cheese Danishes, onion rolls, crullers, every variety of muck and lard known to the takeout food business, and half the room deserted the computer consoles and descended upon him, rooting about the tray like starving weevils.
THEY PULL ME BACK IN: Jeez. I declare my semi-retirement, and all of a sudden I'm perma-linked on the Instapundit and my hits are going through the roof. What the heck is going on here? Is this some kind of Blogger Anonymous "intervention"? Well, it's working. I'm returning to semi-regular posting - no more than one or two items a day. So there. You people happy now?
Tuesday, April 23, 2002
BLOGGING OFF: I'm sad to say it, but I'm sick of blogging. Not the medium itself, just my daily constitutional of right-wing media criticism that so many people are already doing as well or better than I can. It feels too much like a job, so therefore, I'm quitting. As of today, the Media Minder is offline, for good. I've got too much personal shit to deal with in my life right now, anyway. Please visit the folks on the right side of this page, though. Most of them are good, decent people.
I'd like to thank the 12,000 visitors who've stopped by since this humble operation was launched back in mid-January. A few of you have seen fit to send me some very gracious e-mails praising my work; even fewer have sent hate mail. Either way, I thank you all. And I'd especially like to thank author Jerry Bledsoe for his words of encouragement and support. The same goes for Jonathan V. Last, online editor of "The Weekly Standard." And last but not least, thank you to the inimitable James Lileks, whose simple plug became the motto of this site a couple of weeks ago.
I'm going to keep this site active, because I may change my mind someday. There are still a whole lot of personal experiences in journalism that I'd like to put into writing. But for now, I'm outta here. Y'all take care. Keep fact-checking their asses.
I'd like to thank the 12,000 visitors who've stopped by since this humble operation was launched back in mid-January. A few of you have seen fit to send me some very gracious e-mails praising my work; even fewer have sent hate mail. Either way, I thank you all. And I'd especially like to thank author Jerry Bledsoe for his words of encouragement and support. The same goes for Jonathan V. Last, online editor of "The Weekly Standard." And last but not least, thank you to the inimitable James Lileks, whose simple plug became the motto of this site a couple of weeks ago.
I'm going to keep this site active, because I may change my mind someday. There are still a whole lot of personal experiences in journalism that I'd like to put into writing. But for now, I'm outta here. Y'all take care. Keep fact-checking their asses.
Monday, April 22, 2002
HERE COMES THE 'SUN': Michael Wolff, the media critic for "New York" magazine, thinks the recently launched "New York Sun" will be a success. In light of recent changes at the "New York Times" and "Wall Street Journal," he may be on to something:
Still, both organizations are deeply insecure about the choices they've made, embarrassed to be publishers in a mogul world, envious of electronic scalability and ubiquity, tempted by media deal-making culture (the Times and the Journal have, on many occasions, tried to diversify but have almost always failed). What's more, they both fear, as much as anyone, for the future of newspapers. In some sense, what they are trying to do with their redesigns and new sections and dreams of national upscale monopolies is to imitate the media big-boy approach -- to expand their franchises, extend their brands, follow their audiences, achieve scale and ubiquity, reinvent themselves. It is not unlikely, however, because they are newspaper people, and, by long tradition, terrible business people, that they are exactly missing the point of what's going on. That a newspaper, with an identifiable and loyal audience, is smart stuff. That locality, and specificity, and personality, are soon to be all the rage. That a simple media company is better and more valuable than a complicated one. Which is why, unlikely as it seems, Seth Lipsky may be onto something.
Still, both organizations are deeply insecure about the choices they've made, embarrassed to be publishers in a mogul world, envious of electronic scalability and ubiquity, tempted by media deal-making culture (the Times and the Journal have, on many occasions, tried to diversify but have almost always failed). What's more, they both fear, as much as anyone, for the future of newspapers. In some sense, what they are trying to do with their redesigns and new sections and dreams of national upscale monopolies is to imitate the media big-boy approach -- to expand their franchises, extend their brands, follow their audiences, achieve scale and ubiquity, reinvent themselves. It is not unlikely, however, because they are newspaper people, and, by long tradition, terrible business people, that they are exactly missing the point of what's going on. That a newspaper, with an identifiable and loyal audience, is smart stuff. That locality, and specificity, and personality, are soon to be all the rage. That a simple media company is better and more valuable than a complicated one. Which is why, unlikely as it seems, Seth Lipsky may be onto something.
HOWIE GOES TO BLOGISTAN: Howie Kurtz finally pens his blogging column, and it's generally positive. The usual suspects (Instapundit, Virginia Postrel, Mickey Kaus, Andrew Sullivan, Joshua Micah Marshall) are featured, but there's also Asparagirl, Amy Welborn (whose site sends me a ton of traffic), Susanna Cornett of Cut On the Bias, and several others. Give it a look. Here's the book-jacket blurb:
The arena has produced fresh, clever, idiosyncratic, real-time musings by all kinds of people whose voices would otherwise be heard only at the local Starbucks.
The arena has produced fresh, clever, idiosyncratic, real-time musings by all kinds of people whose voices would otherwise be heard only at the local Starbucks.
Sunday, April 21, 2002
BIAS DEBATE, PART 763: Henry Hanks alerted me to some debunking that's been going on in regards to Geoffrey Nunberg's much-touted "study" that "proved" media bias was a myth. Here's one, and here's another. Yep. I thought Nunberg's study was a little shaky, too.
UPDATE: Nunberg offers a lame rebuttal to his critics (link via Instapundit). He makes the outrageous claim that the Sierra Club and Planned Parenthood aren't really liberal groups, and offers up this amazing quote: "To insist that the press describe these groups as liberal amounts to demanding that it adopt the lexicon of the right on a wholesale basis, like a baseball manager demanding that the team's own fans should determine the strike zone. Everyone knows it's ludicrous, but the bleachers eat it up anyway." In other words, the majority of Americans who would more than likely consider these groups to be left-leaning are the same as the yahoos who heckle umpires from the cheap seats. They're being manipulated by the ideologues, and are ignoring the unbiased research of a simple linguistics professor. Jeez.
UPDATE: Nunberg offers a lame rebuttal to his critics (link via Instapundit). He makes the outrageous claim that the Sierra Club and Planned Parenthood aren't really liberal groups, and offers up this amazing quote: "To insist that the press describe these groups as liberal amounts to demanding that it adopt the lexicon of the right on a wholesale basis, like a baseball manager demanding that the team's own fans should determine the strike zone. Everyone knows it's ludicrous, but the bleachers eat it up anyway." In other words, the majority of Americans who would more than likely consider these groups to be left-leaning are the same as the yahoos who heckle umpires from the cheap seats. They're being manipulated by the ideologues, and are ignoring the unbiased research of a simple linguistics professor. Jeez.
BACK HOME AGAIN: I just made it through a marathon tour of six southern states and a whole bunch of relatives. I put more than 2,000 miles on the Corolla, ate a lot of good food (catfish, barbecue, boiled peanuts, collards) and even managed to squeeze in a minor-league baseball game. Regular posting will resume tomorrow, but thanks to everybody who kept checking in during the week.
Friday, April 12, 2002
HOT OFF THE 'PRESS': The "New York Press" Billboard has a couple of notable items today:
Students are stealing newspapers on college campuses again, and John Strausbaugh is pissed off about it:
On Monday, black students at Purdue held a press conference to protest an Oliphant cartoon that ran in the campus paper, The Exponent. The issue, predictably, was identity politics and the perception that the paper had "disrespected" black students by running the cartoon, blah blah blah. In a rare show of balls from the usually mild-mannered editorial cartoonist, Oliphant’s strip makes rather wicked fun of both the slavery reparations movement and this year’s Academy Awards for Denzel Washington and Halle Berry—both surely fair and open targets for an editorial cartoonist. Two of these kids are sophomores, the other a junior. Maybe Purdue doesn’t get around to teaching the Constitution, and specifically the First Amendment, until senior year. I’ve got news for that Black Student Union president: In a democracy, the free and open expression of political and social opinions in a newspaper is not only "acceptable," it’s fucking essential. Only fascists, old-school commissars and college students have the power to demand that everyone else in the world "respect" them no matter how silly they act, or get to live in a world where the only opinions they hear on important topics of the day are ones they agree with. And as for the editor who apologized for having the temerity to publish a paper that upsets someone: you’ve got a job waiting for you at nytimes.com when you graduate, you scheming careerist you.
Then, check out William S. Repsher's take on the state of indie record stores:
Generally, when I walk into an indie store, there's some snobbish dweeb behind the counter wearing his limited taste in music like a STOP sign and snickering at any customer who doesn't buy CDs meeting his archaic "cool" criteria. Frankly, if your average indie-store worker suggested an album to me, I'd be prone to cracking open the jewel case and flinging the CD at his head like a frisbee. It's a rare record-store employer who sees the big picture musically—usually just the store owner, the rock of sanity in his ever-shifting sea of minimum-wage loser employees.
The article's best quote is from Mike Phillips, owner of six Schoolkids Records shops in North Carolina for more than 20 years: "We haven't gone the bong-and-belt-buckle route, but I will if that's how I'm going to pay my bills."
Buddy, we may all have to go that route, sooner or later, no matter what our line of work. I've already picked out a stars-and-bars belt buckle the size of a Doberman's head from the local Señor Frog, have this huge blue bong Mayor Bloomberg gave me on the subway this morning and got a VW van with a Molly Hatchet album cover painted on the side. Worst of all, I've figured out how to dub my old Ted Nugent and Uriah Heep eight-tracks to MP3. Woe unto the stiff suits of the music industry!
Students are stealing newspapers on college campuses again, and John Strausbaugh is pissed off about it:
On Monday, black students at Purdue held a press conference to protest an Oliphant cartoon that ran in the campus paper, The Exponent. The issue, predictably, was identity politics and the perception that the paper had "disrespected" black students by running the cartoon, blah blah blah. In a rare show of balls from the usually mild-mannered editorial cartoonist, Oliphant’s strip makes rather wicked fun of both the slavery reparations movement and this year’s Academy Awards for Denzel Washington and Halle Berry—both surely fair and open targets for an editorial cartoonist. Two of these kids are sophomores, the other a junior. Maybe Purdue doesn’t get around to teaching the Constitution, and specifically the First Amendment, until senior year. I’ve got news for that Black Student Union president: In a democracy, the free and open expression of political and social opinions in a newspaper is not only "acceptable," it’s fucking essential. Only fascists, old-school commissars and college students have the power to demand that everyone else in the world "respect" them no matter how silly they act, or get to live in a world where the only opinions they hear on important topics of the day are ones they agree with. And as for the editor who apologized for having the temerity to publish a paper that upsets someone: you’ve got a job waiting for you at nytimes.com when you graduate, you scheming careerist you.
Then, check out William S. Repsher's take on the state of indie record stores:
Generally, when I walk into an indie store, there's some snobbish dweeb behind the counter wearing his limited taste in music like a STOP sign and snickering at any customer who doesn't buy CDs meeting his archaic "cool" criteria. Frankly, if your average indie-store worker suggested an album to me, I'd be prone to cracking open the jewel case and flinging the CD at his head like a frisbee. It's a rare record-store employer who sees the big picture musically—usually just the store owner, the rock of sanity in his ever-shifting sea of minimum-wage loser employees.
The article's best quote is from Mike Phillips, owner of six Schoolkids Records shops in North Carolina for more than 20 years: "We haven't gone the bong-and-belt-buckle route, but I will if that's how I'm going to pay my bills."
Buddy, we may all have to go that route, sooner or later, no matter what our line of work. I've already picked out a stars-and-bars belt buckle the size of a Doberman's head from the local Señor Frog, have this huge blue bong Mayor Bloomberg gave me on the subway this morning and got a VW van with a Molly Hatchet album cover painted on the side. Worst of all, I've figured out how to dub my old Ted Nugent and Uriah Heep eight-tracks to MP3. Woe unto the stiff suits of the music industry!
COURTING THE BOBOS: William Powers at the "National Journal" writes about what recent changes at the "New York Times" and "Wall Street Journal" really mean:
The changes at The Times and The Journal may appear to be cosmetic and company-specific, but they are the latest emblems of a broad and significant shift in journalism and in society at large....Alas, we are in the realm of that increasingly popular brand of journalism I call "Lifestyle Voyeurism," the rules of which require a certain tantalizing opacity as to the nitty-gritty details of income and net worth. ...Welcome to the New New Journalism, which is all about pulling in the richest slice of American society -- the people who buy $60,000 cars without blinking, cook on Viking ranges, know an Opus One from a Chateau Ausone, and live a kind of good life that's unheard-of in most of the world. Thanks to the unmatched prosperity of the United States, there are now lots of these people, millions of millionaires, so many that they have begun to form a community all their own. ... It's the community that national advertisers are desperate to reach. Which is why our two most elite national papers are scrambling to reach them, too.... While the changes at The Times and The Wall Street Journal serve a number of purposes -- The Journal's renovations opened up more room on its front page for breaking news, for example -- the purpose they share is to keep this golden readership happy.
The changes at The Times and The Journal may appear to be cosmetic and company-specific, but they are the latest emblems of a broad and significant shift in journalism and in society at large....Alas, we are in the realm of that increasingly popular brand of journalism I call "Lifestyle Voyeurism," the rules of which require a certain tantalizing opacity as to the nitty-gritty details of income and net worth. ...Welcome to the New New Journalism, which is all about pulling in the richest slice of American society -- the people who buy $60,000 cars without blinking, cook on Viking ranges, know an Opus One from a Chateau Ausone, and live a kind of good life that's unheard-of in most of the world. Thanks to the unmatched prosperity of the United States, there are now lots of these people, millions of millionaires, so many that they have begun to form a community all their own. ... It's the community that national advertisers are desperate to reach. Which is why our two most elite national papers are scrambling to reach them, too.... While the changes at The Times and The Wall Street Journal serve a number of purposes -- The Journal's renovations opened up more room on its front page for breaking news, for example -- the purpose they share is to keep this golden readership happy.
'VELVET CONSERVATISM' IN PRINT: That's the thrust of this "American Prospect" article on the people behind the soon-to-be-launched "New York Sun." (They're also kind of taking over the "New Republic.") It's a position that Michael Tomasky dubs "velvet conservatism":
If one were to take Hertog, Steinhardt, Peretz, and Lipsky's politics and put them in a centrifuge, the substance that would emerge would be as follows: It would be explicitly neither Democratic nor Republican. It would be right of center, especially on foreign policy (and most especially on Israel). It would be right of center, too, on a good number of domestic questions. But because it would pay some obeisance to the New Deal and even (sometimes) to the Great Society, which neoconservatism refuted thoroughly, and because it would purport to care deeply about poor people of color -- Hertog is messianic on the topic of vouchers and calls urban education "the civil rights issue of this generation" -- it would stand quite apart from, say, the obstreperous conservatism of a Tom DeLay. Indeed, it would claim its roots in a historic pragmatic liberalism that today's wandering liberals, this gang of four would argue, have cashiered out of slavish devotion to quota queens and teachers' unions. So it would fancy itself a truer liberalism.
If one were to take Hertog, Steinhardt, Peretz, and Lipsky's politics and put them in a centrifuge, the substance that would emerge would be as follows: It would be explicitly neither Democratic nor Republican. It would be right of center, especially on foreign policy (and most especially on Israel). It would be right of center, too, on a good number of domestic questions. But because it would pay some obeisance to the New Deal and even (sometimes) to the Great Society, which neoconservatism refuted thoroughly, and because it would purport to care deeply about poor people of color -- Hertog is messianic on the topic of vouchers and calls urban education "the civil rights issue of this generation" -- it would stand quite apart from, say, the obstreperous conservatism of a Tom DeLay. Indeed, it would claim its roots in a historic pragmatic liberalism that today's wandering liberals, this gang of four would argue, have cashiered out of slavish devotion to quota queens and teachers' unions. So it would fancy itself a truer liberalism.
QUICK HITS: Here's a series of links about newspapers, which is the primary area of interest for this blog:
-The "New York Times" is making its content available especially for bloggers. Fascinating story.
-Something called the Readership Institute has found that newspapers lack brand loyalty.
-I wish I had gotten one of these when I was in college (then again, I would have settled for ANY kind of internship). Knight-Ridder is establishing internships for copy editors.
-Steve Outing says newspaper Web sites are repeating their old mistakes.
-The "New York Times" is making its content available especially for bloggers. Fascinating story.
-Something called the Readership Institute has found that newspapers lack brand loyalty.
-I wish I had gotten one of these when I was in college (then again, I would have settled for ANY kind of internship). Knight-Ridder is establishing internships for copy editors.
-Steve Outing says newspaper Web sites are repeating their old mistakes.
WAR & RUMORS OF WAR: I'm always surprised by the people who stumble across my humble blog. The latest is British journalist Brendan O'Neill of the excellent journal "Spiked-Online." (If you're unaware of it, it's one of the Recommended links on Arts and Letters Daily.) He sent me links to a couple of well-researched articles he's written "raising awkward questions about the war on terror," as O'Neill puts it.
The first is titled "When Nation-Building Destroys." Citing more than 40 news sources spanning the time frame of January-March, it points out huge contradictions between America's stated aims in a post-Taliban Afghanistan and the ways those policies are actually being implemented (or not implemented). Here's a relevant quote:
So what is the state of post-Taliban Afghanistan? Is it a human rights triumph where freedoms have been regained, or just a mess? A security nightmare that needs heavy policing, or a state with some non-threatening security issues? One thing is certain: the Bush administration's contradictory statements about Afghanistan over the past two months show that US policy is driven less by concern for democracy and human rights, than by political expediency.
O'Neill places great blame on the U.S. for instituting a government that emphasizes ethnic differences. He also includes this line about one of the most evil regimes the world has seen in recent history:
Whatever else the Taliban did, it at least brought a measure of stability to Afghanistan.
Needless to say, I disagree with most of this. To me, it seems that America's mission in Afghanistan was not nation-building. It was the removal of the Taliban, followed by some assistance in the establishment of an interim government. It's unfortunate that ethnicity seems to be the operating principle of Afghan society, but that's certainly not uncommon in the undeveloped world. It would take decades to implement the kind of change required to de-emphasize ethnicity in Afghanistan; it's been torn by these conflicts for centuries. And what if America did try to force a non-ethnic-based government on Afghanistan? That would surely be prima facie evidence of arrogant cultural imperialism, wouldn't it?
The next article, "The Strange Battle of Shah-i-Kot," again points out contradictions between what the U.S. military reported about Operation Anaconda and what the media reported. Again, O'Neill did his research: he cites 35 sources for his story (and not all from "The Guardian.") And again, I disagree with many of his assertions. It's true the U.S. military is heavily managing the flow of information from Afghanistan, but other reasons for the many contradictory reports on Operation Anaconda could be competing agendas between American forces and their Afghan compatriots( who seem to be largely motivated by tribal prejudices and may be eager to "spin" the news to their advantage) and the general "fog of war," where the initial report is often wrong. One thing is certain: even though it's unclear how many Al-Qaeda were killed in the operation, the fact is that the terrorist network no longer runs Afghanistan. At the very least, they've been forced to go into hiding or flee the country. It may not be a comprehensive victory, but it's better than doing nothing at all. After all, as the Bush administration has stated over and over again, this is going to be a long conflict that may take years to resolve.
I wish I had more time to examine each of the sources O'Neill cites, but I'm preparing to go out of town. Maybe someone out there with more time on their hands can address these stories in more detail.
The first is titled "When Nation-Building Destroys." Citing more than 40 news sources spanning the time frame of January-March, it points out huge contradictions between America's stated aims in a post-Taliban Afghanistan and the ways those policies are actually being implemented (or not implemented). Here's a relevant quote:
So what is the state of post-Taliban Afghanistan? Is it a human rights triumph where freedoms have been regained, or just a mess? A security nightmare that needs heavy policing, or a state with some non-threatening security issues? One thing is certain: the Bush administration's contradictory statements about Afghanistan over the past two months show that US policy is driven less by concern for democracy and human rights, than by political expediency.
O'Neill places great blame on the U.S. for instituting a government that emphasizes ethnic differences. He also includes this line about one of the most evil regimes the world has seen in recent history:
Whatever else the Taliban did, it at least brought a measure of stability to Afghanistan.
Needless to say, I disagree with most of this. To me, it seems that America's mission in Afghanistan was not nation-building. It was the removal of the Taliban, followed by some assistance in the establishment of an interim government. It's unfortunate that ethnicity seems to be the operating principle of Afghan society, but that's certainly not uncommon in the undeveloped world. It would take decades to implement the kind of change required to de-emphasize ethnicity in Afghanistan; it's been torn by these conflicts for centuries. And what if America did try to force a non-ethnic-based government on Afghanistan? That would surely be prima facie evidence of arrogant cultural imperialism, wouldn't it?
The next article, "The Strange Battle of Shah-i-Kot," again points out contradictions between what the U.S. military reported about Operation Anaconda and what the media reported. Again, O'Neill did his research: he cites 35 sources for his story (and not all from "The Guardian.") And again, I disagree with many of his assertions. It's true the U.S. military is heavily managing the flow of information from Afghanistan, but other reasons for the many contradictory reports on Operation Anaconda could be competing agendas between American forces and their Afghan compatriots( who seem to be largely motivated by tribal prejudices and may be eager to "spin" the news to their advantage) and the general "fog of war," where the initial report is often wrong. One thing is certain: even though it's unclear how many Al-Qaeda were killed in the operation, the fact is that the terrorist network no longer runs Afghanistan. At the very least, they've been forced to go into hiding or flee the country. It may not be a comprehensive victory, but it's better than doing nothing at all. After all, as the Bush administration has stated over and over again, this is going to be a long conflict that may take years to resolve.
I wish I had more time to examine each of the sources O'Neill cites, but I'm preparing to go out of town. Maybe someone out there with more time on their hands can address these stories in more detail.
Thursday, April 11, 2002
AT LONG LAST: The spring issue of the invaluable "City Journal" is online. Just go read the whole thing. It is always excellent fodder for blogging.
DIVERSITY UBER ALLES: Ahh, spring. Time for the print media to bash itself for not being more "diverse." The American Society of Newspaper Editors has released the latest study on newsroom diversity. As you might expect, the utopia of proportional minority representation has not been met:
Last year, the industry had a net increase nationwide of four minority journalists. Only because payrolls shrank in the recession, with more white journalists taking buyouts, did the percentage of minorities in newsrooms increase to 12 percent, compared with 31 percent of the US population. Nearly half of the nation's newspapers employ no minority reporters, editors, artists, or photographers.
First of all, it's not entirely clear that the nation is 31 percent minority. The Census states that White Persons make up 75.1 percent of the U.S. population in 2000. But because of the multiple racial entries available on the latest form, it also reports that White Persons not of Hispanic/Latino origin were at 69.1 percent. There were also these two fudge categories: Reporting some other race, 5.5 percent; and Persons reporting two or more races, 2.4 percent. By choosing the higher minority percentage, the situation may appear to be artificially worse than it actually is. But never mind that. Check this slanted passage out:
Editors offer many reasons why they cannot achieve diversity, but not all of those reasons stand up to scrutiny. For one thing, they say, size matters. It's harder for smaller papers with fewer resources to attract good minority journalists. Other editors say the opposite, that larger, more respected newspapers have less staff turnover and need to hire more experienced journalists, so they have fewer opportunities to diversify.
We'll give those reasons a little "scrutiny" later. Let's just say that there's a huge disconnect between this passage and the things that I and many others have observed. In my experience, the truth is this: Small papers simply cannot attract good minority journalists because the minute they graduate from UNC or Indiana or Columbia, they are hired by larger, more respected papers such as the "Charlotte Observer" or the "Indianapolis Star" or "Newsday." If you're black and have a degree from a J-school, you can pretty much write your own ticket. Hell, even if you don't have a J-school degree, big newspapers will call you. I've seen it happen. About 10 years ago, a black co-worker of mine at a very small daily paper put in one year of work before a 350,000-circulation daily contacted him out of the blue. He got the kind of job that I was told I might be ready for in four or five years.
''I think that increasing diversity is within the control of the editor,'' said Tim J. McGuire, president of the editors association and the editor of McClatchy's Minneapolis paper, the Star Tribune, which is at 89 percent of parity. ''We did it by sheer will.'' It doesn't hurt, he said, that 5 to 10 percent of his annual bonus is based on diversity. That's enough, he said, for a weekend in Las Vegas.
So it is clearly in the financial best interest of editors to achieve diversity. How come they're not making it happen? In typical fashion, the Globe buries the reasons in the 26th graph:
Many editors cite two systemic problems that make it difficult to meet diversity goals: retention and a lack of qualified minority journalists. Most editors can cite good minority journalists who have been raided by a larger newspaper or TV network, or who fled journalism for higher pay, opportunity for advancement, or a climate where their views are heard. Editors also refer to what they call the ''pipeline'' problem, saying that there are not enough minority journalists coming out of smaller newspapers and journalism schools. Indeed, the nation's newspapers would need to double the number of minority journalists, and distribute them much more evenly, for every paper to reach parity with its community.
After reading the opening paragraphs of the story, which not so subtly conjure up the image of racist newsroom managers conspiring to force the next William Raspberry into a job at McDonald's, you find the truth way down in the story. But there's an attempt to refute even these simple and reasonable explanations:
But it's also true that there are plenty of minority college students studying journalism and mass communications: 27 percent of students in those majors are minorities, or enough to double the number of minority journalists in about five years, according to the latest US study by the Grady College of Journalism at the University of Georgia. And journalism has never been a job that requires a major in a particular field. But not enough minorities are choosing print journalism, and instead are choosing broadcasting or public relations.
I can't find the University of Georgia study cited. But the fact that 27 percent of the current journalism and mass communication majors are minorities means next to nothing, fantasies of a five-year pogrom of white journalists notwithstanding. First of all, far fewer minorities currently enrolled in college will graduate than their white counterparts. In fact, at a lot of colleges, as few as one-third of minorities currently enrolled will actually graduate. That's true no matter what the major. Second, no mention is made of how many of those who make it through school actually choose to go into journalism. It's a notoriously low-paying field, and selling insurance for $30,000 a year can look infinitely more appealing than covering American Legion baseball for $18,000 a year. And finally, the Globe's story itself provides an entirely reasonable explanation in the 29th graph of a 32-graph story: More minorities are choosing the more lucrative fields of broadcasting or public relations.
Despite this, you can bet that this report will lead to more sophisticated diversity mau-mauing of media companies. And, if you believe William McGowan, there will be a corresponding decline in skeptical reporting about important issues that affect Americans of all racial groups.
Last year, the industry had a net increase nationwide of four minority journalists. Only because payrolls shrank in the recession, with more white journalists taking buyouts, did the percentage of minorities in newsrooms increase to 12 percent, compared with 31 percent of the US population. Nearly half of the nation's newspapers employ no minority reporters, editors, artists, or photographers.
First of all, it's not entirely clear that the nation is 31 percent minority. The Census states that White Persons make up 75.1 percent of the U.S. population in 2000. But because of the multiple racial entries available on the latest form, it also reports that White Persons not of Hispanic/Latino origin were at 69.1 percent. There were also these two fudge categories: Reporting some other race, 5.5 percent; and Persons reporting two or more races, 2.4 percent. By choosing the higher minority percentage, the situation may appear to be artificially worse than it actually is. But never mind that. Check this slanted passage out:
Editors offer many reasons why they cannot achieve diversity, but not all of those reasons stand up to scrutiny. For one thing, they say, size matters. It's harder for smaller papers with fewer resources to attract good minority journalists. Other editors say the opposite, that larger, more respected newspapers have less staff turnover and need to hire more experienced journalists, so they have fewer opportunities to diversify.
We'll give those reasons a little "scrutiny" later. Let's just say that there's a huge disconnect between this passage and the things that I and many others have observed. In my experience, the truth is this: Small papers simply cannot attract good minority journalists because the minute they graduate from UNC or Indiana or Columbia, they are hired by larger, more respected papers such as the "Charlotte Observer" or the "Indianapolis Star" or "Newsday." If you're black and have a degree from a J-school, you can pretty much write your own ticket. Hell, even if you don't have a J-school degree, big newspapers will call you. I've seen it happen. About 10 years ago, a black co-worker of mine at a very small daily paper put in one year of work before a 350,000-circulation daily contacted him out of the blue. He got the kind of job that I was told I might be ready for in four or five years.
''I think that increasing diversity is within the control of the editor,'' said Tim J. McGuire, president of the editors association and the editor of McClatchy's Minneapolis paper, the Star Tribune, which is at 89 percent of parity. ''We did it by sheer will.'' It doesn't hurt, he said, that 5 to 10 percent of his annual bonus is based on diversity. That's enough, he said, for a weekend in Las Vegas.
So it is clearly in the financial best interest of editors to achieve diversity. How come they're not making it happen? In typical fashion, the Globe buries the reasons in the 26th graph:
Many editors cite two systemic problems that make it difficult to meet diversity goals: retention and a lack of qualified minority journalists. Most editors can cite good minority journalists who have been raided by a larger newspaper or TV network, or who fled journalism for higher pay, opportunity for advancement, or a climate where their views are heard. Editors also refer to what they call the ''pipeline'' problem, saying that there are not enough minority journalists coming out of smaller newspapers and journalism schools. Indeed, the nation's newspapers would need to double the number of minority journalists, and distribute them much more evenly, for every paper to reach parity with its community.
After reading the opening paragraphs of the story, which not so subtly conjure up the image of racist newsroom managers conspiring to force the next William Raspberry into a job at McDonald's, you find the truth way down in the story. But there's an attempt to refute even these simple and reasonable explanations:
But it's also true that there are plenty of minority college students studying journalism and mass communications: 27 percent of students in those majors are minorities, or enough to double the number of minority journalists in about five years, according to the latest US study by the Grady College of Journalism at the University of Georgia. And journalism has never been a job that requires a major in a particular field. But not enough minorities are choosing print journalism, and instead are choosing broadcasting or public relations.
I can't find the University of Georgia study cited. But the fact that 27 percent of the current journalism and mass communication majors are minorities means next to nothing, fantasies of a five-year pogrom of white journalists notwithstanding. First of all, far fewer minorities currently enrolled in college will graduate than their white counterparts. In fact, at a lot of colleges, as few as one-third of minorities currently enrolled will actually graduate. That's true no matter what the major. Second, no mention is made of how many of those who make it through school actually choose to go into journalism. It's a notoriously low-paying field, and selling insurance for $30,000 a year can look infinitely more appealing than covering American Legion baseball for $18,000 a year. And finally, the Globe's story itself provides an entirely reasonable explanation in the 29th graph of a 32-graph story: More minorities are choosing the more lucrative fields of broadcasting or public relations.
Despite this, you can bet that this report will lead to more sophisticated diversity mau-mauing of media companies. And, if you believe William McGowan, there will be a corresponding decline in skeptical reporting about important issues that affect Americans of all racial groups.
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