You Can’t Have it Both Ways!
I was frankly a little surprised to see that Jay Rosen, a big proponent of more open journalism, has his panties all in a bunch over the recent Charlotte Allen column in the WaPo.
You’d think he’d be the first to applaud the appearance of an opinion (in a major paper, no less!) that runs counter to the doublespeak of feminism we’ve been force-fed for decades, but nooo…
He calls it a “deeply foolish act of publishing.”
Did he not say once : “We’re headed, I think, for schism, tumult and divide as the religion of the American press meets the upheavals in global politics and public media that are well underway. Changing around us are the terms on which authority can be established by journalists.”
Well, the schism, tumult and divide is here. Not all of the opinions expressed when the doors to the church of journalism open wide are going to be opinions with which he agrees. Some may even challenge some societal sacred cows and even goddesses. What’s wrong with that?
This is not “deeply foolish,” on the part of the Washington Post, it is courageous – a statement that they believe that ideas of all kinds can and should be entertained. It would appear they believe their readership is intelligent enough to decide for themselves whether they agree with Charlotte Allen or not. This kind of attitude is appropriate for the times in which we live. It is good 21st Century journalism.
Many papers across the country are opening up to a variety of ideas and opinions in all kinds of ways. In my own state, The AZ ‘Public, Prescott’s Daily Courier and my hometown Yuma Sun provide the public with their own blogs so everyone can have their say. I’m sure Jay Rosen wouldn’t like what I have to say at my blog any more than he likes Charlotte’s opinion, but by golly, I bless the Sun every day for giving me the opportunity to say it!
I might add here, that the Yuma Sun is one of the few papers in the country that isn’t experiencing any loss of subscribers due to the influence of the internet. They must be on the right track.
Being open to controversy is something that newspapers can and should be doing. To resort to name-calling and suggesting something shouldn’t be published just because you don’t agree with it is, at best, a reflection of the outdated and no longer realistic journalistic practices Mr. Rosen purports to want to change. The only foolish act of publishing IMHO occurred on Press Think.
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6 comments
All true, Trudy.
Here in Wisconsin, the Madison Capital-Times is shutting down its daily printed edition and is starting an online newspaper. Which, in current practice, means a large-scale open forum of opinion.
The nice thing about blog sites is that you no longer have to negotiate with a newspaper editorial page editor to publish a shrunken down 800-word version of your great thoughts of the week. Now, you just post it online. And in the case of some blogsites, you will have more readers than if you had it printed in a daily newspaper.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
[…] Blogs of War wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt I was frankly a little surprised to see that Jay Rosen, a big proponent of more open journalism, has his panties all in a bunch over the recent Carrie Lukas column in the WaPo. You’d think he’d be the first to applaud the appearance of an opinion (in a major paper, no less!) that runs counter to the doublespeak of feminism we’ve been force-fed for decades, but nooo… He calls it a “deeply foolish act of publishing.” Did he not say once : “We’re headed, I think, for schism, tumult and divide a […]
Well said, Trudy. I thought it was a hilarious column. What kind of pussy would refuse to publish such “dangerous thoughts?”
What has me laughing now is how Jay and Marilyn’s comments over at PressThink (? more like PressKneeJerkOverReaction on this one) are starting to brush up against tinfoil hat territory.
Really. They actually appear to be taking seriously the deranged conspiracy theorist idea that this, and another column by Linda Hirshman, are intentional, mutually supporting elements in some kind of deliberate, planned maneuver against Hillary via the damaging associations caused by such articles that ‘tear down women’ in general.
You couldn’t sell this as parody. It’s unreal.
Do you mean the things you think you believe?
“[I]t is courageous . . . that they believe that ideas of all kinds can and should be entertained.” Is this intended to suggest that you believe “ideals of all kinds should be entertained”? Of all kinds?
If that’s true, what reason is there to distinguish between ideas of any kinds? You can get “ideas of all kinds” on your Letters page - why bother to pay columnists (such as, say, yourself), give them privileged space in the paper, and authorized blogs on the paper’s Web site?
But if what you want is “ideas of some kinds”, if you feel the need to make any kinds of distinctions (and if you don’t, again, you’re always free to prove it by giving up your paycheck), if there really is such a thing as a column or columnist who is better and more deserving of space than another, then it is necessary to ask, of any columnist, is this that person, and are these those ideas? And Charlotte Allen, by unmistakable idiocy and gross, pandering offensiveness, has answered that question in the negative, in her own case at least.
Your defense of her is only that her column is the one that should get printed if we want to print “ideas of all kinds” rather than ideas carefully chosen. And in that you may have a point. But, aside from the embarrassment she brings to herself, she also seems to have disproven your implicit thesis that “ideas of no particular kind” are the kind that should be featured in newspapers.
KTK: Letters to the Editor of most papers are carefully screened and regulated; hardly reflecting any diversity of ideas in most cases.
I’m not getting a paycheck from anywhere; how did you get the idea that I did?
As far as regular columnists are concerned, it would make sense to me to let the market/readership determine who they want to read, but as I’m not a newspaper publisher either, that’s not my call.
Finally, just because you don’t like somebody’s ideas doesn’t mean everybody doesn’t like those ideas.
As far as “ideas of all kinds”, and/or “ideas of no kind”, I really have no clue what you’re on about there. Lo siento!
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