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June 01, 2003
Once Again and Finally
This evening I suffered through another round of hand-wringing by some NPR weenie about The Jayson Blair Scandal.At this moment I am convinced of two striking notions. The first is a rousing assent to the idea presented by David Brooks that journalists, by their proximity to important people with stories to tell, take themselves entirely too seriously. They are messengers. Hopefully the best kind, but now more than ever, their craft seems moribund. Not so much suspect, but behind the times in their ability to deliver the kind of information people need to make sense of the information people get.
In the case of Jayson Blair, the information people get is that the legendary standards of the Ye Grande Olde Profession of Journalism have been egregiously trampled and that a New Vigilance is forthcoming. The information we need is to know how many journalists get fired in any given year. We are not likely to find out. Not that I give a rats ass.
The second notion is the audacity of those people who had the nerve to assent to the racist backlash against Affirmative Action 'justified' by Blair's failure. This is one of those instances in which the blatant obscenity of the racism is so mindnumbing that it hasn't really hit me until this moment. A younger man would scour the web, hunt down and abuse all those cretins who took leave of their senses on this matter. As for me, I'm just trying to close off this post nicely.
In the end, Blair is just another asshole who screwed up on the job. How this became a story of national and blogopheric proportions has much to do with these two factors. My mind is now closed on the matter, and I hope never to have to think about it again.
Update:
Posted by mbowen at June 1, 2003 08:17 PM
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