There was an interesting article in New York Magazine last week about the NYT columnist, David Brooks. Brooks holds the NYT conservative seat previously occupied by William Safire. Brooks is also a regular on NPR programming & ‘The News Hour” opposite Mark Shields.
As a committed liberal, I read Brooks with admiration and learn from him consistently, even though I don’t always agree with him. It might be that as I age I am tending to be more moderate and that may blend well with Brook’s more moderate stance on most issues and his refusal to get caught up in the wedge issues that tend to stifle any kind of conversation across the aisle.
It got me to thinking about some of the other must read columnists I read and why. Why do I read Tom Friedman and not Maureen Dowd? Friedman is a graduate of my alma mater in St Louis Park High School and we probably had the same English teacher. But Tom has moved way past the pleasant pastures of Suburban Minneapolis and into the world of international politics and environment issues. He’s written a number of best selling books including “The World Is Flat” which explains in exquisite detail the effects of the various benchmark developments in technology, on the world and how we live in it. His Sunday column is a must.
Strangely enough Friedman openly admires Dowd, I find her snarky and generally uninformative. And there is lies my major criteria for whom a read and who I could care less about. Don’t preach to me as if I’m a member of the congregation. Do not tell me what you think I want to hear. Teach me something, I don’t already know. I may not want to hear it. It may bother me to the point of anger and frustration (ie my approval rating of Obama is still very high), but if I need to know it, I will listen and learn
Columnists I seek out have a low tolerance for Bullshit and an incisive instinct for what’s really going on. At NYT, I recently began reading Russ Douthat. His prose is lofty and sometime unnecessarily difficult to read, but his mind is sharp and he sheds light from a different lantern on things politic.
Locally, I enjoy Steve Jagler, who writes for BizTimes.com and occasionally guests on one of my other favorite Internet mags, OnMilwaukee.com. Patti Wenzel who writes for the Third Coast Digest, another must read online news source. I always learn something important from Dave Reid and Jeramay Jannene at UrbanMilwaukee.com. Let me throw in the rare ray of sunshine from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Tom Daykin
What I find frustrating is the lack of professionalism in journalism today. Yes, I know that many of us have this unrealistic idea, that “back in the day” things were better. The columnists were better writers and the ethic’s of journalism were purer and that just ain’t so. Journalism has always had it’s cheerleaders and BS artists. Believe it or not, there was a lack intellectual dialogue before Limbaugh and Co. It’s just that with technology these idiots are far more pervasive and almost unavoidable.
It’s an undeniable fact that if you can get a couple of hundred vocal people joining you in the streets or on the Internet, you can have credibility beyond your real effect. One guy standing up at a town hall meeting and shouting at a local politician is in the headlines and the six o’clock news, while the thoughtful and eloquent objection posed by another irate citizen will not, I can guarantee you, make the news.
After Joe the, you fill in the blank, rants in front of the cameras, columns will be written, oblique references to the actor will be made in other news reports, four or five equally angry and often misinformed people will be found to agree with him and the next thing you know the guy needs a posse of PR people, lawyers, and body guards in order to lead his or her movement. If questioned by serious people these people have nothing to offer but their anger and misconceptions, but” they have the right to their opinions and the reporters are obligated to report the news. And just like car accidents, these people become classified as news.
There are a lot of ways to get news these days and like the quality of the product one has to look at the source. Much of the punditry and political commentary we see and read is self-serving and self-promoting. It is not the exclusive property of either political sphere. I usually classify it as entertainment and increasingly it’s not very good even in that category
What I tend to read is the longer more thoughtful and fuller treatment of the issues of the day. Public Television and Radio are generally better sources of information for two reasons. They don’t do the rip and read style of so many TV and Radio stations that can’t afford or won’t spend the money for the in depth journalistic work. The articles are generally longer and more balanced. I know a lot of conservatives disagree with that, but believe me I’ve had my beliefs challenged by visitors on the News Hour.
I read magazines, The Atlantic, The New Yorker and New York Magazine. (I know what’s with the Big Apple thing?). Online, I read, Slate, Politico, and a number of local publications. The good thing about the Internet is that if the article or the entire publications starts going south on my standards, I don’t have to wait months for my subscription to run out. Don Hewitt, the creator of 60 Minutes, said that the secret to success was summed up in four words, “Tell Me a Story”. Who am I to challenge the genius, but I would modify that slightly when it comes to news. When you tell me the story, make sure I learn something I need to know.
Comments
Post a Comment