"Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you, if you're young at heart" - Frank, from Hoboken.
Whether it's wingnuts enlisting Disney to hagiograph Mr. Smoke-em-out,Bring-it-on, Dead-or-alive or just angry cavalry buffs insisting Little Big Horn was "a minor blemish" on an otherwsise stellar career, it's painful to watch people of driving age revert to Romper Room.
Lee Siegel's actually agreed to an interview at the New York Observer:
"It never occurred to me" that it was wrong, the 48-year-old Mr. Siegel said of his frame of mind at the time. "This is really cowboy territory, with very few boundaries. I think now that it was wrong. I assumed an alias, I guess, because I didn't want to stoop to their level, not realizing that I was stooping to their level."
Yes, and nobody could predict someone would fly planes into buildings. Or that the leveees would fail. How many ways can a 48-year old man show that he is so ethically and sensically(?) bereft?
Lee says this is Cowboy territory. Well, the entire media landscape is increasingly like Deadwood, with one major exception: Few get the metaphorical "bullet" when they fuck up, and mind-fuck us over in the process with their patent medicine prooduct. How is that? In what world is accountability and shame suspended? In what universe is reputation and credibility suddenly a fine print afterthought anda trifle? Exactly.
How many ways and opportunities does the management of our media need to step in a cowpie of their own, and their employees making?
TNR's mgmt did a now-shocking thing to me. They acted quickly.
Franklin Foer sez:
"The transcendent rules of journalism apply, even in the `Talkback' section of the magazine," Franklin Foer, The New Republic's editor, said. "We don't let our writers misrepresent themselves to readers."
Well, yea-uuhh.
But that doesn't fix the problem. Media is the only avenue and tool to provide the thing that's missing in our rapidly complexifying lives. That thing is context. Context--understanding--can make molehills out of mountains, or, it can cause you to grab your socks because you see that tsunami coming while others are still sleepwalking.
I had a pretty cool guidance counsleor in high school, Mr. Singletary. He knew me well, maybe better than I did my self. When I told him I was thinking about Journalism, he laughed. "What's so funny?", I asked. "You think high school is shallow, ridiculous social games, right?" he said. "Yeah." "Imagine that times 100 for the rest of your life."
And, that, I think is the nub of it. We now entrust our most valueable tool for interpreting the parts of the world we don't have direct experience of to people who have a couple of fatal flaws for the position.
Lee Siegel? He's one. Stephen Glass? He's One. Wolf and Rita? Yep. Judy Miller or Klein? Give me a fuckin break.
To be fair, I think their visibility and megawattage is inversely proportianal to their skillz, which only makes their potential for damage and misinforming that much more horrific. Thankfully, it also explains why solid reporters at say the Toledo Blade do steady stellar work.
So, smarty pants, what gives?
We're all pretty bored and jaded, surfing, clicking and jonesing for "new." It's the culture and its currency, right? We see lotsa absolute idiots at work, in school, and on TV get their 15-minutes for reasons the backstory often tells us make no sense. As often as not, they're gregarious and pretty floormops. And yeah, they push to the front for their pat on the head, repeatedly. They're specialness-junkies and gold-star collectors.
And I think it's just as simple as Mr. Singletary said, 28 years ago: At this apogee of the worst possible time, "reporters" are in that business less for the actual process of discovery and more for the appeal of being "where the action is" without having to look down the barrels of guns, palpitate a heart, or rush into a burning building. (Yeah, "embeds" do go into the shit, but the 80/20 rule applies there, too. Many are reticent to insist on purity in a Bradley headed for hostile country.) Add to the previous the subset of those who get a rush from access and the time and attention of important, powerful people who otherwise wouldn't let you near their office or skybox or poolpump.
Modern journalism is "gosh, I'm so bored and I wanna feel special" with a curriculum and "ethics" panels. All of which are designed to ADD to the veneer of serious- and specialness. More gold-star collecting.
Lee Siegel's readers weren't making him feel special. They weren't appreciating his "important" take on cultural commentary. Lee was bored with being average (translation: a hack.) Most of us can live with our .200 batting average. Hell, Reggie Jackson lived with .262 quite happily.
Others just can't. So they make one up, or find places where they can at least try to drive that of others down, and pretend to be special.
And that's what I think about that. =)