Friday, November 18

Ephemera

OK, I just emerged from my day-long coma (see explanation below) and everybody's jumping on Amy Anderson, whoever she is, for this (Atrios via Roger Ailes). The suggestion that they do it for free seems to have offended a few blogger sensibilities almost as much as the contention that Kos is white.

Now, as you may recall, I'm not exactly overwhelmed by blogtopia aggrandizement, and if you catch me in a bad mood I'm liable to toss a "Glen Reynolds--now there's a successful blogger," or "How 'bout that revolutionary All-Star Blogger Convention coverage, eh?" at you. But today I'm just tickled, but not as much as I was by Amy herself:
Then there is the amount of space that many bloggers spend on minutiae. Who cares where they went over the weekend or how their children did in the science fair and what movies they saw? I mean, if I don't have the time and patience to read such ephemera, I suspect that you don't, either.

Because, one, it's certain she's never read what such ephemera can be in the hands of Chris Clarke or Michael Bérubé, e.g., and two, she seems to have an odd blind spot over just how much mindlessness is perpetrated by important, that is to say, paid journalists, despite the fact that the empty calories of Missing White Girl of the Week and Tom Cruise Watch make up such a high percentage of the National diet. It's just a guess, but I'd bet the Enquirer has a greater circulation than Dissent and Commentary combined (which would make them Dissentary, if I may steal the best gag Woody ever wrote). And I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Rita "Howlin' Wolf" Cosby outearns James "James Wilcox" Wolcott.

That the worldview of the terminal journalistic careerist is impervious to any assault from self-reflection doesn't surprise me anymore; I remember catching a panel discussion retrospective on the 2000 election coverage, which included "Dean" Broder and "Steno Sue" Schmidt, giving themselves high marks for their work. I mean, Corporate Medicine, Inc., spends a lot of time going after midwives and chiropractors and herbal remedies, but they manage to examine their own practices from time to time, don't they?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think the offense was not so much with the implication that they do it for free, but that she's so awesome she doesn't *have* to.
I write amateur smut. I do it because I enjoy it. I used to do it because I got paid. I didn't enjoy it anywhere near as much then.
It's not an uncommon view. Some of us don't want to write to order, and why does that make our writing less valid than someone else's?
As you point out, ephemera can be a stunning dragonfly in the hands of a skilled amateur. And worthiness can be stacked cinderblocks in the hands of a professional.

I suspect the indignation was also over, a bit, the fact that she clearly was commenting on something she had no idea about, and doesn't have the time and patience to find out about, even to research her rant.

Anonymous said...

Wife OK, I take it?