Max Anderson, an editorial board member and letters-to-the-editor editor at the Democrat and Chronicle, has an interesting
post on the D&C's editorial page blog. Max's main point is one often encountered at the D&C. He thinks his paper must be doing something right because everybody is mad at it.
Max uses three irrational letters as examples. Read the post if you want to see the ugly details. One of the letters is from a conservative, so Max points out that
Rochesterturning (a liberal blog) also dislikes the D&C editorial page. The other two letters are from anti-religious zealots.
Max makes a to-do about the how much pain it caused him to read these letters, but comforts himself by saying that the "rage comes from all sides". This is both lame and wrong.
It's lame because Max's job is to read letters from crackpots and kooks, so whining about it in public is pretty wimpy. Buck up, Max.
The "rage" excuse is wrong because it paints anyone who complains about the D&C as an irrational, vengeful moron. It might be comforting to believe that everyone who disagrees with you is crazy, but it isn't true. I'm sure some of the letters that Max gets are angry, critical and correct. But when all you see is rage, you're not going to see the truth in some of those letters, and you'll ignore the opportunity to improve that those letters afford.
I can't really blame Max for having this attitude, because it's in the drinking water at the D&C. In fact, I applaud Max for actually calling out a local blog by name, and linking to it. The D&C editorial blog usually makes bland references to "what people are saying" rather than pointing to who actually said it. This is a weasely tactic, because it allows the writer to misrepresent what "people" are saying without letting anyone check what "people" actually said.
If Max can stop the rage excuse, and continue to link to his critics, he'll have a good chance at achieving the goal of every young D&C staff member: moving up the Gannett corporate ladder, and getting out of Rochester.
Comments
I dislike that he talks about "sides". The really crazy stuff he gets doesn't represent either side of any political debate. I don't agree with Republicans politically, but when one writes a Travis Bickle-style letters about washing the filth of Rochester away, it doesn't actually represent the Republican "side" of any debate.
The only real point of his piece seems to be "we get angry letters and I don't like reading them." Why doesn't he just say that and leave it at that?
It seems like there's a bit of a siege mentality at the D&C. Tom Tobin, for example, said that one of his worst decisions of 2007 was to "submit myself daily to the sharpened knives of the blogosphere". Max's post seems to be in that vein also.
I think Tobin's kidding, in fairness. I think he kind of likes it.
I've finally figured out what it is that bugs me about the "sides". It's a way of delegitimizing the critics who are evidently sane. Even if your critique of the paper is careful, reasoned, and makes perfect sense, it's probably still wrong because you're probably a partisan. Regardless (why is is that the mere thought of the D&C blogs makes me want to write "irregardless"?) of the merits of your argument, your partisanship automatically invalidates your criticism.
Right - if all bloggers are partisans, then they can be ignored, and the role of the sane, serious, "objective" media is preserved.
Also, Tobin whines a lot. I don't mind bitching (obviously, since I do it all the time), but I can't stand whining.
In one of Glen Greenwald's columns, he writes of the false pride of many in the media, who brag about how they have never (not once) been influenced by a blog (sorry, I can't find the link). The arrogance of these people in the media, who believe that they are always correct and blogs never offer anything of value is stunning. Unfortunately, they don't realize that if the media truly did their job and searched for truth and accuracy instead of the false balance of he said/she said, they wouldn't have both sides so alienated (only one side would be alienated), and maybe their circulation would go up.
I agree, and I think in the end if the media went beyond the he said/she said model, I think they'd trade short-term alienation for long-term respect.
I guess what bloggers want is for the journalists to be passionate about their jobs and not just copy, paste and cash a paycheck. Bloggers have passion.