... Message to Chairman of New York Times Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr: Don’t Jump!
I not only know Mark Bowden. I also have the highest regard for him and his work (though I have not yet got around to reading "The Inheritance"). Not long ago, though, a friend who works at the Times remarked to me, almost casually, that Pinch Sulzberger had run the Times into the ground. He did, I believe, preside over the sale of the Times's TV stations, which were a cash cow for the enterprise; he bought the Boston Globe - now estimated to be worth maybe $20 million - for more that $1 billion dollars; and, instead of spending maybe $350 million to make the Times's headquarters (located in that rather well known landmark called Times Square) state-of-the-art, he decided to go into debt and build a new headquarters.
As for the excellence in journalism issue, Lynne is quite right to insist that there is a market for quality journalism. But what many in the journalistic community regard as such - long, tedious and tedentious "investigative" chronicles of governmental minutiae - is not what many common readers regard as such. Well reported, well written stories telling us what we didn't know about things we are interested in - I think there will always be a market for that. But one more story one more celebrity nitwit (to mention another characteristic preoccupation of contemporrary journalism)? I don't think so. Quality journlaism provides information and context. In too much journalism nowdays information and context tend to be subordinated to a pre-conceived narrative.
I not only know Mark Bowden. I also have the highest regard for him and his work (though I have not yet got around to reading "The Inheritance"). Not long ago, though, a friend who works at the Times remarked to me, almost casually, that Pinch Sulzberger had run the Times into the ground. He did, I believe, preside over the sale of the Times's TV stations, which were a cash cow for the enterprise; he bought the Boston Globe - now estimated to be worth maybe $20 million - for more that $1 billion dollars; and, instead of spending maybe $350 million to make the Times's headquarters (located in that rather well known landmark called Times Square) state-of-the-art, he decided to go into debt and build a new headquarters.
As for the excellence in journalism issue, Lynne is quite right to insist that there is a market for quality journalism. But what many in the journalistic community regard as such - long, tedious and tedentious "investigative" chronicles of governmental minutiae - is not what many common readers regard as such. Well reported, well written stories telling us what we didn't know about things we are interested in - I think there will always be a market for that. But one more story one more celebrity nitwit (to mention another characteristic preoccupation of contemporrary journalism)? I don't think so. Quality journlaism provides information and context. In too much journalism nowdays information and context tend to be subordinated to a pre-conceived narrative.
"Quality journlaism provides information and context. In too much journalism nowdays information and context tend to be subordinated to a pre-conceived narrative."
ReplyDelete- Truly, I dig this comment, Frank. More than half the articles I read on my area of expertise (nuclear energy) fit this description, and many of the others seem to be narratives based on the notions of whoever the reporter was most comfortable talking with (sometimes executives, sometimes activists). Then there's a final group exclusive to my area that reflects the "Gee whiz, Science is just too hard" school. None of these approaches prove particularly enlightening to a member of the general public (though occaisionally they may be fooled into thinking so).
I try to keep this in mind when I read up on areas I'm not familiar with. It's not a particularly comforting thought.