I don't read long-time New York Times columnists like Maureen Dowd or David Brooks, or Washington Post columnists of equivalent vintage. I don't know why their employers keep them in these roles, and indulge them extravagantly.
It's hard to believe, but I understand they are not even copy-edited. Examples like this one from Dowd, which was shared by Tom Tomorrow on Sunday would seem to support that idea:
Even if I assume she thought she was clever with her eye-rollable use of "Swifties," she completely inverted the meaning of the phrase "given a wide berth," as Tom pointed out in his BlueSky post. If you read her verbatim, it means the opposite of her intention, which was "given wide latitude" or "given a long leash."
The larger issue is, who cares what Maureen Dowd thinks about every issue of the day, while she sits in her office at the Times? (Or her home office, I suppose.) Why doesn't she go and do some actual reporting and write a news story based on facts? And I don't mean talking to a couple of cab drivers, like Tom Friedman.
Is becoming a columnist a tenured position at these newspapers? The demotion and then firing of Radley Balko — who was actually doing valuable work that stood out from the crowd at the Washington Post — proved that it's not, so why are the rest of these sinecured people untouchable?
We would all be a bit better off with some churn in the columnist world. That's where we need term limits, and they would be better off themselves with 10 years reporting for every 10 years as a columnist. They run out of things to say and become cranks, literally cranking out one more take for the take-home pay.
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Radley Balko's Substack is called The Watch, and he has done excellent independent journalism since leaving the Post.
3 comments:
I like watching the Friday PBS NewsHour segment with Jonathan Capehart and David Brooks, if only to see Capehart often look with amused pity as Brooks speaks. “Bless your heart,” his face seems to say.
Maureen Dowd ... remember when she lifted a paragraph without attribution from Josh Marshall? (Not that I’m a fan of his writing either.)
As a ten-year'd columnist, I hear you.
But Bill... you've got a specific beat, which I think makes a difference, and it's not the only thing you're doing (other than writing books and speaking at Aspen Ideas conferences, in the case of David Brooks). You essentially *are* reporting every day.
Also — I know I'm painting with a broad brush.
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