TW: George Packer from New Yorker takes a shot at Frank Rich, columist NYT. I agree with Packer. Packer wrote a great piece for New Yorker last month on voters in rural Ohio. Rich sitting in NYC pontificates re the same voters. This little spat is interesting only as it symbolizes the increasing reliance of MSM to rely on punidtry rather than actual field reporting. Punditry is the cheapest form of journalism both written and broadcast. Get a pundit stick her/him in a studio or cubicle and have them opine away. There are few publications which spend the money and time to embed reporters for extended periods out in the field to research stories anymore. New Yorker and Vanity Fair still do. With the MSM revenue models busted, one can safely assume we will end up with more punditry and less reporting.
From Packer:
"
On Sunday, Frank Rich wrote this memorable sentence:Obama also won all four of those hunting-and-Hillary-loving Rust Belt states
that became 2008’s obsession among slumming upper-middle-class white
journalists: Pennsylvania and Michigan by double digits, as well as Ohio and
even Indiana, which has gone Democratic only once (1964) since 1936.
Apparently, going to Ohio to find out what voters like Barbie Snodgrass and Helen Walker were thinking was a waste of the magazine’s money. I could have stayed in midtown Manhattan and assumed they were thinking what I was thinking. All the more reason—if the cost savings weren’t reason enough—for every remaining reporter in America to give up the fight and become a full-time pundit."
No comments:
Post a Comment