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Lileks: the Future of Newsmagazines
...I think the last time I looked at a newsmagazine, it was full of things that were Generally Wrong or Growing Concerns or Worrisome Trends, with lots of ads for acid-reflux pills. The default mode of these magazines a long time ago seemed to be banging the tocsin with a bloody shirt, to horribly mix metaphors, and its not surprising; the default position of journalism is reminding us how far we live from the fabled borders of Utopia, and how we might speed the journey through the magic accelerating powers of wise, targeted legislation.I interviewed a Famous Columnist once who trotted out the comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable line - he was quite comfortable himself, which made you wonder if he went home and pinched himself until bloody half-moons appeared on his forearms - and he said he had a deep-seated need to throw snowballs at the guys with top hats. So . . . youre a 30s urchin in Brooklyn? At heart, probably. Gwan, ya swell! Go eat sum oysters, why doncha? First he writes the story about scrappy urchins who throw snowballs at top hats; the next year the style section writes about the decline in top-hat popularity, because of the snowball problem - which is understandable, given income inequality, and really, they are a bit passe - and the next year the columnist writes a story about the guys who are out of work because the top-hat factory closed. Meanwhile, the business section has a big story on a new straw-boater factory. But its the columnist grousing about the factory closing that people remember. You cant avoid being tagged as habitual downers when youre in the news business, because the Truth Hurts, or at least Hurts Someone Else - but sometimes I suspect many people in the news business are temperamentally predisposed to miserabilism, because the idea of an unjust world run by monied smileys explains why the cheerleader turned them down for a date in high school. But I know too many who dont fit that mold. So ignore the above, except when it seems to explain something. Except when you read someone who seems to think that by afflicting the comfortable, the afflicted are automatically comforted. As if writing is charity. Posted by: Mike 2009-03-11 |
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