Welcome Back, Jay!

The Jefferson Memorial, Washington, D.C. November, 2011

Priscille and I have been getting the print edition of the Courier News delivered ever since I can remember, probably since the very first year that we moved to Bridgewater 35 years ago.  I like newspapers.  Always did.  Sorry to see them immersed in such a hang-on-for-dear-life struggle to survive as the Internet captures readers.  

I once considered dropping our subscription a number of years ago – didn’t think that there was enough of the stuff that I like to read about, but Pris wouldn’t let me.  It’s the only way that I can get a handle on what’s happening around here, she told me.  
So we kept it going.  I’m glad.  She was right.  There are still some features and stories in the print edition that you won’t see in the online version.

I’ve also developed a habit of regularly reading certain columnists, even though there aren’t too many of them featured anymore, and even though I don’t always agree with what they write about.

Jay Jefferson Cooke is one of those.  I can’t find a single adjective to describe him and his writing.  I think this is a good sign – it’s indicative of a complex personality and of one which may not be so easily categorized.  

Palin Derangement Syndrome

On Wednesday afternoon, when I drafted this blog post for Saturday publication, the Courier News website was running a poll in the carousel of its home page. The question was, “Is Newsweek’s cover shot of Sarah Palin Sexist?” At 2:40 PM that day, the responses were split 50/50.

Newsweek’s editor Jon Meacham – a Pulitzer Prize winning author – appropriated the cover photo of Palin from Runner’s World magazine without its permission, taking it completely out of its original context and salting it with the provocative statement, “How do you solve a problem like Sarah?” I didn’t know that “Sarah” was a problem. Did you? I can think of a lot more significant troubles facing this country than little ‘ole Sarah from Alaska.

Such media myopia brings to mind the unanswered question of why it is that some middle-age guys in the Fourth Estate – intelligent ones at that – have such a problem with females who look good and who strike such a decisive public impression.

In his Top of the Week essay accompanying the cover shot, Meacham exposes his insecurities as he discusses the potential threat of “Palinism,” calling her “… an heir to the Goldwater tradition.” It’s a very weak comparison. It was President Lyndon Baines Johnson, not Goldwater, who made a mess out of the Vietnam War by escalating it beyond control, a folly which cost him his second term in office.

Anyway, let’s get serious and reduce this thing to its essence: Which image is more likely to draw your attention more than once on the cover of Newsweek, that of Sarah Palin or that of suspiciously botoxed Nancy Pelosi? Crafty Jon Meacham knew which one would be most likely to boost circulation.

The Changing Face of Local Journalism

In his latest regular column in the Courier News, managing editor Paul C. Grzella, commented on some of the feedback at the community outreach meeting from last week, one that I witnessed. He wrote that “one of the community members who attended talked about how an opinion piece she wrote and that we published in the paper generated some unkind words on our Web site.”

Before newspapers adopted the Internet, letters-to-the-editor were submitted for publishing either by email or ‘snail mail.’ Original letter writers and those wishing to respond were bound by the same crisp rule designed to keep at least a moderate level of sanity in the process:

As I remember it, the policy of the Courier News was that it would print only letters and responses signed and submitted with a name and legitimate telephone number for confirmation of the author’s identity. I think the author’s address also was required. Anonymous contributions were simply not published.

This process maintained a reasonable level of social consciousness and integrity. But Internet practice has flushed at least part of those rules down the tubes. Today, anyone with a fictitious handle can respond to just about anything on the ‘net.

A person can be as careful, thoughtful, and as intelligent as can be with his or her response to a known author. Conversely, a person’s Internet response can be …… well …… as inconsiderate, uninformed, and as dim-witted as one can imagine. But that’s the way it is. Most professional journalists that I read and the few that I know will tell you that they don’t like it.

But the newspaper business is in an economic crunch. The anything-goes rules for online reader responses have been cast in stone for a long time, and newspapers have little influence on those rules. There is a need to carry on and to keep getting those ‘clicks’ on Web pages and the accompanying ads that may help them to survive and to prosper.

Freedom of speech is a powerful instrument of liberty. But it doesn’t inoculate anyone from the written thoughts of aspiring dolts.