[HN Gopher] Janet Malcolm has died
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Janet Malcolm has died
Author : samclemens
Score : 35 points
Date : 2021-06-17 23:59 UTC (23 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| Barrin92 wrote:
| I think probably one of the more relevant parts of her legacy is
| the assessment of journalism
|
| _> "One of the through lines in her work was a merciless view of
| journalism, never mind that she was one of its most prominent
| practitioners."Human frailty continues to be the currency in
| which it trades," she wrote in "Iphigenia in Forest Hills:
| Anatomy of a Murder Trial" (2011). "Malice remains its animating
| impulse."_
|
| I actually think this is how journalism ought to be. I
| occassionaly think of Hunter S. Thompson's obituary of Nixon in
| which he described how one had to get subjective and leave behind
| the standards of so called 'objective' journalism to get to the
| truth. I think this kind of competitive malice is no worse than
| say, the malice in business to outcompete.
|
| What I personally don't like is not that kind of inquisitive
| writing but a moralistic attitude denying it. If journalists
| pursue this kind of writing they should hold themselves to that
| same standard, but they should nonetheless not shy away from
| controversy. One place where I think it's really relevant today
| is tech. You have companies like a16z trying to produce these
| soft propaganda alternative media outlets in response to 'toxic'
| journalists, but I side firmly with the journalists here _even if
| part of journalistic writing is notoriety and fame or 'malice'_,
| they just ought to admit it. I'm often kind of sad to see how
| uncritically people, in particular here on HN, eat up these calls
| for civility, which is simply power trying not to be questioned.
| mycologos wrote:
| > I think this kind of competitive malice is no worse than say,
| the malice in business to outcompete.
|
| I think it matters that the goals of journalism are ostensibly
| different from the goals of business. The goal of business is
| to get people to buy something, maybe with some sideline in
| getting them to keep doing it over a long time. The goal of
| journalism is, I think, to show people important things that
| are happening. Optimizing engagement/acquiring customers is the
| goal for business, optimizing readership isn't _supposed to be_
| the goal for journalism. If it is, you run into, well, the
| things people complain about in modern journalism (and not-so-
| modern yellow journalism). And I think journalists whose
| primary goal is notoriety are more likely to optimize for
| controversy and readership, not showing people important
| things.
|
| That's sort of orthogonal to "civility", I guess. But I
| question the idea that adversarial journalism is the way to go.
| My understanding is that good journalists have excellent people
| skills and can write critically and truthfully while
| cultivating relationships in an area that enable them to keep
| understanding what's happening in that area. Probably the
| number of journalists who are genuinely able to do this is not
| high, but we should hope for more of them.
| morelisp wrote:
| I think we're probably best off with both Hunter S. Thompson
| and Walter Cronkite, but I'd much rather have - and think
| society would be better informed and pointed in a better
| direction by - two Thompsons and no Cronkites than the other
| way around.
| blowski wrote:
| I feel some of the same discomfort that you feel with modern
| journalism. Some (not all) calls for "civility" seem to be code
| for "if you disagree with me you're being uncivil". Completely
| objective, unbiased journalism is impossible for all but the
| most banal of stories.
|
| And yet somehow the idea of all journalism being a form of
| individuals' perspectives of situations seems equally
| disquieting. With the hand of outstanding writers this
| blatantly personal journalism produces writing of the highest
| quality. But lesser writers - I'm thinking of the likes of
| Tucker Carlson and Owen Jones - it becomes nothing more than
| second-rate preaching at the Sunday pulpit. Nothing new is
| said, nobody learns anything. It's just stories that make a
| certain audience feel good.
| 52-6F-62 wrote:
| I don't know that we'll escape that completely. I mean, for
| every true spiritual guide there are charlatans, for every
| shop owner there are thieves, for every great artist their
| imitators.
| morelisp wrote:
| I too miss Valleywag.
| Jun8 wrote:
| Responses and reminiscences from several writers on her passing:
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/books/page-tu...
|
| When I first came across it I loved her article "Forty One False
| Starts" https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1994/07/11/forty-one-
| fals...
| tpmx wrote:
| It's sad that people die when they get old.
| saltmeister wrote:
| who
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/MEu7M
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