Blogs to Lemann: Drop Dead!

Jay Rosen weighs in on Nick Lemann's petulant and condescending Wayward column, Amateur Hour.

This is the fourth time I've "encountered" Lemann and, so far, I have found him to be little more than a Luddite with an Ivy-encrusted Chair - someone who ought to be dismissed out of hand on the topic of citizen journalism.

He is an agenda-driven hack who tips his hand in his most recent diatribe when he writes "Journalism is not in a period of maximal self-confidence right now, and the Internet’s cheerleaders are practically laboratory specimens of maximal self-confidence. They have got the rhetorical upper hand; traditional journalists answering their challenges often sound either clueless or cowed and apologetic."

Overall, Lemann offers up a sad attempt by a high priest of the "legacy media" to take back the rhetorical battlefield by denigrating any and all efforts to advance a concept of journalism without a priesthood while claiming there is no such priesthood and rallying the "faithful".

Jay is far too kind in his critique going only so far as to say:

I try to stay away from these extremes but journalists don’t seem to want that. They prefer what Lemann terms “the most soaring rhetoric about supplanting traditional news organizations.” It’s the extreme claim that interests them. If they don’t have speakers to quote they just go without.

Jay credits Lemann's late, oft-repeated and rather obvious comparison of bloggers and pamphleteers. That this might be an "insight" only serves to highlight the extent to which Lemann's piece is a knee-jerk snobbish rant.

The fundamental problem with Lemann's argument is that it is predicated on the notion that its matters what former "gate keepers" like him think. It doesn't. And if he doesn't like it what's he going to do about - not award me a Pulitzer Prize? He can keep his prizes - and his "stinkin' badges".

What jumps out at me in reading his piece, is that Lemann is in such a great position to be a force for good in the development of citizen journalism and instead uses his bully pulpit to find fault and tear down. It is a testament to the potential for small-mindedness among those entrusted with a great responsibility, serving as Dean for one of the leading journalism schools in the world.

My experience with Lemann came at a special screening of George Clooney's Good Night and Good Luck last fall. After the film Lemann made a little speech which conflated his reaction to a New York Times column by John Tierney which took issue with the liberal bent of J-school profs and those bloggers who label the media as "MSM" (i.e., conservative bloggers who believe the media is biased to the left). He then asked for questions for the panel which he would repeat into his microphone so the question could be picked up on the video tape that was being made of the event.

You can read all about it in my post from that night - Good Night, Good Luck and Good Riddance.

As you will see if you watch the video in the post I've linked, after attacking conservative bloggers he REFUSED to address my question to the panel, instead repeatedly demanding that I "justify" the premise of my question (something he failed to demand of any other audience member). You will also see Clooney jump in and attempt to shut me down by ridiculing bloggers and otherwise avoiding the question. Neither Lemann or any member of the panel was ever willing to answer my question. You will also see that at the very end of the panel Clooney makes exactly the same point that motivated my question in the first place and then waves in my direction to briefly acknowledge that "maybe" there was validity to my question after all.

Ironically, after I got home that night I had en email from the company that made the film, Participant Productions asking me to serve as a contributor to their then-nascent blog. Go figure.