Lighting the Way
Posted by Alan Shearer on October 24, 2008
 |
|
|
|
As we cover this most fascinating of election seasons, we can't help but notice Kathleen Parker's emergence at the center of much of the debate. As I write this, her latest column, "Something About Sarah," is the No. 1 most-viewed article on all of washingtonpost.com, ahead of the tumbling stock market and the latest political news.
Parker has been vilified by many on the right who forget that she has always displayed a streak of independence. It's one of the things we like about Parker and all of our writers. They don't always write to a constituency, as so many in the marketplace do.
Criticism from a writer's so-called "base" happens occasionally. I believe it's because so many people -- in and out of the news business -- are used to he said/they said, with no middle ground. Years ago, when George F. Will found fault with the Republicans' "Contract With America," a number of his fans, including some newspaper opinion-page editors, asked me what had happened to Will? We thought he was conservative.
Will's reply: "It isn't conservative to leap into the darkness."
It reminded me of the day in November 1973 when Will, a new columnist in The Washington Post who would join the four-month-old Writers Group a few weeks later, wrote that the due process of impeachment would be the proper way to deal with Richard Nixon. I was a young reporter in this town, but I knew instantly what this column meant to the debate of that day
Three years ago, Will's column denouncing George W. Bush's Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers helped sink it quickly. Reminiscing recently, Will told me he thought that was one of the most important columns he ever wrote.
In Parker's case, you can trace the arc of her thinking about Palin, starting with the first column on Sept. 3 in which she saw the positive aspects of Palin's nomination, to the later ones in which Parker predicted that the Alaska governor would be a drain on the Republican ticket.
As Parker said in one television appearance, "I write what I think." And what is freethinking if not one of the pillars of our democracy? Why would anyone believe that any individual must always hew to a party line or a particular point of view?
Our business is loaded with the kind of columnists who, to borrow a phrase that the New York Times' Tom Friedman once used at a gathering of editors, offer "more heat than light." For many of these writers, you know what they're going to say because they've said it before. It's like talk radio transferred to opinion pages. Many of these shows offer nothing more than endless put-downs that do nothing more than rile and defile -- more heat than light.
Voltaire didn't actually say this, but most people think he did: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
To those who seek to defile Kathleen Parker and others for not toeing a particular ideological line, think for a moment about what you are saying. Remember that our ancestors fought, bled and died to protect the basic freedoms that are sacrosanct in our democracy, including freedom of speech. And let's savor this terrific debate over the future of our country, the greatest on earth.
Alan Shearer is editorial director of The Washington Post Writers Group.
A Family Quarrel
Posted by James Hill on October 20, 2008
 |
|
|
|
There's some truth to the thought that ideological quarrels are a bit like academic fights -- so vicious because the stakes are so small. Yet the one that is going on now among conservatives concerning the vice presidential qualifications of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is no mere spat among tenured professors. The stakes are so high because of the office Palin aspires to, and the possibility that she might at some point have to ascend to the Oval Office.
We at The Writers Group aren't watching this as disinterested observers; three of our columnists -- George F. Will, Charles Krauthammer and Kathleen Parker -- have at some point been pulled into the fray. Parker has come in for some especially venomous attacks, particularly for her column questioning the wisdom of John McCain's choice of a governor only two years into her first term (I wrote about this Sept. 26, "Not-So-Positively Palin"), and again last week with her defense of writer Christopher Buckley's decision to endorse Barack Obama. Buckley lost his column in National Review, the magazine founded by his father and revered by many as the bible of the modern conservative movement. NR says Buckley offered to resign; Buckley says he was fired -- it doesn't matter.
The point I think that is largely being missed is not so much Buckley's apostasy as his reasons for doing so. Elections don't usually turn on endorsements from satirical writers, but the Buckley name certainly lent credibility to his action, gave it far more prominence than it would normally gain, and perhaps -- and this is a big perhaps -- allowed other conservatives the cover to jump ship as well.
Enter now Rich Lowry, National Review's editor, to say to the conservative family, "Deep Breaths, Everyone!" In a posting Friday on National Review Online's popular blog "The Corner," Lowry wrote:
"Peggy Noonan and Kathleen Parker take up the Christopher Buckley business today. In her Palin-centered column, Peggy says those 'whose thoughts lead them to criticism in this area are to be shunned, and accused of the lowest motives,' and then cites Christopher's resignation from his NR column as an example. Peggy is a busy person, so I suppose she hasn't had time to notice that Kathleen Parker's columns ripping Sarah Palin have appeared on NRO. That David Frum has aired his discontent with the Palin pick on NRO. That others of us -- Ramesh (Ponnuru) and even me (between my occasional bouts of rhapsodic gushing!) -- have criticized aspects of her performance. And that other writers on NRO have stuck up for Palin and pushed back against the critics. It's called debate. Now, I regret how some conservatives immediately question the motives of the critics of Palin, but it's equally regrettable that Noonan, Parker et al. are portraying most conservatives as irrational thugs. It makes you wonder: Who is really being overly emotional and deeply unfair in this intramural conservative debate? Which brings us naturally to Kathleen Parker's column today. Read and judge for yourself. Is this calm, cool deliberation? Or hyperbole worthy of a peeved e-mailer? (By the way, I hate that Kathleen got any abusive e-mails at all; it's a very unfortunate part of the world of the Web. But hate e-mail goes both ways. I wouldn't want to live for a minute with, say, Kathryn Lopez's or Jonah Goldberg's inbox on any given day.) Finally, on Christopher, I already addressed it here. But he proffered a 'sincere offer' of resignation of his column that he had taken up temporarily while Mark Steyn was on hiatus. It struck us as a win-win: Chris would get out of a column we thought he wanted out of; we'd get Mark Steyn, who had recently returned to writing, back on our back page. We never imagined Chris would feel he'd been 'fatwa-ed.' In any case, Chris is still on NR's board, and is welcome to write pieces for us going forward, which I'm hoping he'll do after everyone, very much including the Noonans and Parkers of the world, takes a deep breath."
I wouldn't call Parker's column the hyperbole worthy of a peeved e-mailer, but I do think Lowry's general point is valid -- conservatives need to see this for what it is, a debate, and not as an attack from within on cherished principles.
Should McCain lose on Nov. 4, you can bet for sure that longer knives will come out as conservatives contemplate life again in the political wilderness. That will probably be for the good as well, as reassessments of political defeat tend to cleanse the ideological soul.
But I find this debate now to be particularly useful for a couple of reasons: one, because it offers voters options to consider as they make their own assessments of the respective presidential tickets, and two, this contest is still extremely tight, according to the tracking polls.
Indeed, the stakes are that high.
Must Reads
David Ignatius on "The Speech That Could Close the Deal," Charles Krauthammer on who is playing the race card, Marie Cocco on "401(k)s Exposed," Robert J. Samuelson on "The Engine of Mayhem," and Michael Gerson on "Ambushed by History."
James Hill is managing editor of The Washington Post Writers Group.
More Than Ever
Posted by James Hill on October 10, 2008
|
|
|
|
One of the reasons I think the blogosphere has been able to have so much fun at the expense of the mainstream media (MSM) is that, despite 9/11 and two wars, we all were still living in the 1990s.
Until a few weeks ago, that is. If the outbreak of World War I in 1914 was the true beginning of the 20th century, as some historians contend, then surely what is likely to be named the Panic of 2008 is the beginning of the 21st. When the carnage of a housing and mortgage meltdown turned into a worldwide stampede from financial markets is finally assessed -- and when that day is, no one knows -- it will no doubt be safe to say that everything changed.
We're only beginning to understand, however, that what is called a transformative event is taking place. And that understanding is coming, because it is at our expense.
Back to the '90s for moment, an era I admit looks pretty inviting in retrospect. Markets were on the rise. The ownership society had become part of our national psyche. And our political system, although becoming increasingly polarized, didn't seem to have much effect on our happy-go-lucky way of life, one way or another.
Neither did most of our other institutions, the media among them. I'm not going to use this space to get into a discussion of how the media went off the rails. But there are plenty of signs that something serious happened -- and you can find them in circulation reports and viewership statistics and a whole lot of other metrics that evaluate an industry's health. If media were still stuck in the 1990s, readers and viewers were too -- we didn't have much effect on their lives.
I thought the blogosphere, one of the neatest things to develop on the Internet because an innovative nation found a new way to communicate, was a force for the good, and still do. But as Campaign 2008 comes mercifully to a close -- talk about something that feels like it began in the 1990s -- the blogosphere, dare I say, feels less relevant today than it was in, say, 2004, the last presidential election year.
I'm willing to give some Internet pundits credit for trying to keep the media on their toes. Certainly, every industry needs critics. But the overall tone of the political debate these days feels stale and forced. You can only read an ideological blog so long before you realize you have read it all before.
True, you could say that about the MSM as well. That was, after all, the blogosphere's complaint -- a valid one at that.
Yet, like stock market accounts, wipe this all off the table. We are in a worldwide economic crisis the likes of which most of us have never seen. Institutions created to ensure against panics are daily being exposed as ineffective. We don't know if new institutions can succeed in restoring if not order, then at least some confidence.
If ever there was a time for information, this is it. Not snippets, but tons of hard news, from all around the world. Fact-based analysis, not just opinion. The premier newsgathering organizations in this country have already been working this story overtime for weeks now. They've only just begun.
Sadly, some others are out of the game because of staff and sectional cutbacks. The shortsightedness of offering readers or viewers less comes back to haunt when news consumers need the information more than ever.
Journalists have been lamenting their lot for years now on angst-driven sites such as Romenesko. Yet what I see these days in The Washington Post newsroom, and in the other papers I read either in print or online, is not angst, but an energy and professionalism that would make the press barons and legendary editors of old proud.
On the blogs I check, however, it's still pretty much America's bar quarrel gone electronic. The subject is largely the presidential campaign, the opinions predictable, hyperpartisanship run amok.
It was fun once, if just to get a gauge on the "real" world "out there." Today it feels spent. Something is happening, and we're going to have to turn to our best and most professional news sources if we want to find out.
Must Reading
Take a look at David Ignatius on the upside of bankruptcy. Robert J. Samuelson asking "Is it 1929 again?" Alvaro Vargas Llosa on "Whose fault was it?" E.J. Dionne Jr. on the campaign and its eerie comparisons already to 1932.
And then go to Vanity Fair online and read Christopher Hitchens on "America the Banana Republic."
James Hill is managing editor of The Washington Post Writers Group.
Bailouts and Beyond
Posted by James Hill on October 3, 2008
In a 24/7 world, newspaper opinion editors can be forgiven for wanting a commentary article "yesterday." The past couple of weeks, with news growing stale almost as fast as it broke, are a good case in point.
I still think that in putting out a quality op-ed page, the operative instruction should be: not so fast. Readers turn to opinion pages for a range of carefully thought-out views and analysis. Thinking on your feet might make for entertaining candidate debates, but a quickly written commentary too often comes off as empty-headed.
Yet as markets headed south and Congress dithered over the Bush administration's $700 billion rescue package -- finally passed Friday, five days after House rejection sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 778 points -- it became imperative to get information to readers with as much speed as possible. The news cries out: Pay attention. This is very important.
Opinion writers also have a responsibility to assess the information, offer perspective, and deliver a thesis that readers can use to arrive at their own verdicts. Thus George F. Will and Michael Gerson, two of the country's most respected conservative thinkers, could have columns running side-by-side in The Washington Post taking diametric positions -- Will defending the House's original rejection of the package, Gerson deploring "the revolt of ideology against authority, even against reality."
A day later, David Ignatius' column asked, as it was headlined, "Who Needs Congress?" And then he proceeded to lay out the case that there were other avenues open. "Imagining financial life without the $700 billion rescue is a useful exercise because it helps clarify the baseline issues in this crisis," Ignatius wrote.
As it was, the Senate passed its version of the bailout late the night before. This didn't make Ignatius' column a dead letter, but it did highlight the speed in which events were moving. There would be another day before the House finally sent the package to the president, and the Ignatius column provided fuel to those seeking an alternative.
On the political side, events were also moving at warp speed. Republican presidential candidate John McCain had suspended his campaign the week before and returned to Washington to focus on the bailout negotiations. Then he showed up for the first presidential debate after saying he would not go unless the crisis had been resolved. But analysts -- from both the left and the right -- thought it a disastrous move. Consider Charles Krauthammer's words: "(McCain) tempted fate one time too many. After climbing up on his high horse, McCain had to climb down. The crisis unresolved, he showed up at the debate regardless, rather abjectly conceding (Barack) Obama's mocking retort that presidential candidates should be able to do 'more than one thing at once.' (Although McCain might have pointed out that while he was trying to do two things, Obama was sitting on the sidelines doing one thing only: campaigning.)"
Now consider Krauthammer's conclusion: "Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. famously said of Franklin Roosevelt that he had a 'second-class intellect, but a first-class temperament.' Obama has shown that he is a man of limited experience, questionable convictions, deeply troubling associations (Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko) and an alarming lack of self-definition -- do you really know who he is and what he believes? Nonetheless, he's got both a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament. That will likely be enough to make him president."
Wow. That gets your attention. Which is what a powerful piece of writing is supposed to do. I could give more examples, many more in fact, but the point I want to make is this: We work with our writers to stay on top of the news, but also to advance the news and give the reader the tools to make informed decisions. We could, I suppose, grant those wishes for something to be delivered "yesterday." But it would be yesterday's news, and that's not good enough.
James Hill is managing editor of The Washington Post Writers Group.
|
