Let’s talk indecency for a moment. Let me offer you three pieces on it:

A Newspaper Professional in a Newspaper

A Newspaper Professional’s blog

Just Some Guy

I agree with the last two. I think the first one is dreadful, and yet he’s the only guy getting paid to write it. Think about that for a moment.

Consider this as well: the professional in a newspaper has presented us with a bunch of blather, a fact free zone adrift on a sea of paranoia and opinion: the professional in his blog has provided a few facts but much better writing; and just some guy has done his homework and provided a well reasoned piece of persuasive writing. Eric Mink has a week between columns and the resources of a newspaper at his disposal to ferret out the facts, and that’s what he chooses to publish. What is wrong with this picture?

I think the professionals in the media today assume we are going to believe them because they are professionals in the media today. No facts, no reason, just take my word for it. How very insulting. And they wonder why readership and viewership continues to decline for the “serious” news media.

As long as I’m going on about the press and columnists, I want to highlight good work by one. I think this column about Jews, Christians, and Mel Gibson’s The Passion is simply outstanding. This is a very grown-up column (our culture fails us by the cooption of the adjective “adult” to mean only sexual), a rarity in today’s media (a probably in yesteryears too – I wasn’t around then so I don’t know). Dennis Prager tackles an emotional, controversial topic in a very calm manner while doing full justice to differing viewpoints. It really is a wonderful job of writing that begins with a full grasp of the issue and sensitivity towards the people involved. If only our normal political reporting, let alone opinionating, was as grown-up. Wouldn’t it be nice to see a column about social security written at this level, if only just once?

I think Halley’s comet comes around more often that the elements of this story. A columnist dissed a segment of society, the segment put it’s money where it’s mouth is, and the columnist apologized. Now, the details: A columnist wrote another cliched column about video games (violent one’s specifically) being the ruination of our youth (in an earlier era, it was comic books — I’m sure every era has something that causes the ruination of its youth). So when readers at penny-arcade.com read it, they didn’t get mad, they demonstrated that the colunist was wrong by raising $146,000 in cash and toys for Children’s Hospital in Seattle (full disclosure – my daughter has spent time in Children’s hospital right here in St. Louis). When the columnist found out, he apologized and wrote a column celebrating the exploits of the video gamers at penny-arcade.com. If only every protest was conducted in such a positive manner.

I’m surprised this story didn’t get much traction, but apparently the man who blew up the headquarters of HSBC bank in Turkey was motivated by persistant claims in portions of the Turkish press that US soldiers have raped thousands of Iraqi women. I don’t blame the war critic, Dr. Susan Block, who wrote a crazy screed called “The Rape of Iraq” in Counterpunch that didn’t claim any US soldier actually physically raped an Iraqi woman. No, if you want to print lies and distortions, you’ll find a way.

There are plenty of people in this country who believe the harmless lies of our tabloids: that Elvis is still alive, that there is a miracle cure for (arthritis, cancer, lupus, …), that some lady in Arkansas really did have a baby with space aliens. The problem is when the information stream becomes polluted with stuff that isn’t harmless. And we have some of that here — too many in the press have given up the goal of informing us and instead want to persuade us through the manipulation of facts themselves. Now, we do still have standards, fast eroding though they are, but it should be remembered by the press what they are, the responsibilites they bear, and that critics can criticize for good reasons as well as partisan ones.

The St. Louis Post Dispatch (home of the worst newspaper internet site – it doesn’t have one) ran an op-ed by Michael Bellesiles yesterday. I responded with a letter to the editor:

I was amazed to see an oped in the Post by Michael Bellesiles that failed to identify him as serial liar and disgraced historian. Perhaps the Post has forgotten how he fabricated or distorted reams of data to support the theme of his book Arming America, how after the deception was discovered he was forced to resign from Emory University, the NEH took its name off the Newberry Fellowship he was awarded, and the Bancroft Prize for Arming America was revoked. What was Mr. Bellesiles response? Why he continued to lie and constantly change his story — admitting no wrong doing but maligning his critics.I was stunned that it ran the same day an editorial taking other organizations to task for their ethical lapses ran. Perhaps the editorial staff does have a fine sense of irony after all.

What’s next for the Post? Will it hire Janet Cooke, Stephen Glass, or Jayson Blair? I hear they too are available.

OK, a touch harsh perhaps, but I wrote before I was declared a studmuffin. On second thought, perhaps it’s not harsh enough. If Bellesiles had come clean and apologized, then I would have been harsh. As it is, why is this guy taking up valuable real estate in the paper? This is a question I ask about most pundits, though for different reasons.

Anyway, I haven’t gotten a call yet, so I don’t think they’ll run the letter.

UPDATE 1/6/04:

The post ran a letter on 1/3/04 from historian Kevin Hurst taking Mr. Bellesiles to task for the inaccuracy of his history and shallowness of his argument in the his op ed and amonst other things cites:

“His claim that the “Gatling gun and its successors did not prove decisive in any war,” is contradicted by the devastating effectiveness of the Maxim gun in the colonial wars of the late 19th century.”

That was my mistake – rather than attack the substance of the letter, I attacked the man himself.