arrogant bastard ale, courtesy of *0ne*
I don’t know exactly when Steven Pearlstein started his transition from a good writer into some kind of pod person, but the metamorphosis of WaPo’s finance writer is apparently complete. Salon writer Glen Greenwald has written a few times about Pearlstein’s odd combination of smug “I told you so” and ever-changing positions and just today has posted a highly detailed article titled Steven Pearlstein and the strange pro-bailout justifications. (No, this is not a rerun of when I mentioned his last assault on his readers a month ago.)
When a questioner today attempted to call him out on this pattern of shifting, Pearlstein responded.
This is pretty indicative of the bloggers view of the world. They write about what other people write about. And the mainstream media writes about what’s going on in the world.
I sometimes get a little peeved at the letters to the editor in the WaPo bitching about bias in editorials and analysis, for reasons that a letter-writer expressed perfectly here. However it seems that the people who need lessons in the different kinds of writing includes some of the people writing it. Maybe Pearlstean has forgotten that he’s an analyst, not a reporter, and what he is doing is described perfectly as writing about what others write.
To his credit, he also says “And if you decide I’m not someone you want to read, then don’t read it,” Okay, if you’re that cavalier about whether or not people believe you to be a credible source of information then that’s your right. Just don’t mistake an interest in knowing whether any given statement from a person as a “bloggers view of the world.” That’s what a media-savvy view of the world, and if you’re not interested in having those people as your readers then perhaps you should consider who that leaves you with.
Well I used to say something in my profile about not quite being a “tinker, tailor, soldier, or spy” but Tom stole that for our about us page, so I guess I’ll have to find another way to express that I am a man of many interests.
Hmm, guess I just did.
My tastes run the gamut from sophomoric to Shakespeare and in my “professional” life I’ve sold things, served beer, written software, and carried heavy objects… sometimes at the same place. It’s that range of loves and activities that makes it so easy for me to love DC – we’ve got it all.
