Letters to the Editor
Margalis
Published Letters: 614 Editor's Choice: 16
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The liar talk is not really appropriate
[Read the article: Duke players cleared]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Charges being dropped does not make one a liar, and many people jumped on her as being a liar right from the start with a great deal of animosity.
It is certainly true that a lot of people are very gleeful now, and they try to make it into some much broader point - women are untrustworthy, rape allegations are often false, etc.
I criticized some feminist websites and bloggers for making it personal and hunting for evidence that supports their world-view, but the same can be said for the people who are now overjoyed and who crusaded for the Duke boys from the start.
This case doesn't say much about white men or black women or strippers or lacrosse players or rape or rape victims. It's just one incident. What it does say a lot about are the people on both sides who turned it into a moral crusade because it fit their agendas.
The people who turn this into a celebration are also rather distasteful.
There are plenty of people who desparately wanted the charges to be true because that fit their agenda. And there are plenty of people who desparately wanted them to turn out false for the same reason. It isn't about truth or justice for either of those groups.
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Journalist is an empty term
[Read the article: First Amendment martyr?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]To be a journalist you don't have to take an oath, you don't have to pass an exam. You don't need any training, you don't need to follow a code of ethics. You don't need to be good at anything or knowledgable in any way. Many people that we consider journalists simply read a teleprompter.
Journalism can be considered a career, but we allow for "citizen journalists" and "student journalists."
Is Glenn Greenwald a journalist? He practices journalism better than they (official journalists) do - yet they are the journalists and he is not?
To be an electrician you have to be able to wire things together. To be a computer programmer you have to do able to program. To be a journalist you need what? To be able to read and write? Is that it?
We cling to this notion of the fourth estate, about performing a valuable service, protecting the public interest. Some journalists do that - most do not. In theory that is what separates journalists from writers - but in reality there is no distinction. It is increasingly difficult to argue otherwise.
Mainstream media has abandoned its role as protector and informer. Media members don't practice what we consider ideal journalism any more than anyone else. If we are going to call them journalists, we may as well call anyone a journalist.
Really, the Glenn Greenwalds of the world are the real journalists, and the mainstream media members pretenders.
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Thanks for the feministing link
[Read the article: Duke players cleared]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Please read the comments there as well. Amazingly the regular posters nearly all agree with the initial post, and bring out the same faulty reasoning:
1. If you supported the Duke lacrosse players at any point, even now after charges have been dropped, you are racist and sexist.
2. False rape allegations are no big deal.
3. This whole thing was never about rape at all.
4.These guys were awful guys so it doesn't matter if they were guilty or not.
How sad.
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Why broadsheet links to them is obvious
[Read the article: Duke players cleared]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Broadsheet agrees with them.
Not a single feminist blog has yet to have the courage to admit any error at all - and so far I've seen both Feministing and Amanda Marcotte claim to be right from the start.
I don't even see any regular posters at these blogs bringing it up. Most of the objectors appear to be outside the regular crowd. Yes, now they are wringing their hands over Imus and Kos. It's laughably dishonest.
As I said before, I do not like criticizing feminism, but this appears to be a pervasive problem, at least online. I am familiar with most of the major feminist blogs, both the posters and the regular commenters to some degree. This is not outlying behavior - it is the norm. Even the posters I respect have remained deathly silent.
At this point, some of them (like the one at Feministing) seem to believe that admitting any error is a sign of weakness, is giving in, and is giving satisfaction to their critics. They are concerned with ego-preservation. The post at Feministing makes that clear - to admit error is to be "shamed."
That is the sort of reasoning I expect out of the Bush administration, not progressive thinkers.
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Thank you King
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The reality here is that the market did not speak - rather a vocal minority pressured advertisers. We *hate* this behavior when it happens to us, when some conservative group tries to pressure advertisers to not support things *we* like. We call it bullying.
The market speaking would be listeners tuning out, and Imus being dropped because his ratings plummeted.
I don't like other people telling me what I can or can't listen to, what should or should not offend me. The tyranny of the majority is awful and this is in fact the tyranny of the minority.