In Defense of the New Guy

I'd like to take an opportunity to respond to a letter posted at Romenesko that was written by Amy Alexander, who, after reading my recent piece in the Huffington Post, took issue with my credentials and my proposal to send media critics to Iraq to shore up public confidence in the war reporting. To be perfectly honest, I expected something exactly like what Alexander wrote to be said to me at some point, so I'd like to take this opportunity to address her specific complaints and the broader issues they raise.

First, her take on my credentials. She begins by noting that my item allowed her to address an issue that's been bothering her -- "the proliferation of amateur 'media critics' who gain unwarranted access":

[W]ith respect to Ankush Khadori [sic], who at least from his pic and bio on Huffingtonpost, appears to be a perfectly sane individual, the mere consumption of media does not a media critic make. I'm glad for sure to read that you take in regularly such gold-standard, MSM pubs as The NYTimes, the WashPost, The New Yorker, and other Elite, East Coast Intellectual News Orgs-Ad nausem-Infinitum, but please calm down.
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If you are truly seeking to become a media critic, it is vital that you first become a reporter, meaning someone who knows how to cover a city council meeting, a street festival, a school district. Why? Because then you will REALLY know how and why reporters do what they do, and when they are doing it well, or phoning it in, so to speak.

With respect, I find it a bit odd for Ms. Alexander to take a swipe at someone for reading "gold-standard MSM pubs" or "Elite, East Coast Intellectual News" when she wrote in the Washington Post that Harper's and The New Yorker are on her coffee table, and when she’s also written in The Nation and been a commentator on NPR.

In any event, I like to believe that other ways to describe "amateur media critics" are as "the public" or "consumers." I am very up front about my lack of journalism experience because I view this as critical to readers understanding my perspective, its limitations, and -- this is important -- its advantages. Journalism is not simply produced for other journalists, and the criticisms by lay readers are not trivial because they haven’t produced it. Non-experts can provide a window into the minds of a media organization's readership, give voice to their complaints, and, perhaps most importantly, question deeply embedded journalistic norms and practices that could benefit from revision. When people like Alexander dismiss them out of hand, the opponents of lay media writers inadvertently provide support for the view that the media is full of elitists who believe they're beyond reproach. This, I believe, is very different from the reality of hard-working journalists.

Perhaps Alexander was lumping me in with the people she has referred to as "the hordes of pesky bloggers." It’s true, many bloggers writing about the media are often hasty with their critiques, hard on journalists, or otherwise just too strident. It was my hope when I started writing that I would not fall into those traps: I have worked hard to be well-informed, thoughtful, intellectually rigorous, and conscious of the limits of my knowledge, and all I can do is try to ensure that this method (if that's what one can call it) comes through in my writing. I would humbly suggest that I do not fall into the same category as the inept and unqualified bloggers she described in her commentary last fall on NPR.

Media criticism appears to me to be, ultimately, about putting together tight and logical arguments with evidence to back up one's claims. In fact, I wonder whether Alexander would have written off my post quite so quickly if she had been unaware of my lack of experience in journalism per se. So without further ado, let's move into Alexander's critique of the substance of my post:

Sending Jack Shafer, David Carr, and the other landed gentry White Guy that you named to cover reporters who are covering Iraq is just screwy. The true story of whether or not MSM reporters based in Iraq are doing a good job will not be told or gauged for many years yet -- this is what's known as the long lens of history.... [N]o offense to Carr, Shafer, et al, but I'm not interested in what THEY think of what reporters in Iraq are up to, since that extremely specialized form of reporting (war reporting) is not, to my knowledge, part of their portofilos [sic]. (See the Jackie Spinner interview from the SJ Merc the other week: I'm still waiting for one of these Big Time Media Critics to brace Spinner and ask her, Why don't you take some time off??)

I'm tempted to set aside her point about "the landed gentry White Guy[s]," since, as Rachel Sklar noted, it appears to be somewhat beside the point, but I can't fail to notice something odd about her making this charge while simultaneously policing the entrance of someone like myself -- an Indian-American -- into some community of non-diverse media critics.

With respect to the point about history, let’s assume that time will provide the best perspective on the war reporting -- why should this prevent us, in the present, from trying to acquire as clear an understanding of what's transpiring in Iraq as we can? As a friend of mine wrote, "writers like Mark Danner (on the war) and Michael Massing (on its coverage) show that first drafts of history can be pretty darn good." And while war reporting is not within the standard portfolios of media critics, why stop a willing writer from fixing that? (By the way, Ms. Alexander, it's insulting and unnecessary to use Ms. Spinner's intimate disclosure to score cheap points.)

More substantively, I would like to stress my belief that the present lack of confidence in the media is not inconsequential. The 40 percent of people who think that war coverage skews negative is significant, in part, because it provides just enough cover for the Bush administration to perpetuate a policy that I believe is failing. More widespread confidence in the media -- difficult as it may be to obtain -- could conceivably lead to enough pressure on policymakers to face up to the realities of a strategy that isn't working. I realize that the people who constitute the 40 percent are likely the most ardent supporters of this administration, but that alone should not justify reflexive defeatism. There may be quite a few years ahead in Iraq (unfortunately) during which these people's opinions can be changed.

To close, I’d just like to say that I respect Ms. Alexander’s right to lodge her opinion in the blogosphere and am grateful for the opportunity to address concerns that other readers of my Huffington Post item may have shared. As always, I appreciate the opportunity to offer up my views in response.