Ombudding the ombudsman
If the Web guys at The New York Times knew how to code a proper link, I would have been aware sooner that Dan Okrent and Jonathan Landman had enlisted this site in its defense of Sarah Boxer.
Not so fast, gentleman.
First of all, a couple of factual corrections. As I stated in my original post on this matter (the one Okrent quotes but doesn't quite link), Michael Zimmer's argument originally appeared in the comments section at BuzzMachine. Also, the part about sexing up the story is my own addition, not Zimmer's.
What's more strange (and which may explain why Okrent didn't actually link to my post?) is that I then go on to say that "I found Sarah Boxer's article completely appalling. I just disagree with most folks about why." And now, in fact, Jarvis and Rosen are saying stuff that I mostly do agree with, and that is more in line with what I said before, which I'll now spell out even more clearly, just in case anyone from the Times is reading this.
The problem can be summed up entirely by Boxer's sentence, "Until he picked up the phone, he was just a ghost on the Internet."
Waaaay back in the early days of the Web I wrote ocassional articles (e.g., this and this) mocking what we then called Old Media's cluelessness about New Media. What Boxer's choice sentence reveals is that in eight years, nothing has changed. Think about it: Ali is a "ghost on the Internet" because the Internet is mysterious (and spooky!). When you read what someone writes on the Web, you don't know anything about them. But in what possible sense does talking to him on the phone really change anything? The only information it adds is that Ali not only knows how to type, he has a voice. Can CIA agents (or ghosts?) not use the telephone, and lie over it?
The only difference is that the phone is an older technology. Boxer and Times readers are comfortable with it. It's not scary, so a reasonable person is able to have a conversation on one and reach informed conclusions about the person on the other end of the line. Well sorry, but if your beat is going to be the Internet, you ought to be able to do the same when you read someone's blog. I'd say that you know a lot MORE about a person by reading their blog carefully for an extended period of time than you do by having one 45 minute phone conversation.
The problem with Boxer's piece is not that she tried to capture the feel of an online debate, and chose to sex it up with some faux-lively language. It's that it reveals a fundamentally condescending attitude toward the medium itself. I disagree with Jarvis and Rosen that a "critic's notebook" must always illuminate and untangle murky debates -- there is a place for simply informing people that a murky debate is taking place, and wallowing in the murk -- but unless the writer really understands and respects the milieu in which these debates take place, the result is always going to obscure more than it informs.
I also pointed out earlier something that Landman can't bring himself to admit. Boxer was going for a laugh: Check out those wacky bloggers. Fair enough, I said. Bloggers can be wacky. But the joke would have been much funnier if it made more sense. As it is, the article was the equivalent of saying that Michael Eisner and Mike Ovitz are wacky not because of their twisted backstabby business relationship, but because they ran a studio that made movies about talking animals. All it did was reveal its own cluelessness.
Comments
"Think about it: Ali is a "ghost on the Internet" because the Internet is mysterious (and spooky!). When you read what someone writes on the Web, you don't know anything about them. But in what possible sense does talking to him on the phone really change anything? The only information it adds is that Ali not only knows how to type, he has a voice."
Come now, Dan, let's not be disingenuous. Even Temple Grandin picks up on vocal inflections.
Posted by: jesse Fuchs | February 6, 2005 10:07 PM
Trained CIA agents can suppress, or even fake, vocal inflections in order to deceive someone on the other end of the line, Jesse. They're just that devious.
Posted by: radosh | February 7, 2005 3:50 PM
Fair enough; I took your point as being a more general one, mostly from the paragraph following the one I quoted. I'm not sure that you really know more about a person from reading them for an extended period of time than from a 45 minute phone conversation...I'd say you're half-right, and half-not-exactly-wrong-but-in-the-realm-of-apples-and-oranges. But in the specific realm of CIA spooks 'n' such, sure, I'll buy that attempting to read their tone is essentially worthless, if they're any good at their job.
Posted by: Jesse Fuchs | February 7, 2005 4:44 PM