(Click on the logo to return to the main blog.)

A Budding Career for a Dangerous Writer
01/05/2004

Lane Core has made the acquaintance of one Matt Taibbi, who gave me the occassion to write, last February:

Perhaps in the alternate reality in which one can cast the right wing, pro-government, pro-war bias of Reuters and the New York Times as self evident, it is perfectly fine to let slip the term "Oreo" in a non-cookie sense to describe a "traitorous black person representing the [pro-war] 'cause' (Kevin Martin, head of the 'African-American Republican Leadership Council')."

The piece of Taibbi's to which I was responding was sloppy, offensive, arrogant, and (particularly horrid for a guy with apparent pretentions to journalism) ignorant. It is dispiriting that his work is finding its way into other periodicals than the rag that he helped to begin (I believe) in Buffalo. Then again, back when I discovered his work, Providence Journal writer Sheila Lennon acclaimed, "The writing swoops from his brain to my screen without processing, no distance. Taibbi's experience is raw, fresh, and eye-opening."

Eye-opening to those in the media who feel constrained. More appropriately eye-popping to the rest of us.

Posted by Justin Katz @ 01:42 PM EST

1 Comment

Well. At least he is... consistent.

ELC @ 01/05/2004 04:14 PM EST