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March 12, 2005
More Orwellian nonsense
This may come as a shock to many who proclaim Jeff Gannon to be a "fraud," but after inquiring into the hiring practices of executive editors, Confederate Yankee examined the journalistic credentials of Jeff Gannon, and concluded that he's more qualified than many of his critics: ....would Jeff Gannon be hired as a “real” reporter by a real news organization on merit alone? Let's look at the facts.If you don't think writing for the high school paper plus four years of college are qualifications for journalism, ask Helen Thomas. But this is all beside the point to many of Gannon's critics -- who'd immediately claim that their quarrel wasn't with Gannon's credentials, or his allegedly too-colorful sex life, but the fact that he wasn't using under his real name. Try as I might, I am unable to find a rule requiring journalists to use their own true names. We might start with Helen Thomas' Hearst predecessor, Winifred Black, who wrote as "Annie Laurie." (She started out as an actress, then turned to sensationalized reporting.) I suppose we could turn on the Wayback Machine and go all the way back to the days of Benjamin Franklin writing as Silence Dogood. Or that "unscrupulous, diabolical journalist" whose real name was Daniel Defoe -- but who "used a number of pen names, including Eye Witness, T.Taylor, and Andrew Morton." Working our way forward, do The Federalist Papers count as journalism, or mere anonymous writing? And I'd hate to implicate Mark Twain in journalistic fraud, but his real name was Samuel Clemens. If all these false identities sound a tad Orwellian, ask Eric Blair. Do bloggers have to use their real names too? UPDATE: We all know about Geraldo..... But how many people know that Larry King and Wolf Blitzer are also practitioners of Orwellian fraudulence? posted by Eric on 03.12.05 at 11:22 PM
Comments
Do bloggers have to use their real names too? Gee, I hope not... triticale · March 13, 2005 12:53 AM |
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Were The Federalist Papers mere journalism? I would classify them as political philosophy on a level or close with Plato's Republic. The Ayn Rand Letter, though she commented on events and movements of that time, was also written so as to have lasting import beyond the happenstance of the moment. Blogs, too. I wouldn't be reading Classical Values or Dean's World if this all was mere journalism.