Don’t Cry For Me, Art Cooper (Truth in Media)

The new GQ is hardly recognizable, according to Chicago Sun-Times’ Lewis Lazare. Too bad. Had to give way to market forces.

GQ for grownups getting punk'd, however, is beside the point. It did good journalism, but is only a tangential symptom of the decay into chaos that traditional media is now sliding heels-in-the-air into.

As I told “Lewie” just today via email in response to his missing the point and praising the newly redone teen-guy slick (into a category he dubbed “irreverent”): “That's ‘irrelevant, testosterone-charged laddie mags such as Stuff and Maxim,’ actually.

“As for these women’s-mags-for-guys masquerading as real magazines rather than cheesy shopper’s guides. No one gets news, or even gets informed about life, from Stuff or Maxim. Not their mission. Their mission is to come up with clever fart jokes to separate the ads.

“And I would suggest that your point about GQ being ‘livelier’ or deader for that matter, is also besides the point. There’s a new journalism goal in town: Let's not make advertisers...or readers...nervous. Let's give them what they want: Distraction from reality. A guide to striving. Manufactured desire.

“In fact, this distraction is the point and direction of all media these days, including your paper. Holdouts exist, but the news hole shrinks and objectivity...or just basic reporting...gives way to manufactured photo-ops, well-spun (from all directions) stories and the practical inability for a straight journalist to get a real story without getting fired, or severely punished, for the effort. You're there. Unless you're suffering from the Stockholm syndrome, you surely can come up with examples of the truth of what I say.

“This harmless lifestyle coverage encroaches and the business of journalism becomes business. Corporate monopolies own your place of business and instead of discussing that you discuss GQ and they tell you what a sharp column you wrote today. It's not your fault; everyone needs to make a living.”

Regarding whether new GQ child-editor Jimmy Nelson actually succeeds in being hip, consider his cover story: Johnny Knoxville of "Jackass" Fame. This show, which launched in 2000 already, has been a cult fave for some, a moronic must-skip for others. (It’s kinda one-note for my taste). And to cinch the ASME 2003 Cliché Award Nelson sent the writer and star by bus to Atlantic City. Lewie thinks that’s an original idea. I can only wonder what background, besides knowing nothing about magazine tropes, earned him the media beat.

I eagerly await Lewie’s reply. Should it ever come, I’ll append it here.

On a related media note, is the self-serving, ignorantly unreported Los Angeles Times piece by David Shaw. His lede? “Kevin Roderick is not your typical blogger. He is neither an ideologue nor an egomaniac. He's not noticeably partisan or terribly passionate. He doesn't have an agenda on his mind or a chip on his shoulder.”

This is particularly funny because, of course, Shaw is all of those things…except the passionate part. At least his writing lacks all life and passion.

Turns out this is a puff piece for a friend. It thus upholds the finest journalistic traditions of the L.A. Times, which has a long tradition of flaking for industry, oil, movie companies and the like.

Roderick has created a blog, L.A. Observed, to which Shaw decided to give lengthy props. What a shock! Roderick is an ex-LATimer who slaved at the Los Angeles paper of retail for 25 years. So payback is due.

The research done to back up the assertion that all bloggers are as described above appears to not include actually visiting anything resembling a range of these web sites. In fact, there appear to have been no visits, no statistics, and no research of any kind. Shaw doesn’t even mention someone in his own beat, whom Shaw doubtless relies on to crib from, Jim Romenesko. Romenesko, as we all know, is the media’s premier media commentator (and on whose blog Shaw’s story was duly noted). He was also one of the earliest adopters of the Web Log (blog) format.

In fact, Shaw’s attitude reveals the underlying, false assumption of the dead-tree press. Namely, that you have to have ads from grocery stores and get paid slave wages by giant corporate overlords to be a fair and objective journalist. To be paid to write, to have ads, to be dependent on some big company, in other words, is what makes you a real journalist. Guess Shaw would have thought of I.F. Stone as a newsletter amateur. And Tom Paine? A mere pamphleteer.

Shaw’s well known for taking too many words to say nothing at all. He wrote shorter this time…and said far less. ¶ 10:28 AM