Richard Bennett

— David Brock claims that he went to UC Berkeley as a liberal, and had a conversion experience while writing a story on Jean Kirkpatrick’s 1983 speech there. The way Brock tells the tale, he was so appalled by the way Kirkpatrick was treated that he rejected his liberal values and went over to the Right. Like so much of what Brock has written, this story is completely false, as Will Harper discovered in the course of researching Brock’s college days for the East Bay Express:

When Kirkpatrick came to Berkeley, the byline atop the Daily Cal’s coverage was not Brock’s. It belonged to Chris Norton, a freelance writer who contributed news stories and editorials about US foreign policy. Back issues of the February 16, 1983 paper show Norton’s name beneath the lead headline “Kirkpatrick clashes with hecklers over US policy.” “Someone told me to go cover this and I said okay,” says Norton, who later became a Central American correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor and Newsday. “He didn’t write the story; I wrote the story,” adds Norton, who expressed disbelief when told that Brock claims to have written that day’s main story. Indeed, Brock did not have any story in the paper that day.

Harper interviewed 19 people who worked at the Daily Cal during Brock’s tenure, and unearthed nothing but contradictions of Brock’s accounts of the Kirkpatrick visit and his alleged conversion. The only consistency to David Brock is life-long practice of dissembling, exaggerating, and self-glorification.

— This post from web elf Matt Haughey on Jarvis’ Big Idea is interesting, in a way:

I’m skeptical of paid journalists in general, and the media outlets that employ them. I’ve always tried to maintain a healthy skepticism of weblogs (especially post-Kaycee), but it’s usually easy to spot a writer’s bias, opinions, and general viewpoint on subjects that cross their site. Thowing [sic] money into the mix would no doubt spike my bullshit detectors, as the motivation to post changes from personal satisfaction to personal checking accounts.

It never ceases to amaze me that some technicians, generally of the Chomskyite school, feel that other professionals have an obligation to give their services away for free. Would this post sound at all rational if we substituted the word “programmers” for “journalists?”

But there is a segment of the blogging public that undoubtedly believes that blogging is Free Journalism, just as they believe Open Source is Free Software (incidentally, Open Source dude Eric Raymond is blogging now, as a 2A libber) But the reality of Free Software is that much of it’s written by consultants as a resume-builder, for which they’re compensated in contracts, and the rest is written by employees of service companies like Red Hat as part of an overall business plan. There’s no real difference between a programmer at VA Linux or one at Microsoft, except the Microsoft guy is better-paid. Similarly, many journalists publish blogs for the interaction with their readers, and they’re compensated by the tips they’re sent which they can turn into articles for sale.

The aversion to Filthy Lucre is characteristic of a certain privilege and a certain age; it’s quaint, but shallow and counter-productive.

Most of the commentors on this subject listed on Daypop are pretty threatened by it, objecting to money for blogging much more strongly than young Matt. Would-be blogger dominatrix Rebecca Blood sneers at paid blogging even as she flogs her “How to Blog” book, filled, no doubt, with information given to her for free by generous people.

BTW, did you need a “How to” book to get started? Did anyone you know need one? Is there anything that could be crammed into a book that you couldn’t learn better from seeing 20 or 30 good examples? I didn’t think so.

UPDATE: Matt’s post, as a whole, isn’t as bad as the bit I posted; he makes many criticisms of journos working for Old and Big Media which are correct. He errs, I believe, in placing the blame for sloppy and biased journalism on money, and not on the nature of journos and their bosses themselves. When gifted writers can make a living exploring their own interests on the web, without editorial boards and metro editors telling them what to do and when to do it, the world will be a better place.

— This Jerry Springer Show on Philosophy hasn’t made it to the tapes yet:

Tina: Louis … I’ve loved you for a long time …

Louis: I love you, too, Tina.

Tina: Louis, you know I agree with you that existence precedes essence, but … well, I just want to tell you I’ve been reading Nietzsche lately, and I don’t think I can agree with your egalitarian politics any more.

Crowd: Wooooo! Woooooo!

Louis: [shocked and disbelieving] Tina, this is crazy. You know that Sartre clarified all this way back in the 40s.

Tina: But he didn’t take into account Nietzsche’s radical critique of democratic morality, Louis. I’m sorry. I can’t ignore the contradiction any longer!

Louis: You got these ideas from Victor, didn’t you? Didn’t you?

Link courtesy of the essential Ms. Harris, for the enjoyment of Peter (Ubermensch) Pribik.

— Go on over to The Blogs of War and give Dr. Frank some cash.