Has there ever been an ombud so whiny, so defensive, so overwhelmed by the job of reading e-mails from the public, as Jeffrey Dvorkin? Witness his characterization of people who dare to read a blog post (the nerve!) and then send him an e-mail (damn plebes don’t know their place anymore!):
I sensed a spewing of cornflakes across the breakfast tables of America shortly after NPR’s Scott Simon began asking Mr. Goldberg about the week in politics.
But no, it was not a grassroots eruption but, largely, a blog-induced emetic that caused listeners such as Reed Tibbetts to protest:
Heard Goldberg on this morning and it confirmed my worst fears. I complained to my affiliate (and) stopped donating to my NPR stations in protest… today’s appearance of Goldberg just confirmed my suspicions about NPR wimping out to the right wing…
It really is sad.
Well. Sadder still are the e-mails that arrive still with a link to the blog where this “outrage” was first reported. In this case, Mr. Tibbets was inspired by a blog called dailykos.com.
There you have it. If you read a blog, and choose to take action by e-mailing someone and confessing said blog readership (so sinful, these days, reading blogs, completely destroys your ability to think), your criticism doesn’t mean shit to Jeff Dvorkin. He only listens to people who get their outrage the old-fashioned way, like from the toaster oven or, say, space aliens.
Jeffy, pet, I know you work on the Wireless, but do you think you could maybe allow that your attitude that there’s nothing of value on any of these opinionated Internets is just a tad, just a tad mind you, reactionary? As reactionary as, say, a bunch of bloggers directionlessly bashing your station instead of stating specifically what they find valuable and invaluable about it? Because honestly, you’re reminding me of my dad a little bit here, when he starts going on about those kids today with the clothes and the hair and the drug problems.
Oh, and how does he feel about Jonah? He wants his body. Thinks he’s sexy. Wants to love him all night long:
Jonah Goldberg has a track record as a smart, and highly opinionated journalist and his ideas may be worth hearing on NPR. Indeed, Goldberg sounded remarkably restrained on NPR unlike his usual “take-no-prisoners” style on his Web site.
Yeah, Jonah. Take no prisoners. Leave no hurricane victim unmocked. That Jonah.
Still, Dvorkin goes on to say, maybe it would have been better to have replaced Schorr with somebody who wouldn’t have made him work quite so hard:
Schorr’s perspectives are, in my opinion, not particularly ideological because his journalist’s musings have more perspectives from history than from party politics. A more appropriate replacement might have been someone closer to his stature. PBS’ Gwen Ifill or Doyle McManus from the Los Angeles Times come to mind.
They, like Schorr, have no explicit partisan axes to grind, unlike that stalwart conservative woodsman, Jonah Goldberg.
The STUPID. It BURNS US.
Sometimes after reading Dvorkin, I want to sit down and make a list of all the jobs in the world that suck more than his, and send it to him. Just to give him a little perspective, because honestly, he seems to find communciating with the public so damned depressing, and I hate it when he’s sad.
A.