So Called Liberal Media

Every Day

I love Steve Rhodes more:

I read Lewis Lazare’s column today on a book called The Dumbest Generation with interest because for the last couple of years Lazare has called me up periodically to complain about how dumb young people are these days, and he usually blames the Internet.

Why he calls me, I don’t know. I’ve never met the man.

I also don’t believe today’s generation is dumber than those who came before because they don’t read newspapers. I think newspapers are dumber.

And I’m not sure where a Sun-Times columnist gets off complaining that the Internet is dumbing down America while the paper is running a “Which Team’s Fans Are Hotter?” contest.

If I ran a major school of journalism (oh, the hilarity of imagining the curriculum) this man would be in charge of all of everything while I took trips, enjoyed faculty parties, and hung out with the kids in the student newspaper office.

A.

5 thoughts on “Every Day”

  1. We’re getting into the realm of meta-cliche here. It’s become a cliche to point out what a cliche it is to moan about how dumb kids today are.

  2. the stupids just get more teevee time. in the ‘good’ old days, they would just be serfs or something. now they are on teevee.
    i found an old roman i think quote on how older generations alway think it was better in the good old day. THINGS NEVER CHANGE. cept that, the culture now looks down on ELITES.
    I DON’T WANT TO HAVE A BEER WITH MY PRESIDENT, HE HAS A FUCKING JOB TO DO.

  3. Actually, as dissimilar as websites/blogs and newspapers are, they have one important thing in common: They allow you to choose what you want to read, when you want to read it. Radio and TV can’t do that, which is why I don’t, for instance, watch CNN anymore: I don’t feel like sitting through 20 minutes of Lou Dobbs ranting about how Mexicans are responsible for all of America’s problems.

  4. Newspapers and blogs haveanother important thing in common — they’re textual media. For those of you who think, as I do, that too much time suckling on the glass tit makes your brain atrophy in some very unsettling ways, that makes a big difference. There’s nothing inherently wrong with visual media, but not all your media consumption in a day should be basically passive.
    A friend of mine did a classics degree, and she laughed for days on finding some writings by an ancient Greek philosopher who complained that the Greek youth of the day were a lost cause because they were insolent to their elders, couldn’t memorise as well as the previous generations, grew their hair too long, and wore tunics embroidered with “vulgar images of Titans.” (Yes, folks, in years we’d number with “BCE” there were, in fact, rock group t-shirts.Plus ca change, plus ca c’est la meme chose.)

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