I’ll know about the Arizona trip tomorrow
July 11, 2011
Perhaps the least-mentioned aspect of the nonfiction book author’s life is the amount of time spent sitting around waiting for other people to make decisions. Primarily, this is a function of the costs involved in journalism (the same reason why you see less and less of it these days.) Opinions are cheap and plentiful. Journalism, which involves at the least travel & lodging, can be expensive.
Tomorrow, the powers that be–of whom I’m not one–will either make it possible for me to write “Sarah Palin’s Arizona” as a Kindle Single, or not.
I’ll let you know asap and I apologize to those whose plans are dependent on waiting for me to say it’s definite.
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Fabulous. Whether or not one hates Sarah Palin, she is still a fascinating phenomenon, perhaps, until she is unraveled by your pen. Already pre-ordered your book on her, coming out in September. Sarah Palin’s Arizona is a guaranteed winning follow-up. Oh hey, remember that press conference with Nixon, and the New Yorker kept saying “Follow-up, follow-up…” So grateful to you that are a living reminder of the way journalism is supposed to be — the old fashioned beat reporter, following — it’s so normal, so crucial to our free society. What’s not normal is all the stories that are being dropped these days, because in this JOURNALISM WILDERNESS, some people, some publishers lost sight of what it means. Thanks for doing this, Joe.
I have to say I don’t hate Sarah. When I think of her, however, and what she represents as well as the things she stirs up, she give me the creeps. She brings out the worst of human traits in ignorant, easily led people, and she is a mentally disturbed, continually manipulated tool for her puppet masters. Yes, she is fascinating, or we wouldn’t be here writing comments on blogs about her. I’ll be glad when she is nothing more than a footnote on history. It can’t come soon enough!
Are you planning on writing a post about the Murdoch empire’s phone hacking scandal? Maybe from the angle of the kinds of pressures a reporter is under at each stage of his career. I think it would be interesting to hear examples of how journalism has changed. Did Murdoch’s empire coming to the States have an immediate effect among your colleagues? I remember in the mid-80s when Walter Cronkite retired; news rooms were told they were now profit centers and ratings mattered more than content.
Here’s sketch from “A Bit of Fry and Laurie” that is a remake of “It’s a Wonderful Life” with Hugh Laurie as Murdoch in the role as George Bailey. I think they did a marvelous job of showing how his media influence affected everyday life there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhGF8a1HwP8
Thanks for everything you’ve written so far. It’s always illuminating.
I hope all of you still meet in Phoenix, It would be really great if all the tickets were purchased by friends of Joe, even if Joe is unable to attend.
The Queen is far from done, having arranged for a puff piece all about her on the cover of Newsweek. I think the time has come for Sarah Palin to put up or shut up. She thinks she can win; I think she is in for a rude awakening.
joe, i hope you get what you wish…..whether it’s to go to Arizona or not…
personally, after i (admittedly) clicked on the trailer to SPAZ’s film, i immediately began to feel carsick and woozy, so i only made it through about 15 seconds. Do you really want to fly so far for such a result? Can you make it through the whole derned thing? i’m a bit concerned for you.
please get there and back safely, if you do have to go.
All I saw in the Newsweek photographs was a crack whore trying to be sexy, trying to be a magazine model. IMO those were the most amateur pictures that magazine ever printed. No wonder she keeps calling the MSM “lamestream,” they can’t see through her, they don’t want to, and she knows it.
I wondered what “lamestream” really meant. I thought maybe it was fishing term (cause we all know what a super fisherman Sarah is) or something. It just didn’t make sense to me that she uses that term constantly to describe the press when they don’t write what she wants them to write. I just went and looked it up on an online dictionary. It says “Something that is so mainstream that pretty much everyone likes it and it becomes lame for that reason”. Still makes absolutely NO sense that she uses it the way she does.
Imagine that, Sarah using a word incorrectly.