Hard on the heels of the story about New York Times reporter-trickster Jayson Blair comes this Guardian examination of the Jessica Lynch ‘story’ and the various forces that played into that exercise in media manipulation. Saving Private Lynch is one of the stories Jayson Blair was reporting on when he concocted the porch overlooking the tobacco fields and the herds of cattle, the porch that ‘overlooks no such thing,’ as the Times account says so acidly that I found myself wondering what the porch does overlook. A pile of rusting cars? A still? A tennis court? A swimming pool?

I thought when I first read the long Times story – so, they had him covering the Washington sniper, and then … Read the rest

But it’s not very surprising if we don’t value learning, effort, apprenticeship, craft, if we’re not eager to spend years learning to play the cello or write real poetry that rhymes and scans, or to read Gibbon or Montaigne or The Tale of Genji or any of those long-winded books people used to write because they had nothing better to do – it’s not all that amazing if we don’t want to do that, when our leaders have such a squalidly practical, utilitarian, narrow, worm’s-eye view of the value of education. School is for job training, and that’s that. At least, that’s that when it comes to publicly funded education: they don’t mind our getting purely curiosity-driven education if we … Read the rest

Well, life is short, time is short, we’re busy, we can’t do everything – I mean, come on! There’s the job, the commute, the gym, the spirituality seminar, the assertiveness refresher course, the holistic meditation group, the energy healing hour, there’s therapy, and shopping, and catching up on tv – does that leave a lot of time for reading? Get real! So shortcuts are always welcome. Shortcuts like reading fewer books by particular great writers – or like reading only selections from fewer books by particular great writers – or – oh the hell with it: to be perfectly frank, like not reading anything at all by any great writers whatsoever. Like reading two pages of one novel by one … Read the rest

Another thought or two on the fabulating reporter. The whole story, at least as presented by the reporter’s colleagues (and there are no doubt further stories behind that, or further truths), is a case study in how difficult it can be to get at the truth. Difficult in a variety of senses – difficult just in the sense of grind, slog, graft; difficult in the sense of having to overcome obstacles; difficult in the sense of beset with uncertainites, doubts, confusing evidence; difficult in the sense of painful, ethically and emotionally; difficult in the sense of stumbling in the dark, of not even knowing there is a truth to be found.

The investigation suggests several reasons Mr. Blair’s deceits went

The New York Times has a compellingly if morbidly fascinating story today. I feel a little ashamed at being so fascinated: it seems like Schadenfreude, the matter being obviously such a nightmare for the paper and for so many editors who supervised the perpetrator. It’s such a basic malfunction, like those mortifying occasions when fast food restaurants serve up E-coli-laced hamburgers or salmonella in the salad. But I can’t help it, La Rochefoucauld and Burke (‘I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others’) notwithstanding, or do I mean confirmed, fascinated I am.

And it’s fair enough. There is plenty of human interest or gossip appeal … Read the rest

The Condition of Poetry is a perennial subject, and for good reason: there’s a lot to say. So, prompted by Barney McClelland’s trenchant essay on the woolly confusion of poetry with self-expression, I thought I would mention, and where possible link to, a few more jeremiads on the topic.

We could begin with Plato’s notorious dissing of poets in The Republic, or we could leap forward to the 16th century and compare Philip Stubbes’ Anatomy of Abuses with Philip Sidney’s derivative but eloquent Apology for Poetry. Or we could start with Peacock’s mocking Four Ages of Poetry and Shelley’s reply in the brilliant though far less amusing Defense of Poesy. Or we could start with Edmund Wilson’s … Read the rest