The willing "mainstream" media promoters of NBC anchor Brian Williams have touted his credentials as a blogger. He’s so "with it." But NRO’s Greg Pollowitz points out that Brian talked to journalism students at New York University and exposed himself as yet another snob who wants people to know that bloggers are a nerdy stereotype named Vinny in a bathrobe "who hasn’t left the efficiency apartment in two years" and that people who depend on online media for news are "watching cats flushing toilets" – and missing the big stories from NBC’s "oasis" of reasoned, serious news people, no doubt.
So if we’re going to play stereotypes, let’s turn it around on Brian. "You’re going to get your news from people who get $400 haircuts and wear $3,000 suits and then cut their own wrists on the air lamenting poverty in New Orleans. They’re going to tell you that they’re the experts in international stories when they parachute into a war zone in designer khakis and spend more time with their hair dresser than with the generals."
Now would Brian Williams say that critique is fair? Or is it mean-spirited and highly made-up? And of all people, should news anchors striving for an objective, even-tempered image be going around making mockeries that sound mean-spirited and highly made-up? Take this opener:
"You’re going to be up against people who have an opinion, a modem, and a bathrobe," said Williams. "All of my life, developing credentials to cover my field of work, and now I’m up against a guy named Vinny in an efficiency apartment in the Bronx who hasn’t left the efficiency apartment in two years."
Pollowitz retorted: "A modem? Williams is worried about bloggers with dial up?" Williams prides himself on being wryly humorous – every intern who works for him is almost required to talk about how hilarious he is. I would add a pile of things. One, when Brian talks about developing his mad anchor skills "all his life," I remember the young Master Williams who wrote "young Democret" fan letters to Lyndon Johnson and interned in the Jimmy Carter White House. That would seem the "right" life experience for a network anchorman in today’s world. But it doesn’t impress me he’ll be worth anybody’s "fair and balanced" tag.
Two, Brian is claiming two very unfair and snobbish things about bloggers. That they are uneducated, and they are unsuccessful and impoverished. Neither charge makes Brian look very good. It’s the very definition of "looking down your nose" at people from your pricey Manhattan studios. If Brian knows more than diddly about blogging, he would know most bloggers have at least as much college education as he does, and many are lawyers and professors and wonks and highly credentialed.
And since when do liberal anchors show their compassion by mocking stereotypes of the poor and uneducated? This is what happens when MSM stars feel the heat of competition and criticism. You wouldn’t catch Brian Williams dead in New Orleans mocking a guy named Vinny who’s such an uncredentialed loser he hasn’t left his tiny FEMA trailer in two years.
Three, the final evaluation of the news ought to be its integrity. If Efficiency Vinny’s blog were the one to discover faked GM truck explosions at NBC today, which media outfit would be the journalistic voice of the people, and which would look like the deficient malcontent?
Four, doesn’t Brian know that this snobbery is precisely the way print people talk about television people? They can easily joke that when Brian goes "In Depth" on NBC, it can be finished in two minutes, or about one sheet of paper.
Finally, enough with the pajamas and bathrobe garbage! Brian, are you really claiming that your journalism is more authoritative because you’re wearing Hugo Boss? Or are you more credible because you're wearing sincere open-collared shirts in the Lower Ninth Ward? It’s probably not a good idea to mock other people’s wardrobe, as if it powdered poses really matter in evaluating the quality of the news product. Next:
He added that it’s often difficult to judge the credibility of a blogger. "On the Internet, no one knows if you’ve been to Ramadi or you’ve just been to Brooklyn and have an opinion about Ramadi," said Williams.
Pollowitz cracked: "Yes, almost as difficult as a major network figuring out that an anti-George Bush memo was written using Microsoft Word." This is why I made the parachuting-into-a-combat-zone joke. Going to foreign hot spots does give you first-hand visuals and bring you to on-site expertise, but it doesn’t make your stories accurate. Usually, the anchors seem fairest when they’re on the scene, and then go back to snide when they return to Manhattan – but they’ll tout the combat-zone visit to defend their Manhattan sneering at the commanders.
Williams is again mocking people without his resources: "I can hop a plane to Ramadi, Vinny, unlike you, you loser! I've jetted to 23 countries. What can you do, take the Greyhound bus to Mobile?" Brian shouldn’t dare to ask the soldier in Ramadi who he trusts to tell his story, Brian Williams or the blogger in a "bathrobe." Next:
Williams is certainly not anti-blog — in fact, he has his own blog, The Daily Nightly, which he updates every day. But he does worry that the explosion of opinion-driven amateur media might distract the public from big stories or important writers’ work.
"If we’re all watching cats flushing toilets, what aren’t we reading? What great writer are we missing? What great story are we ignoring? This is societal, it’s cultural, I can’t change it. … Like everybody else, I can burn an hour on YouTube or Perez Hilton without breaking a sweat. And what have I just not paid attention to that 10 years ago I would’ve just consumed?"
Pollowitz has the perfect retort to this bilge: "Big stories, like this NBC News video of Posh Spice coming to America." It's a pretty low blow to compare InstaPundit or Michelle Malkin to Perez Hilton, not to mention cats flushing toilets -- which is probably more likely to wrap up NBC Nightly News on a cuddly note than show up on a political or media blog. Oh, but he's "not anti-blog." I just love the "opinion-driven amateur media" line. As if Brian's "opinion-driven professional media" has an opinion that's much more worth absorbing, endorsing, repeating line by line.
Once again, Brian lamenting the "great writer" we're missing can easily be used against him. "I could be reading something substantive, but I'm watching Brian Williams reporting on Posh Spice. What a waste of my brain's time!" When Brian goes looking for the "great writer" we're missing, he goes and finds a thug-rap-endorsing, Bill Cosby-bashing, hard-left hack professor like Michael Eric Dyson to ridicule President Bush for being clueless about black people. So he can put that lecture away.
Is Brian really looking to underline the impression that he's this generation's Peter Jennings, the snobbish, pompous jerk who thinks he's bringing the gift of his enlightenment to all the rubes in their efficiency apartments? If so, it's working.
