Goodbye Seattle

on the eve of my departure for israel, i have a few notes on the media in seattle.

in journalism, it doesn't seem like the truth is enough to carry any piece. it's got to have drama. it's got to be sarcastic. it's got to be incredibly cynical. if it's a music article, it's got to have a bajillion analogies and go on forever. if it's a news piece, it has to rebble rouse a blue state demographic.

.....we could and should ask more from our media. they're not as engaged as they should be. they're kind of freaked out by the power we've given them, so they crack jokes about how incompetent they are, but they're actually incredibly smart. they're just operating under insane and weird pressures from a seemingly infinite sea of angry internet people hungry for things to get even angrier about. its a weird set of pressures, and im not sure if the resulting writing is as good as it could be. im not sure a collection of blogs is what the future of the media should look like. i do find it fragmented and alienating, and im sure i'm not the only one. it's not like i long for the days when the nightly newscast was the only thing people saw...but this...this obsessive need to increase one's social capitol, to invent a taste, a brand, a point of view wholly unique from the teeming masses, to be funny and provocative on a daily basis.... it's a bit of an unreasonable expectation to have for a journalist.

traditionally, journalists go out and report the news. now we're being asked for our opinions in order to stay in the game of simply reporting the news. we have to carve out an online identity when we don't actually know anything about the world. we have to fake it. we have to pretend we're the expert, and get tomatoes thrown at us from anonymous internet folk the entire time.

in front of the computer, all you gain is intellectual knowledge. it feels like learning, but it's just getting fed spin and trying to figure out where the truth lies under all the spin. it's exhausting. and what makes a good blog story is rarely the truth. it's more a heightened emotional reaction to something. you know you're attracted to the rants on blogs for a reason- it's because you're consuming someone else's reaction to an event. it's infinitely more interesting because you're literally looking at a news story through the eyes of someone you know and (perhaps) trust to cut through the bullshit. any impartial news story pales in comparison because it's just a news story. a blog entry has layers and layers of intellectual fodder.

first there's the event, then there's the impartial story about the event, then there's the commentary on the impartial story about the event, then there's the commentary on the commentary on the impartial story about the event. then there are the commentors who argue with the writer. then there are the commentors who argue with the commentors. then there's the dude who twitters the commentor comments, and then there's the person who responds to the twitter. there's an enormous amount of information to consume, most of it asinine, occasionally fascinating or illuminating.

a bit of a bright point- there is a sort of candidness with the reader that gawker has, and when you strip away all of their creative resentment, all the bickering about who is more deserved of our attention and all the bitchy things they say about people who aspire to do anything with their lives, i think it's actually a really great candidness. i think there's something to be said for remaining a complete outsider. maybe the ideal media would sound like n+1, or the believer or BUTT. something fearlessly intellectual or completely raw and confessional. not necessarily angry or critical, just honest. better for something to express a relentless introspection than to hide behind a smart ass writing style or a voice that condescends. it seems riskier because it is riskier. and risk is good.

i know i'll be called out as a hypocrite. yes, i work for the stranger. no, my stories aren't perfect. im not even trying to defend myself. i just like tearing things apart and trying to expose their mechanics. it feels cliche, but i want to figure out how best to proceed, morally. shouldn't that always be the imperative?

and with that, i leave for israel... gorgeous, politically stable israel where everyone is moral and acts with compassion towards everyone around them.