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Kevin Cullen brings out his inner Howie Carr
By adamg on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 9:29am
South Shore Pragmatist read Kevin Cullen's column today, at first wondered when the Globe hired Howie Carr, then realized it was just Cullen doing a little play acting, right down to the made-up nicknames for sleazy solons, at least until Cullen realized he still works for the Globe and actually had to write something original, which he finally got to in the bottom third of the column.
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Comments
When did you turn into Yuppie Boston Magazine?
Urrrbody wants to throw Cullen under the bus these days...
Cullen is like a walking advertisement for the Masons
Because he has greatness within him.
Unfortunately, he keeps covering it up. Just when he gets on a roll with good, well written columns, he pulls something like this. He really should use his own strengths (great reporter, good writer) rather than copying some other columnist's (possibly past-its-expiration-date) shtik. The good news is the time between bad Cullen columns is increasing - it's not like last year when it seemed like all he ever wrote about was Ireland and the Delaware State Fair.
Speaking in General
(I don't follow columnists lately, so I'm not picking on Cullen; just a reaction to this one piece in isolation.)
Tempting as it is, I think we should shun the lowbrow populist rabble-rousing style.
When people who know better do it, I think they're effectively trying to manipulate those who they think can't or won't understand nuance. That seems arrogant or cynical, and dangerous.
When people who don't know better do it, I wonder how they could have understood nuance themselves. Dangerous.
At this point in the evolution of professional journalism, I favor the strategy of *raising* the standard, rather than lowering it. Win through conspicuous sheer *quality*, with which few non-professionals and no mass-production automation can compete.
Sure, the newspaper might crash and burn anyway, which would be tragic, but even in that case, wouldn't we rather say they died because they were *just too good*, rather than because they didn't compromise hard enough? :)
with all due respect,
that attitude is the reason we find ourselves in the current situation; newspapers (and government now that I think about it) adamantly refuses to recognize that the original goal was to sell papers (or meet perceived goals the public sets for themselves). More insular,elitist attitude by papers just means "the operation was a success but the patient died". Mark me down as a "lowbrow populist".
Elitists, Now With 15% More Insularity!
I meant to call for quality journalism. That doesn't have to be insular or elitist. A paper is not our strong-headed, regular-Joe best-buddy, love him though we do. Accuracy and balance is hard enough as it is, without intentionally imprecise language, innuendo, appeals to biases, etc. When demagoguery is embraced, we tend to do very bad things.
What I think is elitist -- or at least arrogant/cynical -- is when a paper knows better but shovels slop anyway, because that's how they think of their readers.
Here's one theory I have: "liberal elites" tend to be optimists, believing in grand potential for people and soceity. They're not all thinking that they're smarter than a lot of people; they're thinking that a lot of people are smarter than they're being treated.
And again, back to Cullen
He CAN write good, moving pieces without parroting Howie Carr. That he chooses not to suggests he's in need of some stern editorial guidance.
Spellcheck
Mackerel doesn't have two 'a's in it.