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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (3377)	7/14/2003 2:41:42 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793755

Here is Andrew Sullivan's review of the Charlie & Howell show: RAINES-A-GO-GO: The one amazing thing about Charlie Rose's interview with "my friend," Howell Raines, is that Raines spoke more than Rose did. Much more. Has that ever happened before? (Full disclosure: I couldn't bring myself to watch it, so I'm going by a reading of the transcript.) Anyway, it's quite clear that Raines hasn't the slightest clue what happened to him and not the faintest notion of where he went wrong. He thinks his main mistake was trying to push the Times too fast to new heights of excellence. Ooooo-kaaaay. Charlie naturally didn't ask Raines a thing about how he skewed coverage to the left. But he wasn't a total push-over (although how he suppressed a giggle when Raines cited Picasso as a retirement model I don't know). My favorite little interaction: CHARLIE ROSE: Why were the troops in revolt against Howell Raines, or do you believe that is not true? HOWELL RAINES: I believe that is not true in the stark formation that you give it. Clearly we were on a march that we had planned very carefully to have a paper that was as good at everything as the Times is at the things that traditionally does well, foreign affairs for example. In the course of that march we stepped on a land mine. I stepped on a land mine named Jayson Blair. Now I've spoken to many NYT reporters since the liberation and read the comments of many, many more. The march metaphor is true only if you view it as a kind of death march run by a crazed, power-mad dictator. When the land-mine went off, the troops mutinied like punch-drunk deserters. Then there's this: HOWELL RAINES: And that coalesced and brought to the surface a number of complaints which are real but which are not universal. I could show you a stack of hundreds of communications from people on the staff editors and writers saying this is a terrible mistake; we know where you were going; it was the right place; we were with you. CHARLIE ROSE: What was a terrible mistake - sorry - the fact you left the paper was a terrible mistake? HOWELL RAINES: Yes. That's a body of opinion. I think we know one thing from this interview. There was no way that the nature of the Raines' regime would have reformed itself. He still doesn't realize why he created such a mess. Perhaps he never will. Then there's this piece of surrealism: The other problem from my point of view is there, according to the Times statistics there are 80 million people in the country who have the intellectual appetite for a paper like the New York Times. CHARLIE ROSE: How many? HOWELL RAINES: Eighty million. CHARLIE ROSE: Great. HOWELL RAINES: The New York Times sells 1.2 million papers a day. That tells me something. That tells me that you have got to change the paper, not in its standards, not in its principles, but in the breadth of its intellectual interests, and in its vitality, in its graphics, in the way it's written, and the way stories are selected so that you get the other 78 million. What to say? First off, of course, it's so nutso an idea it's strange Raines would bring it up in public. But then you realize the true scope of this guy's ambition: he wanted to increase the circulation of the New York Times by 6,500 percent. He is and was out of his tiny mind. I can't wait for the novel.

To: LindyBill who wrote (3377)	7/14/2003 2:50:12 AM
From: D. Long	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793755

"Film theory is philosophy, and people have made the same criticisms of philosophy for years," Branigan says. "They say, 'What relevance does philosophy have to the real world? It's merely idle thought, personal feeling, pointless speculation.' If we listened to them, we would do away with teaching and studying the works of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Wittgenstein and Sartre. Do we really want to do that? I think not." The response of all who can not defend the indefensible: you just don't understand, because it's too deeeep for you, maaan. It's not philosophy. It's garbage. Great article, Bill. Derek