Aaronovich may well be irrelevant (he's only a columnist after all), but I have a certain respect for him as almost the only Guardian writer not to toe the paper's party line on Iraq. Whether you disagree with him or not on Iraq - and at times he did have a few interesting things to say - he gets plenty of points for at least trying to engage with the question, rather than parrotting lazy slogans as so many Guardian journalists are wont to do on difficult questions like the war.
Journalists you trust/admire/respect etc
- Thread starter luka
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- craner for fisk sake
Mind you, I mentioned this on the Ukraine thread, but Timothy Garton Ash always delivers the goods:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1369723,00.html
That last paragraph is magnificent.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1369723,00.html
That last paragraph is magnificent.
craner
Beast of Burden
I like him too.
I admire Hitchens and Friedman post 9/11. Sorry about that. They've been more consistently on point than anyone else.
Marc Cooper is good for keeping up with what's left of the Left debate.
Michael Ledeen is fucking nuts and a criminal, but a talented columnist, who veers between complete shit (like his latest on the death of the Left which is sloppy, to put it kindly) but also, sometimes, spelling out uncomfortable truths.
To read the extremes of US political discouse you've got to read The Nation, New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Commentary, National Review and the Weekly Standard. All of them.
I'd stick up for Johann Hari. I think he's good. I hate him, because he's a year younger than me, and does everything I'd like to do. But he is, I think, a genuine and honourable young Leftist voice in the mainstream. I think it's stupid to discount that out of hand. So big up Hari, the fucking bastard.
And I don't understand why Aaronovich is so reviled. There we are, I said it.
I admire Hitchens and Friedman post 9/11. Sorry about that. They've been more consistently on point than anyone else.
Marc Cooper is good for keeping up with what's left of the Left debate.
Michael Ledeen is fucking nuts and a criminal, but a talented columnist, who veers between complete shit (like his latest on the death of the Left which is sloppy, to put it kindly) but also, sometimes, spelling out uncomfortable truths.
To read the extremes of US political discouse you've got to read The Nation, New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Commentary, National Review and the Weekly Standard. All of them.
I'd stick up for Johann Hari. I think he's good. I hate him, because he's a year younger than me, and does everything I'd like to do. But he is, I think, a genuine and honourable young Leftist voice in the mainstream. I think it's stupid to discount that out of hand. So big up Hari, the fucking bastard.
And I don't understand why Aaronovich is so reviled. There we are, I said it.
I've never really liked Friedman, he seems to cut too many corners, but I've never read any of his books either.
It's probably useless to non-Americans, but check the Note, abcnews.com's daily political roundup (headed by Mark Helprin but written by committee). It is, if nothing else, a daily public reading of news with an insider's eye (lots of bone-dry injokes that I don't get but are often hilarious if you google all the names to figure them out), and a credit to the still unsung work of daily non-name journos who turn out the narratives for everyone else. it's a VERY constricted artform but one nonetheless, the Note picks out the moments of wiggle-room that do appear. (NYer article on this not too long ago that i haven't read either.)
Whoever wrote a story for USAToday on white-collar labor being done in prisons that had a subheading "A Short Commute," you are ballsy and hilarious, bravo.
The one bit of Johann Hari's I'd come across seemed like smug centrist bullshit to me, maybe an off day? I don't remember the topic at all, I just remember saying "ah, SCBS."
I can't think of a name American columnist that I give a shit about. Except Hitchens. He's always a must-read. And I admit, guiltily, to checking Andrew Sullivan's site regularly as well, tho he's wrong about everything except the things he's not wrong about.
It's probably useless to non-Americans, but check the Note, abcnews.com's daily political roundup (headed by Mark Helprin but written by committee). It is, if nothing else, a daily public reading of news with an insider's eye (lots of bone-dry injokes that I don't get but are often hilarious if you google all the names to figure them out), and a credit to the still unsung work of daily non-name journos who turn out the narratives for everyone else. it's a VERY constricted artform but one nonetheless, the Note picks out the moments of wiggle-room that do appear. (NYer article on this not too long ago that i haven't read either.)
Whoever wrote a story for USAToday on white-collar labor being done in prisons that had a subheading "A Short Commute," you are ballsy and hilarious, bravo.
The one bit of Johann Hari's I'd come across seemed like smug centrist bullshit to me, maybe an off day? I don't remember the topic at all, I just remember saying "ah, SCBS."
I can't think of a name American columnist that I give a shit about. Except Hitchens. He's always a must-read. And I admit, guiltily, to checking Andrew Sullivan's site regularly as well, tho he's wrong about everything except the things he's not wrong about.
luka
Well-known member
hes let himself become a kind of cheerleader figure i suppose. you always know what he's going to say about something. he things he says bear repeating though.
he's shrill and he's pompos and he's sanctimonius, all these things are true, but he does an important job surely.
he's shrill and he's pompos and he's sanctimonius, all these things are true, but he does an important job surely.
I find it frankly astonishing that anyone could think the vast majority of David Aaronovitch’s output has any merit. Much like Julie Burchill, he is often hailed for being ‘brave’ enough to disrupt a supposed liberal or left consensus, when in fact he is merely too stupid to have even grasped the basics of what is being discussed.
Look at the second half of his latest column . After sniping at “paranoid” ideas about the suspicious nature of Dr David Kelly’s death (this is an Aaronovitch favourite, to rubbish so-called “conspiracy theorists”, and in doing so to dismiss out of hand any suggestion of foul play on the part of the British government: “shut up, Naomi and Noam, you must be flat-out crazy not to trust an honest Englishman like Tony Blair!"), he moves on to talk about Viktor Yushchenko's possible poisoning. In a shitty, sub-tabloid, pseudo-racist fashion: ” Agent Smeshko? Herr Doktor Zimpfner? The dacha near Kiev? The careful placing of the poisoned borshch before the unsuspecting victim? They stopped writing this stuff in the 30s.”
Does he have anything to offer other than “hoho, these Ukrainians have hilarious names, you can’t take it seriously, can you?” – he does not. The man is a mental midget.
Look at the second half of his latest column . After sniping at “paranoid” ideas about the suspicious nature of Dr David Kelly’s death (this is an Aaronovitch favourite, to rubbish so-called “conspiracy theorists”, and in doing so to dismiss out of hand any suggestion of foul play on the part of the British government: “shut up, Naomi and Noam, you must be flat-out crazy not to trust an honest Englishman like Tony Blair!"), he moves on to talk about Viktor Yushchenko's possible poisoning. In a shitty, sub-tabloid, pseudo-racist fashion: ” Agent Smeshko? Herr Doktor Zimpfner? The dacha near Kiev? The careful placing of the poisoned borshch before the unsuspecting victim? They stopped writing this stuff in the 30s.”
Does he have anything to offer other than “hoho, these Ukrainians have hilarious names, you can’t take it seriously, can you?” – he does not. The man is a mental midget.
matt b
Indexing all opinion
luka said:
LOL
fisk is SO on it most of the time (no wonder he is disliked so much- jack straw anyone?)
greg palast can be awesome- 'the best democracy money can buy' is very well written/researched, but he doesn't get published a lot in the uk anymore.
zmag.org has the odd wicked piece, but drifts towards wooly liberal tree hugging nonsense a bit too much for me.
sufi
lala
moonbat
i'm struggling to think of any journo i truly rispek
but whilst we're dissing may i propose:
MOONBAT
while he does cover some interesting issues, his tone is utterly condescending like he's the first and only journo to receive the revelation that e.g vegetarianism is good for the environment, bush is a bit of a puritan, war is destructive.. duh yeah. smug twerp.
i dint catch him writing about immigration yet... luckily...
grrr
i'm struggling to think of any journo i truly rispek
but whilst we're dissing may i propose:
MOONBAT
while he does cover some interesting issues, his tone is utterly condescending like he's the first and only journo to receive the revelation that e.g vegetarianism is good for the environment, bush is a bit of a puritan, war is destructive.. duh yeah. smug twerp.
i dint catch him writing about immigration yet... luckily...
I'd split it between columnists and journalists.
Columnists - no time for. Opinion-rich, fact-poor.
Journalists - People that actually go out there and do some research and get their hands dirty? Better maybe. Trying to think of specific examples is quite difficult at the moment tho...
Columnists - no time for. Opinion-rich, fact-poor.
Journalists - People that actually go out there and do some research and get their hands dirty? Better maybe. Trying to think of specific examples is quite difficult at the moment tho...
Randy Watson
Well-known member
Tony Thompson (sp?) is the crime writer for the Observer and he always impresses me with the depth of his research. He obviously has an extensive contact network which he uses to give a full picture from seemingly discreet events.
He talks to the right people about something it is often difficult for them to talk about (for many different reasons) without exploiting them.
I stopped reading the Independent after Johan Hari joined. His articles were entirely without substance.
He talks to the right people about something it is often difficult for them to talk about (for many different reasons) without exploiting them.
I stopped reading the Independent after Johan Hari joined. His articles were entirely without substance.
I'm a journalist FWIW. It's great fun reading you giving us all a good kicking. You seem to be focussing heavily on political hacks. Check out John Plender's stuff if the FT - truly investigative, eye-opening stuff. His recent special on cross-border tax fiddles was a cracker. I'd also recommend David Randall's "The Universal Journalist" to anyone remotely interested.
Grievous Angel
Beast of Burden
I like anyone who writes for The Economist, regardless of whether I agree with them or not. Maximum style.
Dr John Briffa? I went to school with him. He once asked me to write lyrics for his band.
Can’t make my mind up about Aaronivitch. One the one hand, it revels in that fat boy crypto-fascist Guardian-reader-bashing sadomasochism. On the other, he can be pretty smart.
Monbiot’s alright. Samuel Brittan in the Financial Times is hilarious. On the tech front I still like Doc Searls though he hasn’t changed his line (or his slides) in two years.
Amanda Platell gave good PowerPoint when I was working in Central Office, never read her writing though.
Since this is turning into a confessional, I was a journalist once, kept my nose clean though. Any music journalists we like?
Dr John Briffa? I went to school with him. He once asked me to write lyrics for his band.
Can’t make my mind up about Aaronivitch. One the one hand, it revels in that fat boy crypto-fascist Guardian-reader-bashing sadomasochism. On the other, he can be pretty smart.
Monbiot’s alright. Samuel Brittan in the Financial Times is hilarious. On the tech front I still like Doc Searls though he hasn’t changed his line (or his slides) in two years.
Amanda Platell gave good PowerPoint when I was working in Central Office, never read her writing though.
Since this is turning into a confessional, I was a journalist once, kept my nose clean though. Any music journalists we like?