David Brooks and Ron Fournier: Scary Monsters and Super Creeps

Today, Ron Fournier follows up his award-adjacent August column in The Atlantic bidding farewell to this Business we call "Show" --

You Can Go Home Again

After two-and-a-half decades in Washington, D.C., a political journalist heads back to Detroit to join in the revival of his native city.

-- with a soon-to-be-award-contiguous September column in The Atlantic bidding farewell to this Business we call "Show:

A Farewell Guide to Political Journalism

Lessons gleaned from 30 years of covering American politics—from Bill Clinton to Donald Trump.

I will pause for just a moment to note that "gleaning: is an interesting choice here, given that its original meaning was --

...the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers' fields after they have been commercially harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest.

-- and that for years Mr. Fournier has been making a living selling the stale, leftover stubble of Beltway common wisdom.

 But I suppose that's neither here nor there.

Pause over.  Moving on.

Now a lesser man might be tempted to write a short essay entitled, say, "Oh For Fuck's Sake, Leave Already", but I don't know any lesser men, and anyway, now that a paying gig has opened up at The Atlantic that could be filled by eight lines of code that spits out "Both Sides do it.  K'rrupt Duopoly!" in the face of every Republican atrocity, I'm going to keep my swears to a minimum until they definitely reject my resume.

What I will say is that the long list of Shalts and Shalt Nots Mr. Fournier lays out for future journalists to follow in order to win the inspire respect and fear of their sources --

I mentioned a particular journalist known to be an easy mark inside the White Houses of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Afraid of confrontation, eager to please, and lazy, this reporter printed whatever minor bits of news and color aides fed him, without skepticism or criticism. I didn’t respect the guy. Nor did most other reporters forced to compete against a patsy who benefited from a policy of mutual-assured promotion.

“He’ll gobble up what we feed him,” I told my partners.

One groaned. Another winced and said, “Yes, but nobody will buy it. Nobody respects him. They’ll know it’s just a press release.”

Until that moment, I assumed the people we covered in politics valued pushover journalists. I thought this particular reporter got ahead by going along. That might be true on the small stories, but not for the stuff that matters.

...

But I left the meeting knowing that if I ever returned to journalism, I didn’t want to be taken for granted liked the first reporter. I wanted to inspire in my sources what Balz had earned from my partners—respect and fear.

-- seem to have been boosted from the Mike Royko collection at the Newberry Library and bears little if any relationship to anything that Mr. "Both Sides Do It! K'rrupt Duopoly!" has done since the Cheney Administration.

And speaking of pundits who Donald Trump has completely broken...

Down the block, Mr. David Brooks of The New York Times (who bade farewell from the Real World years ago) is shocked and saddened to learn that after 30 years of winning elections by pandering to braying, bigoted assholes. the Republican party has nominated a braying, bigoted asshole to run for president.

Because what sort of next-level, Nostradamus brain-wizard could possible have seen that coming.

But this year, it seems, everything has been stripped down to the bone. Politics is dividing along crude identity lines — along race and class. Are you a native-born white or are you an outsider? Are you one of the people or one of the elites?

Politics is no longer about argument or discussion; it’s about trying to put your opponents into the box of the untouchables.

Donald Trump didn’t invent this game, but he embodies it. His advisers tried to dress him up on Wednesday afternoon as some sort of mature summiteer. But he just can’t be phony.

Mr. Brooks then explains "identity politics" as if speaking to a six-year-old, which must make the readers of the New York Times feel they've gotten their dollar's worth.

However, since David Brooks is David Brooks, he simply could not quit the field without swinging past the Holy Mother Church of Both Siderism to light a votive candle in honor of Ron Fournier getting out of show business:

Identity politics, as practiced by Trump, but also by others on the left and the right, distracts from the reality that we are one nation. It corrodes the sense of solidarity. It breeds suspicion, cynicism and distrust.

Which makes me suspect that Mr. Brooks has not read or heeded Mr. Fournier's farewell address to the D.C. Punditocracy.  Because, according to Mr. Fourier, two of the most important principles any pixel-stained wretch must adhere to if they want to live a life of honor are:

...

Write with authority. Don’t use crutches like “critics say” when the truth can stand on its own. If the president has said something that is factually wrong, just write or say, “The president is wrong.” If you can show the deception is intentional, tell your audience, “The president lied.” Don’t strain for balance or equivalence in a story where there is none.  The truth is rarely black and white or evenly balanced between poles...

Don’t follow the herd. Journalists in Washington tend to chase the same stories based on the same assumptions to reach the same conclusions. Resist the temptation because it’s boring and bad for your career. The way to advance in journalism is to be distinctive, which means telling stories that nobody else is telling, which starts by asking questions nobody else is asking, which can only be done if you ignore the convention wisdom and group think, which takes guts. Take a chance. Take control.

Yes, Mr. Ron Fournier actually wrote this in his final column for The Atlantic, and no editor set it on fire, pissed on the ashes and then returned it to Mr. Fournier in a commemorative coffee mug for a rewrite. 

So since no one seems to be paying the much attention to what appears under The Atlantic banner, I'm thinking my plan to get the publisher drunk, then showing up the next day and acting "hired", may actually have a shot at succeeding.

If I can keep my "fucks" to a minimum.