Joseph Rago: "I don’t think it takes any sort of special talent to be a journalist."
Joseph Rago, a 23-year-old assistant editorial features editor for The Wall Street Journal, appeared on Hugh Hewitt's show yesterday. We learn that: a) he does not believe that it "takes any sort of special talent to be a journalist"; b) he did crew in college; c) The New York Times' NSA story is "despicable"; d) he believes it to be "a little bit silly to sort of have this triumphalism about the blogosphere at the expense of what everyone calls the mainstream media, without looking at any of the consequences"; e) the Eason Jordon kerfuffle is "exactly an example of a second order distraction blown out of proportion by the blogs at the expense of more serious issues"; f) Eugene Robinson is not "serious"; g) David Brooks and E.J. Dionne, however, are; h) you cannot be an expert on anything at the age of 23; and i) Rago voted for Bush.
More highlights, in chronological order:
1. What does it take to be a journalist?
JR: ...I don’t think it takes any sort of special talent to be a journalist. Well, that’s not right. I don’t think you have to go to J school, or anything like that. But I think to be a journalist, you have to have a certain seriousness, a comprehensiveness of what you cover, your beat. You have to have sources, and you have to develop a certain expertise on a topic.
2. Hewitt delves into the personal. Rago did crew at Dartmouth!
HH: Any training in the law on your part?
JR: No.
HH: Do you think it’s necessary to be trained in the law to understand, for example, a Supreme Court opinion?
JR: I think training certainly helps you interpret it better than you would otherwise.
HH: How about medicine? Any training in medicine?
JR: No.
HH: Technology?
JR: Not particularly, no.
HH: Theology?
JR: No.
HH: Are you an athlete?
JR: I rode at school.
HH: Oh, you did? You’re crew?
JR: Yes, I was.
3. What constitutes "reporting"?
HH: Well, let’s work from some specifics backwards, then. Let’s take the NSA story leaked by the New York Times about a year ago, correct?
JR: Sure.
HH: Do you consider their publication of the existence of a state secret to be reportage?
JR: I think it’s reportage. I think it was despicable, though. They certainly shouldn’t have published that.
HH: But it was reportage?
JR: Right.
4. Hewitt mentions the blogosphere's contribution to the Roberts and Alito hearings. Rago says that "it seems a little bit silly to sort of have this triumphalism about the blogosphere at the expense of what everyone calls the mainstream media, without looking at any of the consequences."
HH: Okay, it’s a matter of, I think, undeniable fact that the most comprehensive coverage of the actual legal issues raised by the committee, and by the witnesses, was done on the blogosphere, because of questions of space. You know, you guys are limited by column inches, and the blogosphere isn’t. And they just outshined tremendously there. Do you disagree?
JR: I mean, I don’t think I disagree, but I do think that…again, I do think that there are some good elements to the blogosphere, but there’s also a lot of negative. And it seems a little bit silly to sort of have this triumphalism about the blogosphere at the expense of what everyone calls the mainstream media, without looking at any of the consequences.
5. Has the MSM does anything right?
HH: ...Do you want to put forward…other than Katrina, although I’m not sure you’d want to put forward Katrina, any major story on which the mainstream media has dominated in terms of reporting and analysis over the blogosphere?
JR: Well, the one I said in my article, I think, certainly is Iraq. I think they’ve done a much better job in that regard.
HH: Let’s jump, then, to Bill Roggio, Michael Yon and Michael Totten.
JR: Sure.
HH: Those three bloggers have, this year alone, Roggio spent three months in the country, Michael Yon brought news from Mosul of the Gates of Fire series of posts, Michael Totten has been in and out of Kurdistan and Lebanon reporting on the Cedar Revolution. Do you wish to set them up as inferior to any three mainstream media journalists?
JR: No, certainly not.
HH: So if those three represent one aspect of media, then we’ve got a tie.
JR: Well, I don’t think three people adds up to a tie. You know, a Baghdad bureau is extraordinarily expensive, reporters going in and out for the mainstream media. And I just don’t think it’s comparable to find isolated incidents…you know, three people, and compare it to the entire apparatus.
HH: But if those three people are doing good reporting, and mainstream media is by and large doing bad reporting out of Iraq, doesn’t that mean the ‘sphere is doing better reporting?JR: Well, I mean, I don’t think that the mainstream media is doing all that bad reporting out of Iraq. You know, the pessimistic, glass half-full reporting they’ve done has held up much better than the commentary in the blogosphere.
[snip]
JR: I’m always open to the prospect that I’m wrong. I just don’t see an argument supported by three or four people versus the entire apparatus of the mainstream media. And I guess the other point is, I don’t think that anybody would read my article and come away saying that the mainstream media is infallible, or that it even always does a good job, or even sometimes does a good job. The point, rather, was that the institution, the way that they filter things, tends to increase seriousness and expertise in the purveying of opinion and comment, and I just don’t see that on the internet.
HH: Well, it sounds to me like you’re making the argument that because the mainstream media spends a lot of money maintaining bureaus in Iraq, they must therefore be doing good work.
JR: No, I don’t think that’s it at all. I’m saying that they have an institutional support which vastly increases the professional reporting.
6. Are blogs a panacea?
JR: ...I think the mainstream media has some very real failings. But talking about the blogs as the solution to everything, I think, is pretty silly.
7. Rago believes that the Eason Jordon story was "blown out of proportion."
HH: ...Why is Eason Jordan no longer at CNN?
JR: It was the remarks he made at Davos.
HH: And who reported those?
JR: Well, it was reported mainly by the blogs. But in that case, the comments seemed, at least from what I heard, from one of the members of our editorial board, and now a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, is that these comments, it was just an off-hand remark, it wasn’t that big of a deal, and I think that’s exactly an example of a second order distraction blown out of proportion by the blogs at the expense of more serious issues.
HH: Well now, Bret’s been a guest on this program many, many times, so I’ll let him speak for himself. You may want to check with him on that. I don’t believe he would agree with that characterization of his opinion of it. But he’s not there, because he made a speech that was picked up by the blogs. They wouldn’t release the transcript, and under growing pressure, he left rather than have CNN cave on that. Now whether or not you consider that a second order distraction is in fact an editorial decision, isn’t it, that you would have made to suppress that story, or give it what? Less play than Green Zone reporting?
JR: It is an editorial distinction, and that’s what the blogosphere mainly lacks, is that it doesn’t have an apparatus in place that screens for, editorially, for seriousness. It’s chaos and entropy. And it doesn’t work very well in criticism, and in terms of serious views.
8. Rago doesn't like Eugene Robinson.
HH: We go back to what you said just before the break, that the quality of commentary and analysis is better in mainstream media than it is in new media. Are you familiar with the work of Eugene Robinson at the Washington Post?
JR: Yes, I am.
HH: Do you think it’s serious?
JR: No, I don’t.
9. Rago opines on other reporters.
HH: I think we’ll agree that David Brooks does a good job, right?
JR: Sure.
HH: And Nicholas Kristoff does great reporting from Sudan when he’s there, right?
JR: Right.
HH: But do you think E.J. Dionne is a serious analysis of American politics?
JR: I don’t always agree with him, but I would say yes, he’s serious.
10. Hewitt raises questions about Rago's age.
HH: ...[T]he attempt to defend mainstream media at the expense of the blogs is, I think, very diverting, and I think hurts your business, in many respects, because they still don’t get it. I don’t think, Joe…let me ask you this. This is a hard question to answer. You’re 24? 22? 23?
JR: 23.
HH: Okay, you’re 23 years old. The Wall Street Journal allows you to set forth with a piece of writing that was mocked, in large part, across the blogosphere, for its many inaccuracies, satirized by people like Tigerhawk and Ace of Spades, and yet you’re defending mainstream media’s accumulated institutional culture that screens for originality, expertise and seriousness. Does your piece represent that tradition?
JR: Yes, I think it does.
HH: And so, what was original in your piece?
JR: I mean, what was original is that everyone is…you know, Time Magazine says the person of the year is everyone. What was original was that everyone seems to have acquiesced to the idea that technology and blogs are going to sort of revolutionize media and make it completely new, and I just don’t see the evidence for it.
HH: And what’s your expertise in blogs?
JR: The expertise, in this case, is criticism. It’s the exercise of judgment and taste.
HH: Joe, you’re 23.
JR: Sure.
HH: Can you be expert in anything? And I’m serious here.
JR: I think I can write a thoughtful article, even though I’m 23.
HH: That wasn’t…the question is, can you be expert in anything at 23?
JR: No, I don’t think so.
11. Hewitt gets personal -- again.
HH: Who did you vote for, for president?
JR: I voted for Bush.
HH: And was that the first time you voted?
JR: No, it wasn’t.
HH: Did you vote for Bush versus Gore?
JR: I wasn’t 18 in 2000.
HH: And so generally speaking, you’re a conservative.
JR: Certainly, yes.
12. And, of course, the future of the mainstream media...
HH: And you believe that mainstream media is in pretty good shape right now?
JR: No, I don’t think it’s in good shape at all. I just don’t think that we should abandon it in favor of blogs, to just sort of throw out all standards and…
HH: Well, who’s suggesting that?
JR: …just sort of pick from whatever we find on the internet. It’s silly.
More highlights, in chronological order:
1. What does it take to be a journalist?
JR: ...I don’t think it takes any sort of special talent to be a journalist. Well, that’s not right. I don’t think you have to go to J school, or anything like that. But I think to be a journalist, you have to have a certain seriousness, a comprehensiveness of what you cover, your beat. You have to have sources, and you have to develop a certain expertise on a topic.
2. Hewitt delves into the personal. Rago did crew at Dartmouth!
HH: Any training in the law on your part?
JR: No.
HH: Do you think it’s necessary to be trained in the law to understand, for example, a Supreme Court opinion?
JR: I think training certainly helps you interpret it better than you would otherwise.
HH: How about medicine? Any training in medicine?
JR: No.
HH: Technology?
JR: Not particularly, no.
HH: Theology?
JR: No.
HH: Are you an athlete?
JR: I rode at school.
HH: Oh, you did? You’re crew?
JR: Yes, I was.
3. What constitutes "reporting"?
HH: Well, let’s work from some specifics backwards, then. Let’s take the NSA story leaked by the New York Times about a year ago, correct?
JR: Sure.
HH: Do you consider their publication of the existence of a state secret to be reportage?
JR: I think it’s reportage. I think it was despicable, though. They certainly shouldn’t have published that.
HH: But it was reportage?
JR: Right.
4. Hewitt mentions the blogosphere's contribution to the Roberts and Alito hearings. Rago says that "it seems a little bit silly to sort of have this triumphalism about the blogosphere at the expense of what everyone calls the mainstream media, without looking at any of the consequences."
HH: Okay, it’s a matter of, I think, undeniable fact that the most comprehensive coverage of the actual legal issues raised by the committee, and by the witnesses, was done on the blogosphere, because of questions of space. You know, you guys are limited by column inches, and the blogosphere isn’t. And they just outshined tremendously there. Do you disagree?
JR: I mean, I don’t think I disagree, but I do think that…again, I do think that there are some good elements to the blogosphere, but there’s also a lot of negative. And it seems a little bit silly to sort of have this triumphalism about the blogosphere at the expense of what everyone calls the mainstream media, without looking at any of the consequences.
5. Has the MSM does anything right?
HH: ...Do you want to put forward…other than Katrina, although I’m not sure you’d want to put forward Katrina, any major story on which the mainstream media has dominated in terms of reporting and analysis over the blogosphere?
JR: Well, the one I said in my article, I think, certainly is Iraq. I think they’ve done a much better job in that regard.
HH: Let’s jump, then, to Bill Roggio, Michael Yon and Michael Totten.
JR: Sure.
HH: Those three bloggers have, this year alone, Roggio spent three months in the country, Michael Yon brought news from Mosul of the Gates of Fire series of posts, Michael Totten has been in and out of Kurdistan and Lebanon reporting on the Cedar Revolution. Do you wish to set them up as inferior to any three mainstream media journalists?
JR: No, certainly not.
HH: So if those three represent one aspect of media, then we’ve got a tie.
JR: Well, I don’t think three people adds up to a tie. You know, a Baghdad bureau is extraordinarily expensive, reporters going in and out for the mainstream media. And I just don’t think it’s comparable to find isolated incidents…you know, three people, and compare it to the entire apparatus.
HH: But if those three people are doing good reporting, and mainstream media is by and large doing bad reporting out of Iraq, doesn’t that mean the ‘sphere is doing better reporting?JR: Well, I mean, I don’t think that the mainstream media is doing all that bad reporting out of Iraq. You know, the pessimistic, glass half-full reporting they’ve done has held up much better than the commentary in the blogosphere.
[snip]
JR: I’m always open to the prospect that I’m wrong. I just don’t see an argument supported by three or four people versus the entire apparatus of the mainstream media. And I guess the other point is, I don’t think that anybody would read my article and come away saying that the mainstream media is infallible, or that it even always does a good job, or even sometimes does a good job. The point, rather, was that the institution, the way that they filter things, tends to increase seriousness and expertise in the purveying of opinion and comment, and I just don’t see that on the internet.
HH: Well, it sounds to me like you’re making the argument that because the mainstream media spends a lot of money maintaining bureaus in Iraq, they must therefore be doing good work.
JR: No, I don’t think that’s it at all. I’m saying that they have an institutional support which vastly increases the professional reporting.
6. Are blogs a panacea?
JR: ...I think the mainstream media has some very real failings. But talking about the blogs as the solution to everything, I think, is pretty silly.
7. Rago believes that the Eason Jordon story was "blown out of proportion."
HH: ...Why is Eason Jordan no longer at CNN?
JR: It was the remarks he made at Davos.
HH: And who reported those?
JR: Well, it was reported mainly by the blogs. But in that case, the comments seemed, at least from what I heard, from one of the members of our editorial board, and now a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, is that these comments, it was just an off-hand remark, it wasn’t that big of a deal, and I think that’s exactly an example of a second order distraction blown out of proportion by the blogs at the expense of more serious issues.
HH: Well now, Bret’s been a guest on this program many, many times, so I’ll let him speak for himself. You may want to check with him on that. I don’t believe he would agree with that characterization of his opinion of it. But he’s not there, because he made a speech that was picked up by the blogs. They wouldn’t release the transcript, and under growing pressure, he left rather than have CNN cave on that. Now whether or not you consider that a second order distraction is in fact an editorial decision, isn’t it, that you would have made to suppress that story, or give it what? Less play than Green Zone reporting?
JR: It is an editorial distinction, and that’s what the blogosphere mainly lacks, is that it doesn’t have an apparatus in place that screens for, editorially, for seriousness. It’s chaos and entropy. And it doesn’t work very well in criticism, and in terms of serious views.
8. Rago doesn't like Eugene Robinson.
HH: We go back to what you said just before the break, that the quality of commentary and analysis is better in mainstream media than it is in new media. Are you familiar with the work of Eugene Robinson at the Washington Post?
JR: Yes, I am.
HH: Do you think it’s serious?
JR: No, I don’t.
9. Rago opines on other reporters.
HH: I think we’ll agree that David Brooks does a good job, right?
JR: Sure.
HH: And Nicholas Kristoff does great reporting from Sudan when he’s there, right?
JR: Right.
HH: But do you think E.J. Dionne is a serious analysis of American politics?
JR: I don’t always agree with him, but I would say yes, he’s serious.
10. Hewitt raises questions about Rago's age.
HH: ...[T]he attempt to defend mainstream media at the expense of the blogs is, I think, very diverting, and I think hurts your business, in many respects, because they still don’t get it. I don’t think, Joe…let me ask you this. This is a hard question to answer. You’re 24? 22? 23?
JR: 23.
HH: Okay, you’re 23 years old. The Wall Street Journal allows you to set forth with a piece of writing that was mocked, in large part, across the blogosphere, for its many inaccuracies, satirized by people like Tigerhawk and Ace of Spades, and yet you’re defending mainstream media’s accumulated institutional culture that screens for originality, expertise and seriousness. Does your piece represent that tradition?
JR: Yes, I think it does.
HH: And so, what was original in your piece?
JR: I mean, what was original is that everyone is…you know, Time Magazine says the person of the year is everyone. What was original was that everyone seems to have acquiesced to the idea that technology and blogs are going to sort of revolutionize media and make it completely new, and I just don’t see the evidence for it.
HH: And what’s your expertise in blogs?
JR: The expertise, in this case, is criticism. It’s the exercise of judgment and taste.
HH: Joe, you’re 23.
JR: Sure.
HH: Can you be expert in anything? And I’m serious here.
JR: I think I can write a thoughtful article, even though I’m 23.
HH: That wasn’t…the question is, can you be expert in anything at 23?
JR: No, I don’t think so.
11. Hewitt gets personal -- again.
HH: Who did you vote for, for president?
JR: I voted for Bush.
HH: And was that the first time you voted?
JR: No, it wasn’t.
HH: Did you vote for Bush versus Gore?
JR: I wasn’t 18 in 2000.
HH: And so generally speaking, you’re a conservative.
JR: Certainly, yes.
12. And, of course, the future of the mainstream media...
HH: And you believe that mainstream media is in pretty good shape right now?
JR: No, I don’t think it’s in good shape at all. I just don’t think that we should abandon it in favor of blogs, to just sort of throw out all standards and…
HH: Well, who’s suggesting that?
JR: …just sort of pick from whatever we find on the internet. It’s silly.
3 Comments:
Wow. 23 years old and he's already worked enough as a journalist to determine whether it's hard work or not...
*snarfle*
Yea. He probably thought algebra was toooooo hard and so dropped out of junior high to start on his local paper...
He's a smart kid, but what was the WSJ thinking? I'd expect to read a sweeping Rago op-ed in the the local newspaper in Topeka, but the WSJ?
So on the young end we have this kid turning up his nose, and on the old end we've got George Will et al turning up their noses.
If this is the kind of viewpoint on which the MSM is staking its future, I'd say it's shakier than ever.
I'm sorry. He sounds like a 14 year-old discussing women with the grown-ups.
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