They Eat Their Young
In the course of discussing N+1 editor Keith Gessen’s new novel over IM a few days ago, a friend pointed me to this month-old Nick Denton Gawker post detailing ex-Gawkerite Emily Gould’s romantic entanglements with a number of New York writers, including, eventually, Gessen. It’s overlong, semi-rambling, and fairly cruel in an almost shockingly pointless way. (It’s pretty telling that the commenters, some of the most jaded on the internet, are almost all appalled by Denton’s post.) It’s also pretty much riveting, at least for anyone who (like me) is somewhat entranced by the endless Park Slope literary navel gazing propagated by the New York Magazine-New York Observer-Gawker three-headed New York City media dragon.
Seems to me that posts like these are what happens when a city’s media has nothing to cover but itself. DC’s media has grown more self-referential in recent years, especially with the rise of a semi-insular blogosphere which gives writers more latitude to discuss their friends and the general goings on in the city. But in the end, most of us are here to cover politics, or maybe some other city business. You can only go through so many bloggy insider references before you have to go back to commenting on the war, health care, tax cuts, and Obama’s bowling scores. New York, on the other hand, only has itself to write about, and so a segment of the NY media establishment seems to be perpetually collapsing in on itself, a self-fucking, self-eating black hole. It’s a laptop-wielding, Ivy League, collective Ouroboros. It produces some great journalism, not to mention some delicious gossip, but just as often it’s also a rather nasty sight.
Upon moving from California to New York I found myself mystified by the navel gazing journalistic culture of Manhattan. Many serious, talented people cared a great deal about what the writers at Gawker thought for reasons that sort of escape me. It isn’t that I’m immune to the vices of envy and jealousy. Were I to have succeeded in getting a Talk of the Town piece published I’m sure I would’ve felt self-satisfaction and hoped that others saw my piece and thought more highly of me. Certainly I read the New York Magazine piece about Manhattan salaries and envied the New Yorker writers who are paid $250,000 a year, and the Vanity Fair correspondents who are paid $5 a word.
It makes sense, I think, to crave publication in magazines that publish great work, and to be well compensated for practicing your chosen craft particularly well. What makes little sense is craving the approval of Gawker writers. Who cares that some unknown twenty-something heaps scorn or praise on you or others, particularly when he or she is professionally snarky, suggesting that the judgments rendered are often mere poses rather than genuinely held criticism? I went to NYU for journalism school, counted many friends at Columbia Journalism School, and still don’t know 90 percent of the names tossed about by Gawker. I suspect I am the rule, not the exception.
The D.C. media culture “has grown more self-referential in recent years, especially with the rise of a semi-insular blogosphere which gives writers more latitude to discuss their friends and the general goings on in the city,” which is a good thing insofar as it breeds a certain civility among those on the inside. And I at least understand the impulse to talk about one’s friends, whether or not it’s a good thing for political journalism.
But is it actually true that “New York, on the other hand, only has itself to write about”? I don’t see why that is so. In fact I think that there is far more to write about in New York than there is to write about in DC, even given that American politics is centered here, not there. It’s lamentable that American media is so New York centric. Were it dispersed more across the country I think it would reflect America better, and probably be in marginally better financial shape as a result. But is there any city in the United States — is there any city in the world — that even excluding media coverage of itself offers more things to write about than New York City?
Yet the media covers itself.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Apr 17, 04:33 AM · #
Conor, I’m generalizing here; there are, of course, many things to write about in New York, and a quick look through any of the city’s major publications reveals that, yes, there’s a lot being written about beyond whose writing and dating whom.
But the job of the city media is to cover the city, and New York doesn’t have a single industry to define it. Combine that with the natural penchant for self-reflection (or, less charitably, narcissism) in many writers, and you end up with an awful lot of gossipy, bitchy coverage of other New York writers. So maybe it’s not that there’s nothing else to cover, but that, without a center of gravity, the media chooses to cover itself.
Part of my point was simply to try to compare the DC media world to the NY media world. DC really doesn’t have this level of nasty, deeply personal infighting in its media. Yes, there are harsh attacks, but generally speaking, public sniping tends to be over policy, or something of at least a little substance, rather than who slept with who/said what at a party the other night, etc. etc.
— Peter Suderman · Apr 17, 01:37 PM · #
Yes, I think your analysis of the differences between the two media worlds is spot on, and eloquently put. As an aside, I’m quite curious about how New York media navel gazing has changed over the years, mostly due to my enduring love of “Tiny Mummies,” Tom Wolfe’s famous take down of the New Yorker under William Shawn, which I can’t find Online but that is well worth reading. It should also be noted that William Shawn brought Ian Frazier and Lawrence Weschler to the New Yorker, which leads me to believe that he couldn’t have been as bad as Wolfe made him out to be.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Apr 17, 04:40 PM · #
Sorry if two versions of this come out, my browser acted up while typing this.
In reading about this little dustup in the NY literary media world, the main thought that came to my mind is that almost no one cares or should care about these people. That’s not a bow in favor of some sort of anti-intellectualism. Quite the contrary, actually. From what I can see, very few of the people in this world have created or will create anything of any lasting or even ephemeral note or quality, either as writers, critics, artists or otherwise. Thus, the precious “we are the contemporary Bloomsbury Group” attitude that seems to pervade this crowd is utterly unearned. Call me when they get out of the cafe or the cubicle at the publishing house and actually create something worth talking about. Then I’ll care.
— Mark in Houston · Apr 19, 03:06 AM · #