Shots in the Dark

In Slate, Jack Shafer follows the webzine’s model—figure out conventional wisdom, write opposite in 350 words, cash check, go back to bed—by trashing journalists for sucking up to Apple and, specifically, getting excited about the iPhone.

Well, maybe there’s some truth to that. But then, the iPhone does seem to be a product that a lot of people are excited about. (Let’s face it, except for the Blackberry, all cell phones suck.) And it’s clearly having an impact on the tech world, as competitors race to catch up.

A more interesting story, IMHO, is the fact that Microsoft has begun paying bloggers to use its ghastly catch-phrase, “people-ready.”

Does anyone praise Microsoft if they’re not paid to?

The Washington Post continues its exploration of Dick Cheney’s astonishing power within the White House—and how he used it to spearhead the use of torture (even if it was given another name).

In a radio interview last fall, Cheney said, “We don’t torture.” What he did not acknowledge, according to Alberto J. Mora, who served then as the Bush-appointed Navy general counsel, was that the new legal framework was designed specifically to leave room for cruelty. In international law, Mora said, cruelty is defined as “the imposition of severe physical or mental pain or suffering.” He added: “Torture is an extreme version of cruelty.”

…The vice president’s lawyer advocated what was considered the memo’s most radical claim: that the president may authorize any interrogation method, even if it crosses the line of torture. U.S. and treaty laws forbidding any person to “commit torture,” that passage stated, “do not apply” to the commander in chief, because Congress “may no more regulate the President’s ability to detain and interrogate enemy combatants than it may regulate his ability to direct troop movements on the battlefield…”

It’s a fascinating, horrific story. Cheney’s emasculation of the president is complete—and dangerous.

Want to know how (some) journalism works?

The Boston Globe today has an item on me taking a job at 02138. For no apparent reason—I stress “apparent”—it’s kinda bitchy.

Here it is:

Yale grad takes reins at 02138
Wait, a magazine devoted to all things Harvard has hired a Yalie as editor? Apparently. The fledgling glossy 02138, which likes to describe itself as a “lifestyle magazine for educated, affluent, and influential readers” — i.e. Harvard alums — has put Richard Bradley in charge. Bradley, whose birth name is actually Richard Blow, is the author of “American Son: A Portrait of John F. Kennedy, Jr.,” a book that sold remarkably well considering how badly trashed it was by many critics. He also wrote “Harvard Rules: Lawrence Summers and the Battle for the World’s Most Powerful University.” Bradley didn’t respond to an e - mail yesterday.

Hmmm. Let’s look at that last line, shall we? “Bradley didn’t respond to an e-mail yesterday.”

Actually, that’s not true. The writer, Mark Shanahan, e-mailed my website e-mail, which goes to my home computer. He e-mailed me at 2:25—not a lot of time for me to get back to him. I didn’t receive his e-mail until I got home from work, at which point—7:19, to be exact—I wrote back and called the phone number his e-mail included. (For some strange reason, I haven’t heard back from him.)

Shanahan could, in fact, have picked up the phone and called the 02138 office. That’s something reporters frequently do.

But even considering that I didn’t get back to him before his deadline, Shanahan’s item is snarky. The magazine “likes to describe itself as….” I’m a Yale grad! (Harvard too, but never mind.) I changed my name! (Zzzzzz….) American Son “sold remarkably well considering how badly trashed it was by many critics.” (“Badly trashed?” Copy editor, please.)

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln…..

What did I do to deserve that litany of faint praise? Shanahan’s e-mail to me, printed below in its entirety, may provide a clue:

hey there, since the flacks for 02138 do such a lousy job, thought i’d
email you directly. want to drop a line into the paper about your new gig.
got a minute?

I’ve never spoken with Mark Shanahan before in my life. There’s no greeting other than “hey there”—what are we, 12?—no sign-off, and, as you can see, punctuation is casual. Well, what the heck, it’s not that important in a newspaper anyway.

But the real message of that e-mail is, the PR folks for 02138 first told the New York Post about my new job, not the Globe, which doesn’t have a media column. Therefore, payback.

Mark, for what it’s worth, 02138 has contacted the Globe a number of times in the past, but the paper has never been clear about to whom to send items of possible interest, which is one reason why we went to the Post. Another is that the Globe doesn’t cover the media very much or very well. And a third is that Keith Kelly, the Post’s media columnist, is probably the most influential media writer in New York, and so it just makes sense to go to him first.

If you guys beefed up your coverage of the media business, well, that would be different, wouldn’t it? But don’t get mad at me for a decision that is entirely professional.

The Crimson has an interesting piece about the fact that Derek Bok and Drew Faust both dissed ROTC by not showing up at its graduation ceremony this year.

The absence of Bok and Faust from the commissioning ceremony has been criticized by some who fear that it could indicate a shift away from the support for the military shown by Summers.

Bok was chairing his final Corporation meeting; Faust was speaking to Radcliffe alumnae.

Is’t it fascinating how each of those other commitments captures something about the priorities of those two people?

While Summers declined to comment on whether he believed Bok or Faust should have attended the ceremony, he wrote in an e-mailed statement that he made an effort to attend the ROTC commissioning ceremonies because he considered it “very important to show institutional support for the students who were entering the armed forces.”

Well. That obviously is offering a comment on whether he believed Bok or Faust should have been there. Summers went because he thinks it’s important; by implication, Bok and Faust didn’t because they don’t…..

In the Washington Post, Lois Romano has written a fascinating story about Hillary Clinton’s female inner circle, known to itself as “Hillaryland.”

Once seen as a tight little sorority, today the group — happily self-described as “Hillaryland”- is at the center of a front-running presidential campaign. Never have so many women operated at such a high level in one campaign, working with a discipline and a loyalty and a legendary secrecy rarely seen at this level of American politics.

Older and tougher, they have formed a closely knit Praetorian Guard around Clinton that plots strategy, develops message and clamps down on leaks. But their extraordinary protectiveness also contributes to an ongoing perception of insularity around the candidate and the campaign.

I read this with dismay. Most of these women—Ann Lewis, Minyon Moore, Evelyn Lieberman, Mandy Grunwald, Melanne Verveer, and others—served with Hillary in the Clinton White House, and even then they were notorious for a number of things:
their insularity, their fanatical devotion to Hillary Clinton, and their us-against-the-world mentality.

Some of the group, such as Minyon Moore and Cheryl Mills, were highly competent. Others were not.

There is obviously a case to made for earning and rewarding loyalty. But there’s also a case for bringing in fresh voices and differing perspectives. The groupthink prevalent in Hillaryland was astonishing; talking to one of its members, you’d think you were talking to a member of a cult, and you kept wanting to urge the person to wake up. They never did, and it sounds like they still haven’t.

It was members of Hillaryland, for example, who largely wrote Mrs. Clinton’s memoir, a book equally disingenuous and boring. (The best thing about it was its cover, taken from a photo shoot we did for George. Mrs. Clinton had promised to do an exclusive cover; she then reneged on her promise when asked to be on the cover of Talk, whose owner, Harvey Weinstein, subsequently raised money for Mrs. Clinton’s 2000 Senate race.)

I can’t speak authoritatively on the subject, I hope, but my guess is that being disingenuous and boring at the same time is something not easily achieved.

And yet, this is Hillary Clinton’s largest problem: When she opens her mouth, no one believes a word she says.

Except, perhaps, the women of Hillaryland.

One of my college roommates, Timothy Tompkins, is the head of the Times Square Business Improvement District here in Manhattan. Back in 2003, Tim came up with the slightly bizarre idea of holding a yoga class in the middle of Times Square. The first time he staged it, there were all of two people present—Tim an an instructor.

Well, they did it again yesterday, to mark the summer solstice. And guess what? 800 people signed up…..

Nice work, Tim.

Willie Davis for The New York Times

I’ve posted before on how Internet advertising is corroding the separation between editorial and advertising that print journalists have long valued—ads that slightly impinge on a line of text, for example, so that in order to finish the sentence you were reading, you have no choice but to see the ad.

I hope that this is a passing phase, a sign of publishers’ desperation to make money on the Web. But I doubt it.

Meanwhile, the problem worsens. On Salon.com, I was just trying to read a story about how Rudy Giuliani has a priest accused of child molestation on his payroll, when an ad for Triskets suddenly appeared in the middle of the text, as if it were dropped from the top of the browser page. A trisket spun around, appeared with olive oil, then with cheese. And then it retreated back to the top of the screen. There was no “close” button you could hit; you just had to sit there and wait for the damn cracker to stop twirling around.

I now have no appetite for Triskets, nor for finishing the article I was reading. Instead, I feel like punching someone at Salon in the nose.

Pretty soon, these ads are going to become so commonplace and irritating that they actually discourage Web traffic….

Who says Washington is a conservative town? Well, I do. But maybe the city’s changing: The Washington Shakespeare Company is staging Macbeth in the nude…

Surely this Washington Post suggestion regarding Macbeth’s anatomy is unintentional:

In the current offering from Washington Shakespeare Company, a cast of intrepid actors essays a wholly uncut “Macbeth” in the nude….

Get your tickets here.

That’s how Dick Gross explains his resignation as Dean of Harvard College in an e-mail to the Crimson.

Throughout the spring, however, Gross, 56, gave no indication of planning to resign. He said, for instance, that he was considering launching a review of the College’s Administrative Board in the fall.

So the discussion about this resignation seems to be centering on a few questions:

1) Did Gross jump or was he pushed, and if the latter, who was the pusher?
2) Who will be the next dean of the college?
3) Should the job again be split into two positions, dean of Harvard College and dean of undergraduate education, as Judith Ryan suggests in a post below?