Kathleen
I posted a few weeks ago about how I was happy to see Bloomberg’s new “view,” an editorial page. Alas, even the (primarily lefty) Slate Magazine has given it the thumbs-down.
Virginia Postrel, however, has been her usual astute self with a really entertaining article on Oprah’s influence:
“Rather, she revived and extended an old American phenomenon: the tradition of middlebrow self-improvement that many observers assumed had died in the anti-authority turmoil of the 1960s.While anything but radical, this achievement was nonetheless remarkable. ….Oprah-ism doesn’t foster nuance or critical thinking. Yet even at its most philosophically ridiculous, it does manifest a singular, and characteristically American, virtue: It moves forward. The past, it affirms, is over and cannot be changed. What matters now is what happens next.”
As per usual, I thought about Oprah in a different light. Even if Bloomberg View becomes a bust, I hope Ms. Postrel keeps up the good work.
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Comments
Arrgh! You had to post a link to Slate.
"The site … joins a media space that has no shortage of opinion, making it a little like pouring a bottle of Deer Park into Lake Superior."
So if that's the standard we're going by, how does he figure this piece is like dropping "a cluster bomb or two on them"?
Then:
"To the naïve observer, this sort of political shape-shifting reflects a bipartisan soul when what it really reveals is … a philosopher king."
Ah, grasshopper, the unfounded assertion that the cynical is savvy is just another naïveté. It's just one we usually expect to see in dormroom philosophers, not in journalists.
"Bloomberg isn't the first billionaire/politician/press baron to promote his own brand of unassailable reasonableness from a very expensive soapbox. … Say what you will about Hearst, he took sides instead of pretending that there were none."
No, the first of the Web era that fits the bill would have been Michael Kinsley founding Slate. Even the name Slate was deliberately chosen to reflect precisely the pretense Kempf is criticizing.