Just a collection of links I’ve collected for my American Dialogues course: The first round. I’m mixing commentary from bloggers with that of columnists for the “traditional media,” as well as overview news articles. More later, ac (after coffee). Mich…

Building Complexity from Entropy: There’s an old military saying which goes: “A leader commands; a good leader leads; a great leader finds out where everyone’s going and gets out in front.”

Pressthink rewards leaders of conventional wisdom and opinion. Credibility is built by being correct and recognition is achieved by being first.

Isn’t this classic human social behavior? Is there a way to criticize a herd mentality and praise independence that does not sound like a fashion critic or someone studying fads?

Transported via the magic of cut and paste from PressThink comments section. For use in a future post of Andrew’s, maybe. A reader writes…

Prof. Rosen:

To answer your question: Nagourney’s decision means nothing. It means, maybe, that he grew a spine, when he should have begun his reporting career already equipped with one. It is foolish for reporters to go into “Spin Alley” in the first place, and it has always been thus.

How did Nagourney ever justify, after watching an event, going to another place full of partisans from both sides, to be told about something that he just saw? To me, what that means is, he didn’t have confidence in his own judgment. So he went somewhere where the folks were primed to tell him what his judgment should be. That is ridiculous. What would H.L. Mencken think?

To me, it only makes sense to visit a place like Spin Alley if sources are there who normally don’t return your calls and can’t be bothered with you. In Spin Alley, those sources (Karl Rove et al.) are accessible to be interviewed on any subject. I suspect that’s why the foreign press goes there. They get interviews they otherwise would not get.

I would respectfully suggest that you retire the phrase, “Nagourney’s Choice.” It invests drama and significance in something that has neither. You may as well congratulate him for not picking his nose in public.

Posted by: Dexter Westbrook at October 1, 2004 04:34 PM | Permalink

Dexter: I agree with you in this: It is foolish for reporters to go into “Spin Alley” in the first place, and it has always been thus. I have written so at this blog, and back in November I called for the press to just stop going to Spin Alley. They never should have been there in the first place.

Still, it does not follow that Nagourney’s decision means nothing. When people recover their senses, it means something. We can celebrate a return. When elites no longer accept the absurd logic they had previously rationalized as craft wisdom, that counts too. When professionals end indefensible practices, or quit the herd mentality, or de-couple their car from a runaway train, the action can be publicly significant, even if there is nothing astonishing in a discovery like: Quit spin alley, you lose nothing. Or: that train is about to crash.

We have a herding problem in our press. The inertia of the herd, the judgment of a herd, the fear of a herd are factors in journalism. It’s really bad sometimes. I don’t believe that herd thinking must prevail. But it does, often.

Speaking as a critic who would like to see the press improve where it can, I take any high-level resignation from the rituals of the herd as potentially good news. That’s no reason you should. But it’s how I think. Bravo Nagourney for that decision.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at October 1, 2004 11:55 PM | Permalink