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that's fascinating, fugly.
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back in the olde days of the 1970s when there was something of a cultural revolt going on, there was a reaction in the form of "new journalism" against the fake omniscience and patronizing neutrality of mainstream infotainment writing. new journalism put the writer him or herself into the piece and made of the information-gathering part of the piece. new journalism also played around with tone. it's not everyone's cup of tea.
the factual basis of taibbi's piece can easily be checked out--there's little new in it---if you've been tracking the tea party or curious about who's paying for it or wondering what was gonna come of that ugly supreme court ruling of a few months ago that was referenced earlier, you'd already know most of it.
taibbi's journey through kentucky is unobjectionable. a standard trope. he does it well enough.
the piece appeared in rolling stone, which sometimes still features interesting political journalism. taibbi is ok--william greider is better. i don't think anyone relies on rolling stone for all their information...it's not like conservative journalism and its heavily-funded multi-media wrap-around environment. the sort of writing that they publish that interests me---and for what it's worth i only find out about it when someone bounces me something or by mistake: reading rolling stone in 2010 seems goofy to me, particularly its music coverage---that writing **presupposes** you are an active reader of information and **presupposes** that you will challenge it--because the style is about provocation.
like i said, this isn't necessarily a type of writing i enjoy. i think this piece is well done.
that's the end of my defense of the piece.
i find it kind of funny in 2010 that there's any need to explain what new journalism is much less defend it.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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