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MEDIA WORLD NOT LIKED
British teenager and part-time TV writer Max Gogarty lately lit out for India and Thailand, in the manner of his kind. The Guardian thought Max’s commonplace jaunt worthy of a weekly travel blog:
I’m not entirely sure what appeals to me about travelling. Maybe the lack of work or study? The mayhem? The imagined company of beautiful girls ... all very good reasons to travel.
Guardian readers - who deduced that Max is the son of occasional Guardian travel contributor Paul Gogarty - were outraged:
• “who’s son is max then? terrible terrible terrible, shame on you guardian”
• “You are everything I hate about everything.”
• “the guardian have removed the picture link to this article from the front page and travel section ...”
• “whoever allowed this tedious nepotistic bollocks to be commissioned - you should all be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves. You won’t be, of course, but you should.”
And so on, and on. Just when things began to calm down, Max’s television producer friend offered this helpful line:
His dad worked very hard for him to get into journalism.
All that hard work for nothing. Stung by the 500 comment pile-on, Max immediately quit the site. “He has said to me that he doesn’t like the media world now,” Max’s father said. “He doesn’t want to go into it any more.” (This all happened more than a month ago; apologies to readers who are Maxed out.) Some thoughts:
• The Guardian, a newspaper with a poor record when it comes to predicting online responses, is mostly to blame for this. Dumping an over-confident teen in a massively busy site with a conflict-primed audience is a recipe for rage.
• Online is a bad place to be if you’re sensitive to criticism. In fact, it’s probably the worst place.
• If you’re a blogger concerned about who might read your work, remind yourself what “www” stands for. Look it up, if you have to.
Contemporaneous responses from Pete Ashton and John Brownlee.
(Via Allan J.)
UPDATE. Bloggers at the New Yorker avoid being read by the simple tactic of being unreadable.
On the one hand I do feel kind of sorry for Max Gogarty himself, but there does need to be something done to stop newspapers giving editorial space to the offspring of journalists and editors. If I were a journalist who had worked my way up the ranks I would be incensed to see the editors kid get given an op-ed slot.
Sure some people choose the same careers as their parents and might well turn out to be good at it, in which case good for them but they should have to earn it.
Plus the abusive comments on the Gogarty article were hilarious.
#1, #4, Me three.
“Online is a bad place to be if you’re sensitive to criticism. In fact, it’s probably the worst place.” Hmmm, I think I should mention something about a cluebat here, but I’m not sure what.
“I’m not entirely sure what appeals to me about travelling… The mayhem?
One word for you my boy. Iraq.
Go there. Wear a God Bless America t shirt. Tell St Pete who sent ya.
Posted by The_Wizard_of_WOZ on 2008 03 24 at 11:31 AM • permalinkAt first I thought “what’s the big deal”? A navel gazing blogger blogs about his navel gazing.
meh!
Then I read a bit of it.
The guardian is aware that there are people in the world willing to go to India who ALSO possess writing skills.
Aren’t they?
Posted by tim maguire on 2008 03 24 at 11:31 AM • permalinkSo, Guardian commenters are accused of class warfare and hatred?!? Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that what the Guardian and its readers are largely about?
Note to Young Max: You were attacked as much for who you are as for your writing—an important message lurks there. And welcome to the 21st Century, which you may not find all that pleasant.
Posted by Harry Bergeron on 2008 03 24 at 12:20 PM • permalinkDon’t forget, folks, this is the same newsrag that was upset over a bunch of upstart Americans questioning the blatantly biased Guardian attempt to influence the 2004 presidential elections in Ohio.
The Guardian is clueless to the nth degree. Terminally so, in fact.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 03 24 at 02:49 PM • permalink“...a conflict-primed audience is a recipe for rage.”
Wonderful. I’ll file that one away. That describes so many newspapers including, of course, the Fairfax stable.
Posted by walterplinge on 2008 03 24 at 04:57 PM • permalinkMax is a 19 year old who needs a fair bit of real life experience and maturation. Since he’s already discovered the dog-eat-dog world of the “media”, he may get there eventually.
But his father should have known better.
Btw, Tim, your updated link to the New Yorker goes to a Weekly Standard op-ed about Barack Obama. Is that what was intended, because I found it emanently readable.
A few weeks ago there was a scandal in the UK over an MP who had his wife and son on the constituency payroll.
Private Eye had a roundup of media condemnation, helpfully annoted with examples of nepotism at the same news outlets.
One example was the journalist who filed under her mother’s maiden name, lest readers recognise the father’s name.
And of course, the biggest example of them all - the Murdoch brood.
Posted by The Mongrel on 2008 03 24 at 07:48 PM • permalinkSpoilt little lefty brat living in Hampstead. In my youth, we called them the bourgoisie, and spat on them. But hey, I was a
socialistidiot then, not like the amazinglysmarthyocritical left establishment of today. Mercedes marxists. And guess what, they are the establishment in the West.We need a revolution! Aux armes! Aux armes mes amis du droit!
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 03 24 at 07:53 PM • permalink#12 I also found the unreadable blog to be very readable.
Posted by daddy dave on 2008 03 24 at 08:34 PM • permalinkI note Maxxie is at least partially responsible for the moronic and nauseatingly politically-correct Skins, for which he not only more than deserves the opprobrium he is being subjected to by the Guardian‘s gargoyles, but should he make it to the Punjab a meeting with some desciples of Kali could be called for.
I note they’ve taken his piccie off the site, but I’m irresitably drawn to compare Max to Student Grant.
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“You are everything I hate about everything.”
I want that on a t-shirt.