Asymmetrical Information

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Howell, we hardly knew ye

Just got the new issue of the Atlantic. Howell Raines' attempt at autohagiography in the April issue seems to have triggered some really bizarrely fawning letters:

Congratulations for having the courage to publish Howell Raines's account of his history at the Times. His story had the feeling of a Greek tragedy to me. Like Icarus, he seems to have flown too close to the sun. Much of Raines's story invlved neither money nor violence, but rather, creative passion and ambition. I'm not sure how much the passion for excellence in journalism is valued these days. We have been "spun" so often by public figures, with the willing assent of the commercial media, that it is hard to believe anybody really cares about truth or quality. I'm glad that The Atlantic does, and that Howell Raines does.

I t is left as an excercise for the reader to deduce which tragedy.

Howell Raines's essay was awfully long and densely detailed for breakfast-table reading, but I found it strangely uplifting. I couldn't put it down.

I begin to suspect that Howell Raines's family was involved in this letter-writing campaign.

Howell Raines gives us a rare look into the workings of one of democracy's most important institutions. [The press? Or the New York Times--ed]. He underscores the universal need to change while holding on to fundamentals--clearly not an easy task. I, for one, would hate to lose the New York Times, which serves as a baseline for those purporting to reveal the facts and truths in our volatile world. I was left with a sense of the importance of that paper, of the difficulty of the work in progress at the Times, and of the need for courageous journalists like Raines.

O Raines! O humanity!

Posted by Jane Galt at June 8, 2004 10:48 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links