The Guardian Godwins Itself Over Gogarty
Posted by John Brownlee
The Guardian, apparently incapable of closing their yaps about the whole Max Gogarty scandal, has made another statement on the incident through their columnist, Rafael Behr.
It’s infuriating reading: Behr directly compares criticism of a banal North London boy’s column on his gap-year vacation to Communist Genocide. Then again, dismissing the mass-murder of millions by comparing it to a nineteen year old boy’s hurt feelings shouldn’t be surprising from the newspaper so clueless that it wrote: “Locked in a time warp since the 1950′s, Cuba is on the verge of change and now is the perfect time to visit before its distinctive character is eroded.” Yeah, that “distinctive character” is 60 years of violent political oppression: don’t miss it!
Anyway, Behr’s piece is worthy of a good Fisking, but I’m not going to bother. I’ve had some fun at Max’s expense here, but it’s just astonishing how the Guardian continues to avoid actually taking any responsibility for what happened, instead casting the entire scandal as an indictment of the ignorance, cowardice and blood-thirstiness of mob rule.
But the point the Guardian is “missing” is that no one would have raised an eyebrow if Max had made his post on his Livejournal, or Facebook, or Blogger account. No one would have cared. Yes, it still would have been trite pablum, but his friends and family would have been delighted to read about his adventures. But if we’re to believe the Guardian, Max for some reason thought that his insights into travel and finding himself, his prosaic descriptions of boozing in Thailand until he shit out his liver, was worthy of a national audience. He pitched this, as a professional.
So did Max deserve his treatment? Absolutely: his crime isn’t being a vapid cliche (which we all are in one way or another, especially at 19), it’s being a smug, self-congratulating, self-aggrandizing cliche with delusions of grandeur totally unconnected to the reality of his middling talent. Oblivious confidence and the internal inflation of self-worth is part and parcel of being a teenager, of course, but that doesn’t mean that readers of a national newspaper should accept it.
Which they didn’t, bringing us to the real crime: the fact that the Guardian published his smug naval-gazing to begin with. If newspapers have any worth any more, it’s tied to an expectation of quality, to the judgment of editors who are supposed to know talent when they see it and respect their readership enough not to publish twaddle. The nepotism charge against the Guardian for hiring Max may or may not be true — although anyone who has ever worked in publishing can see, clear as day, how Max’s stupid and monotonous pitch to blog his gap year holiday was helped by the fact that his father had worked as a travel columnist for the Guardian himself — but it’s ultimately irrelevant. What is relevant is that the Guardian was utterly incapable of judging Max’s piece based on its actual quality, where as thousands of Guardian readers were instantly capable of dismissing it as dreck.
Update: Think Behr’s editorial on the matter was bad? There’s another response, this time from Caroline Davies of the Guardian’s sister paper, The Observer, written in the style of a purportedly objective news report, but in actuality a staple of the British press: an institution writing about itself in the third person through the voice of one of its writers. She casts criticism of Max’s backpacking being national-class material as indulging in “class war,” but constantly, unremittingly, casts Max himself as a child, a feeble victim of bitter grown ups. So much for Max’s alleged professional credentials, Caroline. Why is the Guardian hiring children?
Backpackers, bullies and internet myths [Guardian]
PS: I realize this isn’t really the sort of thing Ectomo usually publishes, but I’ve had it up to here with these twats.
PPS: Note to print journalists like Rafael Behr deigning to comment on the Internet — nothing makes you look more clueless and out-of-touch than when you refer to a post as a “blog.” Ectomo is a (we)blog. The article you are reading now is a post. This is not difficult to comprehend.
Categories: Blogging, Communism, Genocide, Godwin Theory, Guardian, Max Gogarty
Posted at 2:33 pm on February 17, 2008
18 Comments -
Ectomo’s so sexy, when it gets angry.
Seriously, though, I think a professional and erudite vitriolic expression, directed toward the enshrining of mediocrity in the media is exactly that for which we must call, if we are to keep those who come after us from becoming blithering, drooling, reality television-enslaved morons.
More-so.
That is to say, “Damn the man. Save the Empire.”
Comment by Damien — February 17, 2008 @ 3:53 pm
Anything that points out the wrongs of the Guardian is fine by me. I’ve been a staunch reader of the paper since my mid-teens due to my parents reading it. But my god it’s getting shite recently.
Good work man. You’re getting far angrier about this then I can be arsed to.
Comment by Will Ellwood — February 17, 2008 @ 4:17 pm
I sort of feel sorry for the kid. The Guardian should have had the balls to tell him, politely but firmly, that his blogging didn’t deserve to be put in the spotlight. But, instead of hurting his feelings a little and giving him some tough love, they let the internet give him twice the tough and none of the love.
As a result, any potential Gogarty might have had is gone. Maybe he would have made a wrong turn, discovered the real world, actually learned something, and been able to write an article worth reading when he came back. But that chance, slim though it was, is gone now. The Guardian ruined a kid’s life because they weren’t brave enough to tell him what he needed to hear: “No.”
Comment by Robert — February 17, 2008 @ 4:55 pm
Scratch that last bit of my previous post. He’s still a well-to-do white kid. His life isn’t ruined. But the rest still stands; his life would have been a lot better if the Guardian had told him the truth.
Comment by Robert — February 17, 2008 @ 5:03 pm
Ectomo’s coverage of this has been ideal. It is the duty of the elders to mock the youth, else how will they ever learn?
I’m fed up with commenters over at the Guardian assuring themselves that Max was overly terrorized and then ripping into the editors for publishing him: Max is getting precisely what we all want him to have. For better or for worse he is the idol for bloggy hatred: the nauseating sludge that collects at bottom of the internet’s creativity. I think all of us that avoid Livejournal are offended not that Max exists, but because his dreck has leaked out and into the clean areas.
Max is going to be fine, unfortunately. He’s the popular kid that tripped on stage in front of the whole school – it won’t have any bearing on his being a affluent shit for the rest of his life. He’s going to reference this moment as an influential and humiliating one, but in reality it’s just another reason for him to play-act at having character. Most rich folks aren’t so lucky.
Comment by Subspace — February 17, 2008 @ 5:54 pm
As an American, I’m not much aware of The Guardian’s reputation, though I’d managed before this to get the impression that it was not a publication of the highest standards. This episode cements my initial impressions, I will now avoid the paper with the same distaste that I now avoid the New York Post and Daily News. Thanks for the interesting coverage of otherwise mind numbing proceedings in the soon-defunct newspaper industry.
Comment by Andy — February 17, 2008 @ 8:02 pm
I’d just like to say thanks for expressing so articulately exactly what I also feel about the whole Maxgate incident. It’s been exceptionally badly handled by the Graun – Caroline’s article today made me spit with rage.
What are the chances they’ll listen, though?
Comment by jo — February 17, 2008 @ 9:04 pm
This Is a Post, Not a Blog
Ectoplasmosis: PPS: Note to print journalists like Rafael Behr deigning to comment on the Internet — nothing makes you look more clueless and out-of-touch than when you refer to a post as a “blog.” Ectomo is a (we)blog. The article you are…
Trackback by One Man and His Blog — February 18, 2008 @ 3:43 am
Andy, I think the point of this furor is that people usually expect a lot more from the Guardian.
As an American I think you should be particularly interested in the newspaper, as they often report on a lot of things in America that don’t get the attention they need from your local media sources.
Comment by rhys — February 18, 2008 @ 4:59 am
My only comment is that a politically oppressed timewarp -would- in my opinion be a fascinating experience, and I would indeed get some pleasure out of witnessing it before it’s gone, assuming I survived customs inspections.
Comment by Jakkar — February 18, 2008 @ 5:35 am
I’ve completely missed this scandal – such as it is. Is there anywhere I can read up on it (preferably with a high snark level)?
And “naval-gazing” – is that like a being a train spotter, but for boats?
Comment by JET — February 18, 2008 @ 7:27 am
The content alone of young master Gogarty’s writing proves he has the mind of a typical 19 year-old British male.
What terrifies me is that though his writing style also lacks maturity and deserves neither the (former?) kudos of The Guardian nor profesisonal publication anywhere, it’s still better than much of the ‘journalism’ found in today’s print media.
Do we call it highmonobrow?
Comment by Niko — February 18, 2008 @ 10:20 am
Andy, as a Canadian, might I suggest that rather than always take your diet of “information” in ready masticated, digested and regurgitated form, you perhaps make up your own mind?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian
Comment by Niko — February 18, 2008 @ 10:26 am
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Oh yes, thank you! So good to know I’m not alone – Daddy Gogarty’s sniffy “I hardly ever write for the Guardian” was enough to make me throw my newspaper across the room in disgust. Like that is any sort of defense. Before getting to the comments section on his post I thought it was some kind of post-modernist joke about the yoof of today or something, I was looking for the line “I can has liver damage?” in there somewhere. Thank you Mr Brownlee for telling it like it is when the Grauniad and its sister paper don’t have the sense to be honest.
Comment by Romdjoll — February 18, 2008 @ 3:38 pm
But who met Max at Mumbai, or even the welcoming committee at Goa…?
If only I’d been there…
BTW, the Guardian’s lack of responsibility for this farcical (for some) and excruciatingly sad, painful and embarrassing (the others) situation is risible, and they accuse others of hiding behind keyboards… Hah!
Comment by Barthanh — February 19, 2008 @ 2:31 pm
Check out what would seem to be Behr’s own blog post on it, for the thinking behind his piece
http://rafaelbehr.typepad.com/rafaelbehr/2008/02/me-gluttony-pun.html
The punters responding at CiF haven’t half been trolled.
Comment by Flitcraft — February 19, 2008 @ 11:42 pm
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