Haitians Demand Newspaper Blankets
In your musk-scented Monday media column: A use found for print media, the Harper's editor firing saga continues, small stakes mean big arguments in journalism academia, and Howell Raines returns.
Military paper Stars and Stripes is finally delivering copies to the troops stationed in Haiti. If Haitians can use these papers to construct some sort of crude blanket, they will be the most useful print newspapers on the face of the earth.
Further word on last week's abrupt firing of Roger Hodge as Harper's Magazine editor: Everybody's a little scared of publisher Rick MacArthur, who fired Hodge and now seems to be the grand and only god of Harper's, and accordingly it seems that the majority of the staff is leaking snippy little things to the media (hello!), so today's NYT follow-up story is rife with backhanded insinuations that MacArthur is kind of unstable, as well as dumb. To both sides in this mildly alarming interoffice feud: We're here to listen.
Our reading of this incredibly long piece on the case of a J-school professor's disputed tenure hearings is that it's a case of the age-old question in academia: Which is more important, being a good teacher or not being an asshole in the teacher's lounge? The answer, of course, is it's more important to have the undergrads think you're "Cute."
Today's notable NYT op-ed contributor: Howell Raines, making his first(?) appearance as a writer for the paper since the whole unpleasant "You're fired as the top editor of the NYT, Howell" business. His piece is about the Greensboro sit-ins, which makes it hard to criticize. Can Andy Rosenthal still be trusted?