Patterico's Pontifications

10/2/2005

Criticizing vs. Doing

Filed under: Blogging Matters,Media Bias — Patterico @ 12:38 am



Jeff Jarvis says that journalists give terrible interviews:

Two surprising truths about journalists:

First, they give bad interview. You’d think all those years on the other end of the pencil would teach them how to give clear, concise answers to questions … and how to beware of reporters’ tricks. But, no. Reporters being interviewed tend to ramble and enjoy the attention a bit too much and, like a drunken criminal, say too much. That’s why media companies give reporters media training, which should be too ironic to bear. And I suspect that is also why media companies fear giving reporters blogs.

Second, reporters have thin skins. You’d think that all those years of probing, criticizing, attacking, and lampooning others would give them Teflon skin. But, no, like a schoolyard bad boy, if you confront them and criticize them back, they turn either weepy or prickly. Can give, can’t take.

I left this comment:

Not entirely off-topic, just analogous to your comment that journalists make bad interviewees: lawyers make terrible witnesses. I have seen one or two testify and they always ramble and say too much — even when they spend their careers telling witnesses to answer only the question asked and keep answers bite-sized.

Just another case of it being easier to instruct others in how to do things than it is to do it right yourself.

Which got me thinking: there is a lesson there as well for us bloggers who are media critics. Yes, we criticize; yes, our criticisms are often on target; and yes, our targets are often quite arrogant. But — it is always true that, as I said in my comment, it’s easier to tell other people how to do it than it is to do it yourself.

Unpopular as this might sound to bloggers and blog readers, that is probably a lesson that we media critics should take to heart.

7 Responses to “Criticizing vs. Doing”

  1. This is an absolutely fascinating point – about both journalists and lawyers.

    Being a journalist myself, I intend to take it to heart.

    My own thinking is that the best way to be interviewed on any subject, in any role, is to sort of kick back and be yourself. The problem is that if the interviewer decides to get hostile, and suddenly you feel like you’re being grilled, what then? You’re probably doomed to stumble unless you’ve had years of practice.

    Jay D. Homnick (2d0407)

  2. I am an attorney who has testified twice as a witness. Once, when I was testifying at a trial (a client was suing his lawyer for malpractice, I had represented the other side in the case) the judge had to repeatedly tell me to “just answer the question”. The other time was at a deposition (basically the same situation as above). My partner, who was defending the depo, objected to a question on attorney/client grounds and instructed me not to answer. I piped up with “no, I can answer the question” and did. I thought he was going to kill me.

    So I guess I am “Exhibit A” for the “lawyers make lousy witnesses” rule.

    Roscoe (a7b277)

  3. Doctors and Nurses also make horrible patients.

    Al (00c56b)

  4. In 2001, I spent two days on the witness stand during a jury trial in federal district court in Los Angeles. I was testifying at the request of a former client who’d been badly abused by another company through bogus legal proceedings that were premised on their outrageous misreading of a document I’d drafted.

    After my direct examination by my former client’s then-current trial counsel had ended, his opponent (a/k/a the bad guys’ lawyer) started his cross-examination of me by saying: “Will you agree to give short answers to each of my questions, no more than 20 or 30 seconds?”

    I hadn’t quite yet gotten my mouth open to answer when the judge interrupted: “Counsel, you realize that you’ve got a lawyer on the stand, don’t you? Your request is not only unreasonable, but the Court takes judicial notice that compliance with it by any lawyer would be impossible!”

    (Big laugh from the jury.)

    Beldar (0537a0)

  5. I must be the worst interview in the world.

    See Dubya (c01825)

  6. Your point about its being easier to criticize is right. Blogs tend to be more hard-hitting than “main stream” media, and this is partly because bloggers- unlike journalists- often/usually don’t know the people they are writing about. This is sort of good, since it means they aren’t as susceptible to cronyism/clientism/being in bed with their sources. But it is also bad because with no danger of ever meeting the live humans they are trashing, bloggers can also be way nastier and less careful than “real”journos would have to be. (This is a larger issue, too, the breakdown of civility on the internet.) I noticed you were much more polite in your own LA Times oped article a few weeks ago than you are here on your blog!
    My own personal feeling is that you should not say on a blog or in an email something you would not say to the person you’re criticizing them if you were both on a panel together. That is more about form than about substance but I think it is a good test. Because if you don’t apply a test like that you get a little too over the top.

    civilblog (c4160b)

  7. Hey, they’re not so great at asking the questions, either. But I guess you’ve made that point.
    Ob, before I go: I’m a newspaper editor with 25 years experience… not that I’m proud of it (what’s to be proud of, these days?).

    soonerboomer (f2e14f)


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