Early Monday Smackdown: Methinks the New York Review of Books Is Scared of the Future--or Is It Scared of the Present?
The very, very sharp Ben Thompson smacks down the not-sharp-at-all Michael Massing:
Nothing captures disdain for digital media quite like not even bothering to name a mere blog!
http://t.co/28cPWlN3rq pic.twitter.com/k2I31BUf2m
— Ben Thompson (@benthompson) June 6, 2015We see what Michael Massing did there...
The reason for Michael Massing to fail to write "Ben Thompson" and "Stratechery" and provide the link: https://stratechery.com/2015/buzzfeed-important-news-organization-world/? That Michael Massing is, and wants to be perceived as, an asshole. Failure-to-properly-cite syndrome is an old disease, an old move in pseudo-intellectual discourse.
And it is a weak one.
I wonder why nobody at the New York Review of Books bothered to edit him, or even to tell Massing that this was not the way to introduce himself to readers searching for trusted information intermediaries?
Ben Thompson's point was:
The world needs great journalism, but great journalism needs a great business model. That’s exactly what BuzzFeed seems to have, and it’s for that reason the company is the most important news organization in the world...
Does Massing engage that point--acknowledge its existence, argue against it, or provide support for it--anywhere in his piece? No.
