As readers of this blog know all too well, it is no friend of Thomas Friedman, author and op-ed writer for The NY Times. He is superficial and all too often glib and bereft of any critical analysis. He often comes across, as he did in Tahrir Square, as an American tourist posing as some sort of informed commentator. A book just out about Friedman does not paint a flattering picture of the man. truthout reports:
"What's scary about Thomas Friedman is not his journalism, with its underinflated insights and twisted metaphors. Annoying as his second-rate thinking and third-rate writing may be, he's not the first - or the worst - hack journalist.
What should unnerve us about Friedman is the acclaim he receives in political and professional circles.
Friedman's New York Times column appears twice a week on the most prestigious op-ed page in the United States; he has won three Pulitzer Prizes; his books are best-sellers; he's a darling of the producers of television news shows; and he fills lecture halls for a speaking fee as high as $75,000.
Although his work is stunningly shallow and narcissistic, Friedman is celebrated as a big thinker.
MSNBC's Chris Matthews was so excited after a 2005 "Hardball" interview with Friedman that he proclaimed: "You have a global brain, my friend. You're amazing. You amaze me every time you write a book."
How does a journalist with a track record of bad predictions and a penchant for superficial analysis - a person paid to reflect about the world yet who seems to lack the capacity for critical self-reflection - end up being treated as an oracle?
The answer is simple: Friedman tells the privileged, and those who aspire to privilege, what they want to hear in a way that makes them feel smart; his trumpeting of US affluence and power are sprinkled with pithy-though-empty anecdotes, padded with glib turns of phrases. He's the perfect oracle for a management-focused, advertising-saturated, dumbed-down, imperial culture that doesn't want to come to terms with the systemic and structural reasons for its decline. In Friedman's world, we're always one clichéd big idea away from the grand plan that will allow us to continue to pretend to be the shining city upon the hill that we have always imagined we were/are/will be again.
As a reporter, columnist, author or speaker, Friedman's secret to success is in avoiding the journalistic ideals of "speaking truth to power" or "afflicting the comfortable." Those ideals are too rarely met in mainstream journalism, but Friedman never goes very far beyond parroting the powerful and comforting the comfortable. Friedman sees the world from the point of view of the privileged, adopting in his own words the view of "a tourist with an attitude" when reporting on the rest of the world."
What should unnerve us about Friedman is the acclaim he receives in political and professional circles.
Friedman's New York Times column appears twice a week on the most prestigious op-ed page in the United States; he has won three Pulitzer Prizes; his books are best-sellers; he's a darling of the producers of television news shows; and he fills lecture halls for a speaking fee as high as $75,000.
Although his work is stunningly shallow and narcissistic, Friedman is celebrated as a big thinker.
MSNBC's Chris Matthews was so excited after a 2005 "Hardball" interview with Friedman that he proclaimed: "You have a global brain, my friend. You're amazing. You amaze me every time you write a book."
How does a journalist with a track record of bad predictions and a penchant for superficial analysis - a person paid to reflect about the world yet who seems to lack the capacity for critical self-reflection - end up being treated as an oracle?
The answer is simple: Friedman tells the privileged, and those who aspire to privilege, what they want to hear in a way that makes them feel smart; his trumpeting of US affluence and power are sprinkled with pithy-though-empty anecdotes, padded with glib turns of phrases. He's the perfect oracle for a management-focused, advertising-saturated, dumbed-down, imperial culture that doesn't want to come to terms with the systemic and structural reasons for its decline. In Friedman's world, we're always one clichéd big idea away from the grand plan that will allow us to continue to pretend to be the shining city upon the hill that we have always imagined we were/are/will be again.
As a reporter, columnist, author or speaker, Friedman's secret to success is in avoiding the journalistic ideals of "speaking truth to power" or "afflicting the comfortable." Those ideals are too rarely met in mainstream journalism, but Friedman never goes very far beyond parroting the powerful and comforting the comfortable. Friedman sees the world from the point of view of the privileged, adopting in his own words the view of "a tourist with an attitude" when reporting on the rest of the world."
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