December 16, 2004
Punting World
Being home, and not having brought much besides calculus and chemistry as reading material, I picked up the latest issue of World Magazine. World has significant connections with my alma mater by means of individuals holding positions of influence at both places (I'm pretty sure Olasky is on the board, but I could be wrong, and the Belz family are scions).
Holy. Crap. I found precisely one piece in the entire magazine that was worth more than the printing costs. The rest were downright awful. A review... No, wait, that would be too generous. A smear of Sideways, the primary beef having nothing to do with, say scripting, or dialog, or characterization, or cinematography, but, wait for it... cussing. Yeah, that's right. The characters cuss too much. Thank you, World, for your brilliant and incisive cultural analysis. The music analysis isn't much better. Now where's that airsickness bag I had...
The news briefs were depressingly out of date, though I must say that as I rarely of ever go to print sources for news anymore, this may just be a fact of the medium.
Gene Edward Veith's piece on Kinsey was as predicted: drivel. It is a textbook example of taking one's audience for granted as an excuse for not actually coming up with analysis. Protestations of "serious intellectual conversation" aside, this is anything but that. His review of I am Charlotte Simmons, Tom Wolfe's new novel, as glaringly out of pace with the way the book has been received elsewhere. The review, embedded in a section entitled "Conformity on campus", which does address some issues that are important to me, even if it does so thoughtlessly, takes seriously what everyone else I've come across - in person or in print - thinks is overblown and inaccurate.
On the whole, the magazine is the most biased thing I've read in months, and as you can tell by reading my archives, I read a lot of biased stuff. But the tone of self-righteousness and arrogance I get from World is just nauseating. Suffice it to say that I won't make the mistake of picking it up again.
I couldn't agree more. Christians who are serious about interacting with the culture around them aren't helped one bit by most things in that magazine. It is probably most helpful for understanding how the right-wing politico-christian subculture is currently thinking. All in all, I'm very disappointed with World Mag.
Posted by: Justin at December 16, 2004 11:04 AMI hold that American print and broadcast media in general is a pretty useless source of information, with a few occassional exceptions which prove the rule. I'd rather read the Economist.
Posted by: kathryn at December 18, 2004 2:05 AMIt is amazing how such astute, insightful brains can pick apart something they find less than acceptable. I DISAGREE WITH Ryan D. and with those who agree with him. And yet, I wonder if you would be critical of those of us who find World a pleasant peace of literature to read in light of the fact that few, if any, other weekly news magazines are worth reading. World does not seek to compete with the internet news or with full books or daily newspapers or magazines or other more in-depth means of communication. Once Joel Belz wrote that no one should look to a magazine to do what a book or in-depth study can do. Your criticism is based on a false standard for such a magazine. It would be like me writing such a stinging criticism of davidson.chattablogs.com because it isn’t nearly as complete, insightful and inclusive as The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal. YOU ARE OFF BASE AND ARE CALLED OUT ON THIS ONE no matter what team you root for.
Posted by: CarlCR at December 18, 2004 10:00 AMRyan,
CarlCR posted the same comment over on subcurrents coast to coast after I read and mentioned your post over there. We've got a couple of interesting comments...
Posted by: Justin at December 18, 2004 1:33 PMAnd I quote: "World does not seek to compete with the internet news or with full books or daily newspapers or magazines or other more in-depth means of communication."
Whaa? First of all, you're just wrong. World is self-consciously and directly competing with the other newsweeklies, such as Time, Newsweek, and US News. They are very clear about this, and make a pretty big point of comparing circulation stats when appropriate. It's not a book or a daily, but it is most certainly a weekly magazine, and needs to be held to the same standards as other weekly magazines. Granted, they're trying to do something specific with their message, but that's no excuse for the atrophied or vestigal journalism that they put out on a regular basis.
Second, I do understand that the newsweekly format isn't the place for extended essays on individual movies. It's the place for spot reviews. Which is okay. There's a place for that. Time and its ilk have these all the time. They suck, but that's why I read The Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker instead of the national news mags. World, on the other hand, pretends to review movies but doesn't. It counts cuss words and informs its readers of how said work of art does/does not conform to their unstated and extrordinarily narrow conception of what constitutes acceptable Christian behavior. This is not a review or cultural criticism, even though it acts as if it were. This is simplistic garbage.
And frankly, "CarlCR", the all caps aren't helping you much. No one else here is pissed off. Why are you?
Posted by: ryan at December 18, 2004 2:20 PMSurely CarlCR stands for Carl Conning Ryan.
Posted by: rob at December 18, 2004 6:53 PM