Alice Klein's rhetorical vapidity

quote:

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Originally posted by QatzelOk:
[b][b]My criticism of Ms. Klein's writing isn't about her politics, it's about her crudely crafted writing and the way in which she proselytizes in a really transparent, unclever way. Her columns are never provocative or entertaining - just really, really bland and almost mind-numbingly predictable and partisan.[/b]

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There is a lot of crudely crafted journalism today. Journalists routinely rely on common cliched expressions, aphorisms and metaphors to make complex ideas simple, and to fit them into very restricted space requirement. A cliched expression is an icon as much as it is anything else, like a stop sign, or a yellow light that instantly relay implied and generally understood meaning.

The difference between journalism and creative writing is that the purpose of journalism is conveying information clearly and simply to an wide audience, not making critical breakthroughs in art.

Klein's work is by no means exceptional in this regard, and not even on babble. For instance consider Mallick's use of "pram faced" and "White Trash vote".

[ 29 October 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
[b]She's certainly managed to insight a lot of critical response from babblers.[/b]

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M. Spector, you give me groan pains.

[ 29 October 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]

Ya but it was hilarious when she did it.

Obama is not Marxist.

Nothing there.

Thanks. Well ok, kind of mixed blessing. I am not sure I am better for having seen it. How is this related to Klein?

Surely you can come up with a better way to describe what is being done there, than to call it [i]"high-school girl-clique investigative techniques"[/i]. I would actually characterize it as McCarthyte red-baiting, which it is.

But I guess your inference now is that Klein can be dismissed because of her [i]"high school girl clique"[/i] reporting. I guess I am a little disappointed that the thread has taken this turn, and it seems we are heading in precisely the direction some here critiqued in an earlier thread, about thread titles and the use of the term "vapidity."

I disagreed that there was anything particularly sexist about the term "vapidity", but I noted that the context of such descriptions indicates where they are really coming from.

[ 01 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

And, now you are moving into the realm of blond jokes I see.

[ 01 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

Lets see Klein is "vapid". She engages in "high school girl clique" reporting. She compares to TV journalist who is notable for her "fabulous bleached blond hair". No comment on Kleins "frizzy brow hair" thankfully. Is there no end to the pejorative diminishing language you are willing to shovel here?

I thought you were opposed to cliched writing? Did you come up with "fabulous bleached blond hair" all on your own?

Let me know when the literature begins, or even better, some kind of serious commentary on Klein's writing that moves beyond the aesthetic of women's hair styles.