Sunday, October 24, 2004

More Okrent

Cadenhead writes him a letter. And, here's Schwenk's open letter in case anyone's missed it.

As I wrote in comments, given the imbalance of power there's no real equivalent I can think of, but the best I can come up with is this: Putting Schwenk's name and city in his column is roughly equivalent to putting up Okrent's name, cell number, home phone, and address on the screen during the Superbowl in response to his criticisms of the coach.

Okrent's set a new standard for the reader's advocate - say mean things to us and we will try to destroy you. Not since the good old days when Susan Schmidt was contacting people's employers after receiving harsh emails have the guardians of our discourse proven themsleves to such thin-skinned thugs, drunk on power.

The pitiful part is Okrent knows he fucked up, but he'll never admit it, much as the Times will never revisit its Whitewater reporting with any honesty.


Make sure to check out the secret diary of Adam Nagourney!