The Media's Trigger Finger
Good afternoon. Today’s Gene Pool is journalism-centered, and kinda obnoxiously opinionated. It is also personally risky because just about all my friends advised me not to write it because it will result in my being banished from polite society and destined to wander the Earth alone, wailing, in sackcloth, mortifying my flesh with a whip of sturdy sisal hemp. So of course I am writing it anyway; I’ve never liked polite society much and flagellation is kind of hot.
But first, a quick reminder: We have a new, streamlined system here! The entirety of The Gene Pool is on this one Web page. The page will be long. But you will not have to leap to another page, and all the questions and answers will be here. After the intro (which you are reading now), there will be some early questions and answers -- and then I'll keep adding them as the hour progresses and your fever for my opinions grows and multiplies. To see those later Q&As, just refresh your screen every once in a while.
As always, you can also leave comments. They’ll congregate at the bottom of the post, and allow you to hector each other and talk mostly amongst yourselves. Though I will stop in from time to time.
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You can also ask questions here. They go to the same place, but if you are scared of orange buttons, you can do that other thing.
So. Here is my first savage hit on the media. The news out of Turkey and Syria today has been dreadful and devastating, and the media has done a good job covering it with the single exception of their naive reflexive caution, which always erupts like Vesuvius across the media landscape in the initial hours after something truly bad happens, like, say, the eruption of Vesuvius.
The first reports from CNN, for example, absurdly said that there were “at least 17 dead…”. The problem with this formulation — a journalistic mantra to “only write what you know for sure” — is that it was an obvious, transparent lie. We shouldn’t be in the lying business. We knew how terrible the death toll would be (over 5,100 as of this writing). I engaged my friend @bengreenman on Twitter about it (you should follow him, he is very entertaining) and he wrote back: “It's cautious and also callous, because all the uncounted are clearly out there …. They are slavishly fitting a headline to the limits of the current reporting.” (Please do not make the terrible mistake of confusing @bengreenman with benjamin weingarten (@bhweingarten), who is a far right conservative dickhead who I want to sue to stop using my surname.
The Turkey earthquake media phenomenon reminds me of a first-edition page one of The Washington Post on September 11-12, 2001, a beautifully, tragically composed front page which the newspaper proudly (and justifiably) displayed in their lobby for years, but that reported (I am recalling as best I can ) that at least “a hundred people” died. The thing is, we KNEW what the death toll was going to be, at least roughly. We watched firefighters ascending the stairs by the hundreds, and then the towers collapsing with almost all of them still in it along with thousands of trapped workers. But we in the news biz are sometimes addicted to the cowardly reliance on official reports. A death does not occur until Authorities confirm it has. So.
But that’s not my main beef today. My main beef — a veritable Chateaubriand — is a story in The Athletic, an excellent national sports magazine.
The story was by Dan Robson, a fine feature writer who did an elegant job on it. It’s about a man named Mark Pavelich, who was one of the heroes of the Miracle on Ice, the USA’s improbable defeat of Russia in the 1980 winter Olympics hockey semifinals. The headline was The quiet life and the sad death of the ‘Miracle on Ice’ team’s Mark Pavelich.
This was the top of the story:
On the last night of his life, Mark Pavelich played his guitar in his room at the veterans’ facility where he’d lived for the past six months. The notes were comforting to the housemate who paused just beyond the door. It was the kind of melody that drifted from Pavelich’s guitar each evening, nestling into a place that had become home to the wounded souls that found their way there.
But before reading that paragraph, and after reading the deliberately, strategically unspecific headline, at the very top of the story, the first bunch of words anybody read, the way they entered the story, the editors inserted this:
Editor’s note: This story addresses suicide and other mental health issues and may be difficult to read and emotionally upsetting.
I think you know where I am going with this, but I won’t discuss it until the questions begin, below. Anyway, I want to hear from you, first. So here we go with our POLL.
Poll question: Do you have any problem / complaint with the editor’s note atop this story? A: None whatsoever. It could help vulnerable people and doesn’t hurt anything significantly. B: A little, but the benefits outweigh any negatives. C: It’s infantilizing to the readers and probably destructive to the narrative.
Obviously, this is a larger issue. Trigger warnings. Further discussion is warranted. But this question applies to this example only.
That’s it, for the intro. See you below for the Q/s and A’s. There are a lot of them.
Oh, wait. One more thing, continuing my railing against the Fourth Estate, which I happen to otherwise love: Not everything is a valid political dispute, and we shouldn’t treat those as such. We seem to buy in too much to this idea. To vaccinate or not to vaccinate should not be political, it’s science. Climate change should not be political. It’s science. The idea that black people still feel the effects of centuries of discrimination is not political. It is social science and economic science. It’s okay to explain that these issues have become insanely politicized, but not to present it as a he-said, she-said, morally and intellectually even, reasonably debatable, discussion. I feel they should generally presented in the way we routinely note that when Trump makes a lying claim, he is lying.
I fear what the media is buying into, at least little bit, are people who do not want to confront things things that make them uncomfortable, or are inconvenient to them (welfare for the common good; Jimmy Carter’s just asking us to just wear sweaters for Chrissakes) by dishonestly hanging on to some phony conspiracy-anchored political pretext. It’s not just the right wing that does this. Liberals kinda bought into Communism because it seemed … fair and equitable. Liberals are not doing wonders with collegiate groupspeak.
Okay, on to the questions and answers. But before we begin, here’s an ugly orange button. It allows you the privilege of paying a very small amount of money for unlimited access to this venue, and your opportunity to vent freely at my idiocy and ignorant intemperate opinions. That ability may soon go away to non-subscribers. Get in on the action here before it is too late and you are banished to a substack Gene Pool wilderness of impotent wailing, sexual frustration and mortification of the flesh.
By way of practice, you can also now ask a question to be answered below:
Q: Okay, this is Gene. So, we’re gonna start with the issue of Trigger Warnings, specifically as represented by the example above. You will likely not be surprised where I stand on this. It might be generational, and I am old.
I see why it is an appealing editorial decision, but it is also, in my view, an expedient one, and as a feature writer — where subtlety and juxtaposition and narrative arc matters — it bothers me. And it also bothers me as an adult human. I do believe it is infantilizing the readers. I think it’s condescending. I also think it is inimical to journalism. I guess the best way I can explain this is with a personal example; my last story for The Post was this horrifyingly difficult thing to read, about how people routinely torture dogs by keeping them, 24-7, on ten-foot chains.
If the story had had a precede that warned people who love animals that the story might deeply disturb them, many fewer people would have read it, and they were precisely the people I WANTED to read it: Animal advocates who might not have known about this phenomenon, and might be galvanized into doing something about it. I WANTED it to disturb people. It disturbed me. This is kind of the point of journalism, sometimes. It is not a bad thing.
Anyway, obviously many of you will feel differently. This will sound callous, I know suicidal ideations are a real thing, and can be triggered. But there are similar triggers everywhere in life. You disagree. (To clarify, I have no problem with stories that carry a little notice at the end giving phone numbers, and websites to people suffering from emotional problems, depression, etc.) It’s the precedes that bother me.
I got in touch with Dan Robson, the author of the story, in an email exchange, and I think it is revealing. I asked him if he approved of the editor’s note, and he initially said he had no problem with it. He wrote:
Yes, I am okay with the warning at the top of the story. While most people won’t be affected by the content of the story, there might be some who struggle with suicidal thoughts. I don’t think it takes away from the story, or the integrity of the journalism, to offer that kind of fair warning. I feel the same about stories that deal with sexual abuse. I view it as a “this is what’s to come” preamble. While it might have limited impact, I can’t think of any reason why it would be problematic to include. I’m curious, what are your concerns about it?
I answered:
Like all good writers, you structured the story in a certain way. Your choices were not haphazard or incidental to how you wanted people to read it. You did not talk about his suicide until you wanted to reveal it. You told it at exactly the right time. But the trigger warning said HE'S GONNA KILL HISSELF! I also find the entire impulse to do this sort of thing infantilizing to the reader. You know? ALERT: This narrative about Jake Barnes might disturb some people who have had their balls blown off in the war....
Or, alert, it may be disturbing to read about the sled, which by the way was named Rosebud, for people with serious mental issues concerned with childhoods lost to lifetimes of avarice....
Dan responded:
Fair. There can be an extreme to it, and it’s hard to determine where the draw the line on what requires a warning and what doesn’t. For a writer, it can seem like it might distract from the narrative arc and nuance of what you hope is a captivating story. I don’t know what the solution is, because there is often a call for these warnings that follow difficult stories. Perhaps it’s just a warning that the story involves subject matter that some might find upsetting (without being so specific.) When writing about a topic that’s a sensitive like this, I am wary about the effects that the story might have. But then, there is no way of really knowing. I’m curious about what other outlets do in these situations.
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Actually, I do have an answer for that last issue. The New York Times also wrote about Pavelich before the Athletic did. Also withheld the suicide angle for narrative reasons. No trigger warning.
Q: What's the best and worst part of being a grandparent?
A: There is only one bad part, and it is kind of negligible. It is when you are babysitting so ma and pa can have a few hours for dinner and a show. And the kids — wonderful, exuberant kids — are five and three. And after 17 hours, you realize only one hour has passed.
Q: I picked up a book from one of those tiny libraries people put in their yards. It’s titled World Class Canadian Cuisine and was written by “The Best of Canadian Cooking From Canada’s Olympic Chefs.” My question to you, Gene: there’s a Canadian cuisine?
A: I did some research for you. I found the Wiki page for Canadian Cuisine, and read it top to bottom. It is quite long and detailed and celebratory. Feel free to look it up. But the bottom line — you have to intuit this — is that there is no Canadian cuisine. There are things that SOUND like Canadian cuisine — “Prince Edward Island mussels,” but they are just mussels. From Prince Edward Island.
Also there is “poutine,” which is french fries and gravy and cheese curds, and I will not dignify it by calling it “cuisine.”
Not long ago Rachel and I went to Halifax, and saw this sign of local cuisine.
We also saw this street performer, Sara Twister, an acrobat who forced her entire body through a regular sized unstrung tennis racquet, and then used a bow and arrow to pop a balloon off a man’s head with her feet while upside down on a teetering pedestal.
Q: Will newspapers ever start using copy editors again, or are they just waiting for readers who care about proper English usage to die off?
A: We’re all already dead, mostly.
Q: How ofTen do you get your hair cut, or do you have a cat who just chews on it when it's getting in your eyes? No offense meant, but it is creative.
A: I am deeply offended by this question. I do not have a cat gnaw my hair off. I do it myself, with a toenail clipper.
Q: If you could live your life over again, what would you do differently? (Randy from Burke, VA)
A: I would not have asked Suzanne Gottfried out on a date in high school. She was way out of my league, and it was disaster.
Q: Do you have a favorite FUN article you wrote? Not your prize winning stuff, but the articles you write for laughter (yours, ours, everyone else in between).
A: This might not be my most brilliant column of all time, but it is my favorite fun column, regarding the time The Post paid to send me to visit a whorehouse.
Q: Hey Gene, Old Zeb here. A few years ago I sent you a song parody I wrote about Dr. Johannes Aas, MD, the fecal transplant researcher. I never got a reply. To be fair I sent it to your WaPo addy, so they may have spiked it. Or... do you find parody lyrics beneath your already accommodating humor level? You hate the song Copacabana? You on Barry M. Payroll? I know the lyric was of good quality because a friend of mine who is a gastroenterologist thought it was hilarious, and we all know they are the life of any cocktail party.
A: I have no memory of this, but you are giving me an opportunity to link to what might be my SECOND most fun column.
Q: Today I found out that there is a former MLB player by the name of "Butts Wagner." ...That is all.
A: Thank you. I do note that he played for The Brooklyn Bridegrooms, one of the best team names ever. Some other great baseball player names are Johnny Dickshot, Chicken Wolf, Dick Pole, Wonderful Monds and, of course, Cannonball Titcomb.
Q: Gene --- What attracted you to clock repair and (I presume) clock collecting ? Dale of Green Gables
A: True fact: When I was about 11, I secretly took apart my parents’ alarm clock, and could not put it back together, and lied about having dismantled it, and was busted, and decided that would never, ever again happen to me. So I started collecting broken clocks and fixing them, and pretty much learned myself (there was no Internet) but did it really stupidly, including following some advice to clean the movement in gasoline, which works but can rather easily explode. Eventually, in my 20s, I took a course in clock repair with a guy named Nat Litman, and actually learned how to do this thing. Nat, I believe, is still alive. He would be about 167.
The thing that nailed me for life was opening up a French clock and learning, from an inscription inside, that it had been last worked on by someone in Paris during the French Revolution.
Q: No, no, no. Jake Barnes had his PENIS shot off in The War. Not his balls. He still had testosterone coursing through his veins, which was the uh, hard part. I hope I am not shocking you or anyone else who actually read the book. StephanieMD.
A: I WILL ONLY ACCEPT THIS AS AUTHORITATIVE IF YOU CONFIRM YOU ARE AN MD AS A DOCTOR, AND NOT AS IN, LIVING IN MARYLAND.
Q: For trigger warnings, I wish there was an opt-in feature at the top of the article. If you are likely to be triggered by something, you can click an expansion button at the top of the article and see what triggering topics are covered. If, like me, you prefer to go into the story as-written by the author with no preconceived notions regarding what you will find, you don't have to expand that box. I feel this would cover both sides of the equation better than the current status-quo of choosing one group or the other.
A: Okay, I am informed by a person a good deal younger than I am that this is a good idea. I still am flabbergasted by this whole idea. Somehow we survived since Chaucer without trigger warnings. Yes, I am a horrible person.
Q: From a dear reader: I remember crying when your chat disappeared--it was one more loss of something meaningful during the worst of the pandemic. How and with whom did you figure out this successor?
A: Two things happened in quick succession: The executives at Substack contacted me and asked if I’d be interested, and then the Washington Post idiotically killed The Style Invitational, and I got really angry and called my good friend Pat Myers, who informed me that she was kinda relieved at no longer having this very time consuming and stressful job, and then I said, let’s do this together and it took her about two seconds to say yes.
Q: In reading the results of the Joint Legislation contest, I was surprised to see a racial slur had made it's way into the results. Do you realize that Welch used in the way it was used is derogatory toward Welsh people? I wouldn't submit a joke like that any more than I would say something about Jewing someone down on a price or getting gypped on a deal because of where these terms come from. Did you not know this was a racial slur? Jon Gearhart Des Moines, IA
A: Pat and I hereby apologize profusely for possibly having insulted all members of the Welsh … race? A special abject apology goes out to William, the Prince of Wales.
Q: It's me again with the suggestion of an opt-in box. I don't think trigger warnings are necessary, either, but I've also never felt like I needed a trigger warning to avoid panic attacks or prevent me from engaging in actual self-harm. I know rape survivors who feel re-traumatized when unexpectedly stumbling upon a depiction of rape. I don't want to be a jackhole to those people, although on my own I lean that way. In contrast, I have no patience for people who just don't want to be uncomfortable. Life is uncomfortable. That doesn't mean we're well-served to avoid these painful topics. Or even barely painful topics. I post in forums where people demand trigger warnings for the pettiest nonsense. I saw one recently for "financial privilege" when asking for travel advice. GTFOH.
A: I do think this is a generational thing. And I’m not sure the yoots are wrong, exactly.
The results of the poll so far either mean this is an older-skewing audience or I am not as hated has I seem to be. I’m guessing the first.
Q: The headline, without the trigger warning, already signals "Death Ahead." Warning enough for many, of course. Can we NOT cater to the most vulnerable among us and ask them to take good care in what they read? I am sympathetic to surprises that might crop up in a long story on another subject, of course, [happy happy life of a sports star and OMG! rape!] and if writing for impact of the main point actually not being known up front, that's slightly different than hard, cold news. The story of a life, and a death, is more than just news, right?
A: I realize that my reaction is shaped, perhaps disproportionately, by the fact that I am a feature writer and have been all of my adult life. You learn to craft stories with sometimes exquisite care, for dramatic effect, and it can just be destroyed by a stupidly revealing headline or, in this case, a warning. One of the stories I am most proud of is this one, about Roger Maris. It is very short. I had to fight to not allow the headline and caption to reveal the central fact, which was, in fact, by design, the last few words of the piece.
Q: Many years ago, I boarded a plane in Miami to fly home to D.C. As I’m wont to do, I turned to my neighbor upon sitting and asked if she was traveling for business or pleasure. She said she had gone to Miami on vacation. I asked her how her vacation had gone. She proceeded to tell me that her vacation was fine in parts but that her hotel’s neighborhood was a bit sketchy and dangerous. She followed up this remark by saying, “I stayed near a synagogue and, you know, the Jews.” Aghast, I calmly turned to her with no small measure of snark, understatement, and annoyance and said, “Well, I’m half-Jewish, and I assure you you’re in no danger.” Oh my gosh—she started backpedaling like Lindsey Graham caught shopping at Sephora. She suddenly suffered from diarrhea of the mouth, explaining how she didn’t mean this and hadn’t wanted to imply that. She finally ended her shame-filled response with what I think perfectly summarizes the cause of ignorance in our nation: “I’m from a small town in Ohio, and I don’t get out much.” I thought, there it is. A pure crystallization of the culprit. It’s so much easier to hate from afar. So I ask you, Gene, knower of all things, wouldn’t mingling with, instead of staying away from, MAGA types help solve our nation’s problems and allow people who “don’t get out much” to see that people are people? If you agree, how would you go about orchestrating such a program? As an American who has lived abroad, I’ve sometimes thought every American should be required (or at least strongly encouraged) to do so. As the great Mark Twain said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” Thoughts?
A: I totally agree with almost everything you say here. I do think that mistrust of The Other TENDS to be less a factor in large urban areas (I know this is a perilous generalization) because no one is really an Other.
But. I don’t think there is room for accommodation with the MAGA crowd. I just don’t. Listen to them.
Q: I have a very important etiquette question for you, Gene. When one's cohabitants leave the cohabitated space, how long is it proper to wait before one begins masturbating?
A: A very fine and dignified question. But I don’t really understand the pretext of the question. Why is the answer not, say, “four seconds.”
Q: Curious from Bite, ME: In your opinion, is the National Prayer Breakfast the most important National Prayer Meal of the day?
A: No, it is National Prayer Midnight Munchies Raid on the refrigerator.
Q: I'm reeling from the lady who found the Jewish areas of Miami sketchy and dangerous. I have never been afraid near a synagogue. Is this a thing? Points for having a surprising racism, anyway.
A: I meant to mention this. It reminds me of a point I made a few years ago, about the term “shanda for the goyim,” which Jews use when a Jew gets in trouble publicly, and Jewish people hate that because they see it as a betrayal: An opportunity for non-jews to point to the malefactor and say “See how bad Jews are?” (Yes this is very neurotic but I suspect other groups share it.”
The key is, the transgression must be something for which Jews are stereotypically blamed. Madoff, a money grubber, etc. But I argued that Son of Sam, David Berkowitz, was not a shanda, because no one things, “Those damn Jews who are always doing serial murders.”
Q: What with the rather prominent explosion of a balloon over North America this week, now would be a good time for you to tell us the story about your chat with John Prine.
A: Here it is, in all its humiliating glory. And we’re down for the day. Thank you all.
Old Zeb: Gene is not into song parodies. But The Invitational will continue to do parody contests; we’ll give the Czar the week off.
One perk that comes with becoming a grandparent is, for once in your life, you get to choose your own name. Yeah, some people have a “stage name,” but for most of us, a new name is considered an “alias,” with sketchy undertones. I thought about my new grandmother name for 8 months and settled on XOXO, pronounced “ZoZo.” Fun to say, easy to write, and you know, hugs and kisses. It has worked well.