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Joe the Plumber Goes to Israel |
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 by Michael Weiss, January 8, 2009 |
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My former employer Pajamas Media has decided to dispatch Joe the Plumber to Israel as a roving correspondent to, as he puts it, let "Average Joes' share their story." The inevitable fallout when a PR neutron bomb like this goes off always puts me in mind of the Wolf and Sheepdog cartoon series Warner Bros. used to run. You know the routine, provided your childhood wasn't stunted and deprived: two permanent adversaries clock in each day and exchange morning pleasantries ("G'day Ralph, G'day Sam") before setting to their predictable work. The so-called "liberal elite" must snigger and snark about a duplicitous, posturing everyman who shilled for John McCain pretending he has any credentials whatsoever to be a war reporter. Conservative populists must then rail against said elite, citing the duplicity and unabashed political bias of the "MSM" (that's mainstream media to you laymen), while claiming that Joe represents a silent majority of Americans and is thus every bit as entitled to cover the Gaza conflict as are, say, Wolf Blitzer and Ted Koppel.
Lost in the melee is the graver question of whether or not a time of war is a time for cultural point-scoring. There is simply no way that PJM didn't prefigure the tongue-in-cheek headlines that would follow this announcement, which has unintentionally vitiated the blog network's stated purpose of standing up for Israel. Joe's become the story, if not the spectacle.
This is not is not to say that a plumber might not do good work as a war reporter, or that, conversely, opposition to his appointment reflects latent or manifest class antagonism. Thomas Paine was a staymaker before he was a pamphleteer, but he was not taken seriously by publishers--nor did he expect to be--until he had actually produced a pamphlet worth reading. He was also a radical revolutionary on two continents.
But gone, it seems, is the skepticism of classical conservatism, which saw the extolling of boldness and defiance for their own sake as hazardous traits of adolescence, designed to be outgrown--and where they weren't, out-argued. What would Allan Bloom think about Joe on the frontlines? Does it even matter anymore?
Fortunately, at least one member of the right intelligentsia, Commentary's Eric Trager, is not so enthused about Conservativism 2.0's descent into tabloid punditry:
[I]t seems as though Joe will only contribute to the very problem that so many in the blogosphere have harped on for so long-namely, that Middle East reporters frequently arrive in the region with no frame of reference and/or obscene biases. Indeed, will Joe be any more capable than the average MSM correspondent of reading an Israeli newspaper; or interpreting a mosque sermon on Palestinian television; or assessing the strategic significance of a given Israeli operation or Hamas rocket-attack? It seems highly improbable, to say the least. And then there’s his prior claim that a vote for Barack Obama is a “vote for the death of Israel” - is this the kind of thing that credible reporters typically say?
And this hints at the paradoxical nature of the blogosophere. It has set itself up as a dynamic and formidable media anti-establishment, unencumbered by corporate prejudices or even standards of style and tone. Though its virtues have been over-sung -- blogs haven't spelled the end of newspapers anymore than television eclipsed radio's appeal, and there will always be a place, pace Jeff Jarvis, for trained and skilled investigative reporters, without which blogs would have nothing to fisk, praise or seeth against -- what has happened has been a kind of mixed-bag synthesis. Corporate financing, wouldn't you know it, kicked in (see HuffPo's market-immune windfall) and with it came a host of new prejudices impelling the upkeep of the "brand," if often at the expense of truth or intellectual honesty. Also, the advent of blogging as an extended arm of the dead-tree press now signals that the citizen journo has been coopted by the professional corps he purports to hate, though this has seldom led to the professionalization of the citizen journo. Claims of knowing what the hell one is talking about are at least as grossly exaggerated in cyberspace as they are in the op-ed page of the New York Times.
Trager's colleague Abe Greenwald, who I should add is a friend as well as a former Jewcy contributor, defends the plumber selection, writing "if there’s anything we can afford less of in discussing the Middle East it’s 'expertise.'" Greenwald has in mind John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, whose joint thesis was widely discredited in print publications and by other "experts" (Walter Russell Mead doesn't blog yet, does he?) But he might have also mentioned Juan Cole and Marc Lynch, two names previously unknown outside of the Arabist quadrants of the academy who have since attained a measure of celebrity owing exclusively to their personal blogs. This is the new form of "expertise," and guess what? It's no less suspect than the old.
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François Blumenfeld-Kouchner
Michael Weiss
I thought the guy said that "you don't want my opinion on foreign policy"?
Yes, but that was a few months ago. No memory on the interwebs.
Herbert Kaine
I trust the plumber over any of the mainstream journalists that are routinely sent to the Middle East. These days, because of the blurring of journalism and advocacy, journalism as a profession ranks just above prostitution. Indeed, they have many features in common
Alcove-One
"..posturing everyman who shilled for John McCain pretending he has any credentials whatsoever to be a war reporter.."
As opposed to the posturing and overpaid elites who shilled for Barak Obama pretending they have credentials as impartial reporters?
I don't think Joe will do much harm to the massive scrum of rabid anti-Israel BBC reporters who usually have the Gaza beat.
Alcove-One
.".psychotic Zionist rathole..."
Very charming. That reads like a subtitle from the German produced
"The Eternal Jew".
Move along moderators, nothing to see here.
Michael Weiss
David N. Friedman
Michael Weiss is unusual on Jewcy since he has integrity and even asks questions instead of merely presently some liberal tripe and running away. Michael Weiss is the best Jewcy has offered.
Now to the question he poses, sure, why not? As Jow has explained, his turn as a public figure has on the one had, ruined his career as a plumbing business owner but has elevated him as a rather conservative man on the street person. His timing is fine given the trouble that has befallen the journalistic trade and he is trying to make hay out of his fifteen minutes of fame by trying to stretch it to more. I think it is fine since he will have to prove more now than ever that he is more than an average Joe.
Joe is, as Michael Weiss suggests, "no less suspect" than the rest of the crowd and if there is value in "perspective" and knowledge of the area and the various players--there is more value in honesty and integrity. The media has been burned by their love affair with leftist ideals and Obama--the blogs have taken off--and if some blog in competition with other blogs will pay Joe something to report--I doubt he will get rich and his writing will have to be as good as the rest of the crowd in the blogosphere.
Alcove-One
If we must be lectured by Annie Lennox about Gaza, why not Joe who at least is one of the little people that mega wealthy celebraties like Lennox are apparently so concerned about.
Michael B
Minimum, it would take two or three thousand words to respond in full. In lieu of that, two or three comments,
1) In what sense journalism - and certainly so in its present state - is a profession in any very meaningful sense is itself debateable. It's something of an art and a craft, but in what sense it's a "profession" (cf. medical practitioners) is open to discussion. That takes nothing away from those journos who do require high standards of themselves, but in what very meaningful sense it is a profession is open to doubt.
2) This is not a "grave" question. People, including those who generally agree with Joe's sentiments and opinings, understand that Joe is not a trained journalist. They understand the pluses and they understand the minuses; the world of journalism and the world at large are not being thrown into disarray with Joe's foray into Sderot and Israel.
3) Do inform us in what sense Joe is "duplicitous." He's not presenting himself as something he's not, nor is PJmedia presenting himself in that vein.
4) Given the abysmal state of journalism - and the Israeli stage easily ranks as a setting wherein journalism has set some particularly low standards in terms of geo-political reporting - how does Joe's presense and reporting compare unfavorably?
Daniel Koffler
Just saw this for the first time. Too bad it seems to have gone live before The Plumber declared that journalists shouldn't be permitted to report on war but rather the military should determine what information the public is allowed to have, and then proceeded to berate an Israeli cameraman for being insufficiently pro-Israel. I think you owe your readers a sequel, Mike.
Btw, Doesn't PJM have some citizen journalists (oh how I hate that phrase) who'd actually be well qualified to do some interesting original reporting, as opposed to making spectacles of themselves trying to establish their patriotic cred by denouncing their own country's foundational values. Was Michael Totten booked until Aught Ten? (Apropos, anybody care to lay odds that The Plumber is indeedaware that the USA and Israel are distinct countries? Given the observable evidence, it seems about a coin-flip to me.)
Does PJM know or care that this preposterous stunt comes at the expense of media dissemination of any intelligent, serious explication of Israel's position in the conflict?
P.S. Our friend Mr. Greenwald seems to be inching ever closer towards full-blown Palinism. Do I have this right? Walt, Mearsheimer, Cole, et al., are credentialed academic experts in various disciplines of foreign and international studies. W, M, C, et al. (taking it for granted FTSOA) are disreputable scoundrels who are not to be trusted or consulted. Ergo, all credentialed academic experts are disreputable and should not be trustworthy. QED.
I think I recognize the chord progression. Socrates is Greek. Socrates is a philosopher. Ergo, all Greeks are philosophers.
Well, that sounds convincing. What middle East policy definitely needs is zero input from anyone with deep and sophisticated knowledge of the history, language, culture, and politics of the region.
Michael B
Daniel, Joe subsequently retracted the particular statement in question, in fact apologized for aspects of it.
It also appears, mirabile dictu, the world of journalism and the world at large are surviving Joe's reports, an outcome one previously would not have been able to imagine, given Joe's "duplicity" and given the esteemed and unsoiled state of journalism prior to Joe's foray into Sderot, Ashkelon and other parts of Israel where he plied his "duplicity."