{"id":9278,"date":"2011-12-20T15:29:34","date_gmt":"2011-12-20T20:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=9278"},"modified":"2011-12-20T15:42:59","modified_gmt":"2011-12-20T20:42:59","slug":"mcjournalism-the-unbearable-lightness-of-thomas-friedman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2011\/12\/20\/mcjournalism-the-unbearable-lightness-of-thomas-friedman\/","title":{"rendered":"McJournalism: The Unbearable Lightness of Thomas Friedman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The book review <a title=\"Article from Truth Out\" href=\"http:\/\/www.truth-out.org\/mcjournalism-unbearable-lightness-thomas-friedman\/1324406545\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>McJournalism: The Unbearable Lightness of Thomas Friedman<\/strong><\/a> comes from the <em>Truth Out<\/em> web site.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The fact that this three-time Pulitzer Prize winner&#8217;s writing qualifies as serious, award-winning journalism and punditry is why Bel\u00e9n Fernandez latest book, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.versobooks.com\/books\/1024-the-imperial-messenger\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work<\/strong><\/a> is such an important read.<\/p>\n<p>Fernandez writes that the point of her book \u201cis to demonstrate the defectiveness in form and in substance of [Friedman&#8217;s] disjointed discourse, and in doing so offer a testament to the degenerate state of the mainstream media in the United States.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I cannot believe that I have stumbled across a reviewer and an author that hold Thomas Friedman in the same low regard as I do.<\/p>\n<p>I like the description of the book on its web page at <a title=\"The web site for the book\" href=\"http:\/\/www.versobooks.com\/books\/1024-the-imperial-messenger\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Factual errors, ham-fisted analysis, and contradictory assertions\u2014compounded by a penchant for mixed metaphors and name-dropping\u2014distinguish the work of Pulitzer Prize\u2013winning New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>When I first heard Thomas Friedman being interviewed on the Charlie Rose show, I mistakenly thought he actually knew something about the Middle East. His prescriptions for the Middle East turned out to be nothing but baloney. Then he started touting his insights into the outsourcing of jobs from the United States. I recognized these &#8220;new&#8221; ideas that he was breathlessly touting to be something I had been observing and commenting on for more than 30 years from my perch in the high tech world. Thomas Friedman certainly holds himself in high regard. I am glad to see that there are many others who are not so easily fooled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The book review McJournalism: The Unbearable Lightness of Thomas Friedman comes from the Truth Out web site. The fact that this three-time Pulitzer Prize winner&#8217;s writing qualifies as serious, award-winning journalism and punditry is why Bel\u00e9n Fernandez latest book, The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work is such an important read. Fernandez writes that the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9278","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-stevegsposts","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9278"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9280,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9278\/revisions\/9280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}