August 21st, 2012
In the course of castigating Niall Ferguson for not loving Obama, Ta-Nehisi Coates gives this little Cliffs Notes version of his CV:
When I worked at the Village Voice back in the early aughts, there were fact-checkers. When I worked at TIME (Newsweek‘s direct competitor) in the mid-aughts there were fact-checkers. Some of this may have changed, due to budgets.My freelance experience has pretty much been the same–everyone from VIBE to the The New York Times Magazine had fact-checkers. The Times’ edit page did not have dedicated fact-checkers, but they did have editors fact-checking. They asked for sources, looked themselves, and followed up with me in instances where I forgot to cite a source, or none could be found.When I arrived at The Atlantic in 2008, I was subjected to arguably the most thorough fact-checking procedure in all of popular publishing. That meant submitting an annotated version of the story with all sources cited, turning over all my notes, transcripts or audio, and the names and numbers of each of my sources, all of whom were called to confirm the veracity of my quotes. When I freelanced for The New Yorker, it was pretty much the same deal and the same level of scrutiny.
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Hey, just give the fella another 20 years and he could be *Jack Shafer*–whoooo
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Is there a bigger hack than TNC? He’s never once questioned the liberal African American orthodoxy or explored the disfuntion of inner city black culture except to blame mean republicans.
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Coates takes issue with Ferguson’s deceptive writing, not the conclusion bolstered by that writing.
Please also explain why those paragraphs are depressing. You can call me an ignorant ass en route if it helps.
I will admit to not having read Coates until his work with Atlantic but unless he suddenly turned into a damn good writer at his latest position his career has been anything but “charmed.”
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[…] If only he’d had a moment to spare for America’s great young talent, Ta-Nehisi Coates. […]
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“instances where I forgot to cite a source, or none could be found.”
None could be found. Hmm. Is that code for having an opinion? Or is Lehrer-Glass territory?
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If I knew anything about Facebook or Twitter, I would “like” this comment, J.E. I’m still seething that I BOUGHT the Lehrer book. So, “Like.”
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Thank you, G.W. You know, I bought the Lehrer, too, right before the fan started spewing…and find that I’m enjoying it more (in small bites) since then. Right after the download, I thought it was tough sledding, like Castor oil. So I stopped reading. After the scandal, I picked it up again. Now, every night before nodding off, I read a couple of paragraphs. That’s all. I can’t tell what the mechanism is, but there’s something so anodynic about it, my sleep has improved greatly. Maybe it has something to do with his “facts” merging seamlessly with his new-and-improved reality–which is to say, the whole book is very much like a dream.
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I’ll say this: I’ve spent 40 years reading Civil War history, and when Coates talks about the Civil War, I pay respect. The man has done his reading and knows what he is talking about.
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As late as 2008 Ta-Nehisi Coates, who seems to be more interested in antebellum southern America than any other topic, hadn’t heard of Eugene Genovese, and as of now he still hasn’t read him (although I think he started and stopped one of his books). This leads me to be skeptical that his reading on any subject is particularly deep.
That said, I enjoy it when he talks about the Civil War as well.
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Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker articles must be fact-checked by the perpetually hung-over and/or strung-out “you” from Bright Lights, Big City.
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Well he “strikes” again.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/09/fear-of-a-black-president/309064/
I’ll say this, seldom is there somebody who can write so eloquently yet with such paranoia and spout such nonsense.
mrmandias August 21, 2012 at 7:15 pm
Melanin. Sometimes it doesn’t suck to have it.