May 9th, 2012
***Don’t read this without reading the update below.***
The guilds really do protect their own, don’t they? About the only two conservatives to agree that Naomi was kind-of, sort-of right to be fired because she committed a terrible sin are Professor Ann Althouse and Professor Alan Jacobs.
I’ve said lots of nice things about Jacobs over the years, and I’m not inclined to take all of them back. (Yet.) (I kid!) (Sort of.) I’d just like to point out the following. Here’s Jacobs criticizing Naomi in the comments on Rod Dreher’s blog yesterday:
I know and like Naomi, but I think her post was way out of line — especially written for a periodical run by and for academics. If there’s one thing that all academics ought to be able to agree on, it’s that you don’t criticize stuff you haven’t read. You just don’t, not ever. [emphasis mine]
Now, here’s Jacobs on his tumblr this morning, criticizing Naomi’s Chronicle post as well as her WSJ essay about the incident:
One more thing: people keep talking about Naomi being “fired,” but I would be surprised if she had been paid to write for the Brainstorm blog. Certainly that wasn’t her job; it was a gig at most. If she wasn’t paid, then I think that the Chronicle people could disinvite her from participating at any time, and for any or no reason. If they were paying her, though, the ethical standards for dismissal ought to be higher.
Wait a minute–didn’t Naomi say that she was being paid in her WSJ piece? Why yes, she did:
So last week, on the Chronicle’s “Brainstorm” blog (where I was paid to be a regular contributor) . . .
That’s from the second paragraph of her piece, five sentences in.
Jacobs tries to laugh off his mistake in an update by saying, “That’s what I get for reading another journalist’s summary of her op-ed instead of the op-ed itself. HAR.”
Really? That’s the best Jacobs can do? “HAR”? Twenty-four hours after he steps out and volunteers that “you don’t criticize stuff you haven’t read. You just don’t, not ever.”
At the very least, this completely undercuts either his argument or his standing to make it.
And at the worst? As I said, I’m not inclined to think the worst of Jacobs. But for anyone who is, this incident will do nothing to give them pause.
Update: I’m thrilled to report that this entire thing was a great big ball of nothing. Alan Jacobs has updated his post to note that when he said “That’s what I get for reading another journalist’s summary of her op-ed instead of the op-ed itself . . .” he was being ironical. Since that’s the case, I take back the entirety of the above. My criticism was never about the substantive argument over primary sources, but about the narrow case of my surmising–incorrectly–that Jacobs hadn’t read Naomi Schaefer Riley’s op-ed. Since it turns out he did, I take it all back.
Further, Jacobs tells me that my characterization of him as “kind-of, sort-of” thinking Naomi was right to be fired is way off base and that he does not believe that at all. My sincere apologies to him for this mischaracterization. I’ve never been so happy to be wrong.
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