In a previous piece I wrote about how history has always belonged to those who have the power to both write it their way and then get their own versions of events in front of the public. Itβs been that way since the advent of the printed word and certainly America has not been immune to the power of the press to bend and shape narratives in service to the desired viewpoints of those who have influence over it.Β
But the best parts of our news reporting industries have also, over the years, developed an earned reputation based on a legacy of often enough delivering to the public accurate and reliably unbiased versions of events.Β
The New York Times and The New Yorker sit at the zenith of what American journalism has to offer a world of readers seeking to possess the best information with which to form their perspectives on the shared human experience we are all a part of and Iβm a long time subscriber to both the newspaper of record and the worldβs most esteemed news and culture magazine.
So I should point out that I take no pleasure in writing pieces exposing what I believe are the gross journalistic shortcomings of those currently working for these, or any other, legacy news publications. The subjects of some of these articles of mine are reporters whoβve made their careers going after deserving targets, sometimes public figures and sometimes not, pouring through their stories and back stories looking for the wrongdoing, finding it, and then craftily and often artfully bringing the dirt to their venerable publications for all of us to consume.Β
Iβm not one of those reporters. It seems the life they lead is in their DNA. But it is not in mine. To say what Iβm doing here on my Substack pages is unpleasant work for me is an understatement. I wasnβt put on this earth to do this, to tear apart highly regarded journalists whose work I have undoubtedly admired in the past, or their publications which even the physical possession of in my hands I once so coveted and from which Iβve learned so much in my life.Β
Joan Didionβs Trouble in Lakewood was delivered to my own mailbox three decades ago as a New Yorker subscriber and introduced me to the most brilliant of writing minds but also helped form my budding understanding of the California Iβd chosen as my home. Janet Malcombβs The Silent Woman, dominating a New Yorker double issue, came right to my apartment here in Los Angeles one late summer day and changed my notion of what non-fiction writing could look like. I learned how to start an essay from pieces like these. How to talk directly to you, the reader. How to break off from that tone into a detached narrative and then how to come right back again. I went to a very fine writing school on the price of a New Yorker subscription. And so Iβm supremely thankful to both of these publications for what theyβve done to polish my mind and my skills.
But nevertheless, you should know how hard writing these pieces has been for me. And yes, Iβm angry. Iβm angry that any of this has to be done at all. Iβm angry that the truth about the origin of #MeToo wasnβt established and placed into the public record in real time back in October of 2017. But Iβm especially angry that, if all of this now MUST be done, that someone other than me isnβt tasked with doing it. And, over the course of writing these pieces, I will readily admit that Iβve wanted everyone reading them to feel my anger and my frustration and my pain.Β
But today, I also have to admit that, on this Thanksgiving 2022, as susceptible to the power of suggestion as I surely must be, Iβm finding that Iβm mostly just thankful.
What Iβm most thankful about, other than the undeserving treasure that is my precious wife, is that Iβm still here. Iβm still healthy in both mind and body. Iβm in solid physical shape. I still have my sense of humor. What has happened to me, as detailed on this Substack site, has not broken me. Five years of being ghosted by the New York Times and The New Yorker, publications I have so admired in my life, and the very writers who so thoroughly investigated Harvey Weinstein and who now have seen their hard work immortalized on film by the very industry that Harvey dominated for so longβ¦ none of this has broken me. Thatβs a tribute to where I come from and how I was raised and by whom. And today, Iβm thankful for all of it.Β
Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.Β
donald barnat
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