Artemis: why on gopod’s green earth should we care about dictionary definitions? Have you ever met a lexicographer? Trust me when I say we don’t want those people running our lives.

“I would add that traditional just-the-facts reporting also fails catastrophically in explaining the continuing chaos that is Second Life.”

Second Life is not NEARLY as chaotic as the world, and RL news agencies manage to at least attempt to maintain journalistic non-partialism, even though they often fail at it. In fact, it’s that they keep that illusion that they just report facts that makes them journalists, just crappy ones. When you openly throw away the illusion, it’s not journalism anymore, it’s editorializing on events, or in other words blogging.

Here is your link:
http://www.amazon.com/Gang-That-Wouldnt-Write-Straight/dp/1400049830/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-9066097-2819319?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177899458&sr=8-1

Here is some promo stuff from the cover:

“Starting in 1965 and spanning a ten-year period, a group of writers including Tom Wolfe, Jimmy Breslin, Gay Talese, Hunter S. Thompson, Joan Didion, John Sack, and Michael Herr emerged and joined a few of their pioneering elders, including Truman Capote and Norman Mailer, to remake American letters. The perfect chroniclers of an age of frenzied cultural change, they were blessed with the insight that traditional tools of reporting would prove inadequate to tell the story of a nation manically hopscotching from hope to doom and back again—from war to rock, assassination to drugs, hippies to Yippies, Kennedy to the dark lord Nixon. Traditional just-the-facts reporting simply couldn’t provide a neat and symmetrical order to this chaos.”

I would add that traditional just-the-facts reporting also fails catastrophically in explaining the continuing chaos that is Second Life. Now if we could only replace Audrey in typesetting…

Why don’t you say that to him?

“And journalism is not about impartiality.”

From American Heritage Dictionary, Answers.com, thefreedictionary.com, and Merriam-webster’s definition of Journalism:

“3. The style of writing characteristic of material in newspapers and magazines, consisting of direct presentation of facts or occurrences with little attempt at analysis or interpretation.”

I agree that there’s no such thing as perfect impartiality, but what Journalism is an ATTEMPT at impartiality, Prokofy on the other hand, douses everything with a strong sense of opinion, analysis, and interpretation. What you’re talking about, isn’t journalism, it’s editorializing.

And journalism is not about impartiality. There is no such thing as impartiality, although yes, some editorial positions claim to be impartial, and/or fair and balanced. As our masthead indicates, we don’t roll with that deception.

The two points are related. The received wisdom is “impartial” and the people who disagree with it are “crazy” or “nutjobs” and certainly “not real journalists.” I’m allergic to that sort of talk, if you hadn’t guessed.

I used to take Prokofy seriously and respectfully, politely disagreed, offered serious viewpoints, treated Prokofy like we were both sane. And that kind of marginalizing, insulting, and attacks is what I got back. Even afterwards, I kept believing that maybe just MAYBE he wasn’t nuts and one could actually have a productive debate with him. But after years of evidence piling up, all I can see is that Prokofy does not run on that little agent we like to call “logic” and “reason”, i’ve seen him go into situations where he was 100% proven wrong, and still support his viewpoint with the same vitrol he started with, i’ve seen him make up lies and spout them at every turn like truth (and I honestly think that he BELIEVES they’re true). So what else is there to do but simply poke him every once and a while to get him going, because GOD knows there’s nothing else you can do with the guy. He’s nothing but a screaming bag of hatred, lies, hypocricies, and conspiracies that thankfully few take seriously.

I’m not debating his review of the book, after all I haven’t even read it, infact if you look above you’ll see that I agreed with him on his point that you can just look this stuff up on the internet faster and cheaper. I was replying to Paul’s mistake of refering to Prokofy as a journalist, which he isn’t. After all, Journalism is about non-partiality, and Prokofy is nothing but a bag of opinions, leaking with hate, he never seems to write anything that isn’t HEAVILY skewed towards his worldview, even when it isn’t listed as an editorial. If that’s journalism, than what I say about Prokofy being insane is just as journalistic.

“Artemis, you really are such a wannabee, and will always remain a wannabee until you stop acting like such an asshole.”

Yadda yadda yadda yadda. You never really even apply words that fit, what exactly am I being a “wannabe” to? You, oh mighty egomaniacal captain of the stars? So i’m a wannabe for not just blindly agreeing to whatever you say “Oh right-o Mr. Prokofy, dead on this time! Flipper and the FIC certainly did help the bolshevik’s overthrow the Czar, oh yes you are dead on this time, oh great one! The Sherpas are selling American secrets to the chinese in an attempt to overthrow the government! Wow you’re so insightful!”

I’ll stop acting like an asshole to you, when you stop acting like an asshole to everyone who disagrees with your nutjob theories. Especially when you stop treating your crazy-ass tinfoil like it’s the god’s truth, i’ve seen you say, what 3 times, that whenever you harrassed someone in real life, it was because it was the JUST and right thing to do because of your crazy ass theories.

You *are* a hack. You thought you could use your usual arrogant, facile and glib approach to this topic, and I think bunches of people will step up and say no, you can’t.

I don’t see what “context” I need to understand somebody who says they wrote half a book in a week or something, even with “research” which itself is visibly, woefully inadequate.

If there is a sackload of research, why RUSH to press merely to capitalize on the bubble of media now? Why not take the time to parse it and review it properly? Isn’t that letting greed get a little too way out in head of substance? After all, your book could have a shelf life if you hadn’t been so unseemly.

Write a magazine article or 3, if you think the subject matter is such that it can only stand up-to-the-minute crazy gonzo journalism. Something calling itself a *guide* and even promising to “cut through all they hype” simply has to do a lot better and offer more substance.

Artemis, you really are such a wannabee, and will always remain a wannabee until you stop acting like such an asshole. Actually, I’m always paid for my public speaking gigs, I wouldn’t bother otherwise most of the time unless it’s some really super visible venue that would have some merit by itself.

Yes, I’ve long worked as a journalist on deadline for various publications, and I quite understand the exigencies. So my response is then…don’t write a book. Be a hack, but be a hack in real time without pretending to posture for posterity.

i) *is* a public speaker even if unpaid, and
ii) may well be right

Art, if you think you are right why do you keep attempting to marginalize your opponent by reciting the mantra “crazy, crazy, crazy”. Prok’s review of that book seemed very much on target to me.

Maybe you should hang up your hat and retire your position as leader/founder of the FIC and pass the buck to someone else?

“As a journalist, I thought you’d understand the process. But maybe that’s the problem. And, as an aside, calling me sarcastic and ‘web2gen’ and using the word ‘retarded’ without irony or wit makes you sound both bitter and thirteen.”

Hahaha Prokofy a journalist? That’s like saying the crazy hobo on the corner ranting about the government being after his shopping cart full of cans is a professional public speaker. Actually that’s barely even a metaphor.