Comments for You Shall Know My Veracity

Comment on The impatient idealist by Lisa

Lisa — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 20:24:40 +0000

You’ll like this: http://www.vancourier.com/didn+quit/5085267/story.html

Comment on The impatient idealist by Cate

Cate — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 16:53:59 +0000

Good article Max and interesting comments on “your generation”

Comment on The impatient idealist by Lisa

Lisa — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 16:46:45 +0000

Max, first of all, as usual, fantastic blog post. My comment above was mostly directed at a few people close to me who allow media to shape their thoughts and opinions without applying any critical thinking skills. My description of Nagata’s act of quitting as brave was in light of the current economic state and the ability to walk away from something many people would consider a luxury now: stability. That being said, I agree with your post as well. I do think it is a brave act to remove yourself from something you dislike but are pressured to remain a part of, but that doesn’t mean I think it was an act stemming from a place of honour or integrity. That being said, I can’t comment on the point that (or assume) he “knew what he was doing” or was trying to get attention with that post. My thought is that he was simply writing a blog post to express what he really felt and was thinking – to which every blogger is entitled, but not every news reporter/journalist as you say. Your description of the post as puerile and classification of this generation as generally narcissistic and self-involved is true (though most blog posts, by their very nature, are puerile). If we look at how this generation has grown up (I’d I’ll add a caveat here saying that I am making a generalization), it is not surprising at all to see this type of thing in the workforce. They have grown up with a sense of entitlement. Their parents have hovered about all their lives, growing up digital means they’ve rarely had to delay gratification for anything, especially for information/knowledge or kudos and they’ve had to do much less actual “hard” work to produce their work. It’s no surprise then, that the concept of “paying dues” is given at best, a cursory thought, because “dues” to this generation are only a fraction of what they would otherwise be, both in time and effort (and, as you rightly point out, compromise). Growing up, this generation rarely had to do anything they didn’t want to/feel like doing or saying, including waiting for anything, accepting punishment, slogging away like a dog with rarely a tiny reward. In short, they are spoiled. So your description of the post as a “temper tantrum” is what we would expect from a spoiled child. The whole concept of sacrifice is foreign to them. They don’t even believe they have to filter what you say in order to live in society. So, why be surprised when they carry these ideals into the world/workforce where they feel that is their right? Of course, it’s NOT, but that doesn’t compute to them. That is where his “nebulous thoughts” are coming from – a sense of entitlement. Now, I don’t understand or agree with this whole way of thinking. But, perhaps a whole generation of people who believe (incredibly so) that they should do what they “want to” and what “makes them happy” or doesn’t “conflict with the person they want to become”, might actually result in some positive change. For me, I completely resent the fact that I have grown up with the exact opposite mentality; I accept whatever crap you dish out to me with a smile, I smile even though I am crying inside, I compromise myself until I am unrecognizable in the mirror and I work and work and work and pay my dues for next to nothing and will still never say/do what I want, when I want at any point in my life – and have been trained to be HAPPY about it (or at least accept it and appear happy about it). It might be 20 or 30 more years before I come to the realization that living like this wasn’t actually worth it to me and that I’ve wasted the short life I had by being miserable. I can’t really fault him if he has made that “realization early”, even though it is a result of his sense of entitlement and is not so much a life-changing sudden epiphany. Yes, it’s self-indulgent, but that emphasis on ego is the hallmark of this generation. They have always changed their world by shouting about things they didn’t like (if their parents ever even let them be faced with them) and they expect the same to continue when the go out into the real world. I agree with you Max, but I am not surprised, having seen this in the workplace for the last few years. I believe and live by what you wrote: “we change the world by changing it, one agonizing compromise after another.” But then, I’m an outdated dinosaur from another generation.

Comment on The impatient idealist by Erin

Erin — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 13:10:53 +0000

Nagata has an element of privilege that older people lack: he has few responsibilities to pay for. He has no family to support, no mortgage to pay. Therefore, he can do what amounts to a flounce, and get away with it.

That said, I think it’s disingenuous to accuse him of throwing a temper tantrum or doing what he did solely to get attention. Why would you assume he can have only one motive? Is he not allowed to do things for more than one reason, like most people do? If his threshold for “enough” was lower than yours, it was still his and his alone, and if he had in his head that maybe his post would go viral when he posted it, well, every blogger hopes that. The man just quit his job; is it unreasonable for him to begin immediately turning that into a new career?

While I’m willing to concede that he had ulterior motives, I’m not willing to concede that those are a bad thing. They’re a normal thing, and a necessary thing if he’s to go on to other paid work in his field in the near future. If he manages to forge a career out of this move that will fill a need he (and obviously others) see in Canadian media, then more power to him. It still took vision and daring, and a willingness to flout the roles that others had created for him.

Comment on The impatient idealist by Kai Nagata, Janet Malcolm and Journalism Today | Richard Warnica

Kai Nagata, Janet Malcolm and Journalism Today | Richard Warnica — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 03:43:39 +0000

[...] about everyone in Canadian journalism has had something to say this week about Kai Nagata’s now infamous [...]

Comment on The impatient idealist by The state of journalism today | Polymediathlete's Blog

The state of journalism today | Polymediathlete's Blog — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 19:45:02 +0000

[...] have been other responses too: Edmonton-based journalist Max Fawcett calling Nagata out for being a self-serving lazybones and Sandra Thomas of the Vancouver Courier quite beautifully expressing why she DIDN’T quit [...]

Comment on The impatient idealist by maxfawcett

maxfawcett — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 17:38:00 +0000

Steven – I think his notion that being a journalist makes it difficult to express his opinions is, like you said, very brattish. There are lots of places and lots of ways to express an opinion when your job discourages it – it requires, as Colby Cosh pointed out, skills like irony and satire. There are ways. But there’s also the fact that this was in the job description when the took it – indeed, it’s at the very heart of the job itself. Television reporters are supposed to hold the microphone, ask the questions, and, where appropriate, provide the context. That he suddenly finds that objectionable is impossibly precious.

Comment on The impatient idealist by Sean Cranbury

Sean Cranbury — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 15:23:01 +0000

What’s interesting to me isn’t what anyone thinks about another person’s opinion. We’ll always have differing opinions and people can call them puerile or whatever they want and take to the blogosphere or the op-ed column and let fly with their thoughts on this or that thing about decisions or ideas that another person has, is free to have, will have again, regardless of our wishes.

What’s interesting is that Kai’s long person epistle found the rich vein of viral agreement via the social media channels. We may never hear from him again but he spoke, even if only for a moment, something that lots of people wanted to hear, agreed with and passed along.

Whether anybody actually read the piece all the way through or spent any time weighing their adulation against potential counter-arguments, is another story.

I think that so many people agree with such puerility is often cause for much of the rankled comments that we see in the social media space.

But… whatever. Kai’s piece was overlong, overwrought and probably over-indulged by the amorphous chattering citizens of the interwebs.

The proper response to these things if you feel as passionately about an argument as you obviously do, Max, about Kai’s open letter is to put your thoughts into a post explaining things from your POV. I’m really glad that you chose to do it. It’s how the argument progresses.

The test is always about what you do after you get knocked down or after you make some grand pronouncement as Kai did. He’s set himself up for big expectations. Who knows if we’ll ever hear from him again?

Comment on The impatient idealist by Worldbeatboy

Worldbeatboy — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 09:44:45 +0000

Nice counter argument. And like the lad’s, some worthy points. But you lost me when you started sounding like an old newspaper guy. This generation doesn’t really get to spend three decades to become Duff. And that Internet machine is changing everything, not for the better. The bottom line is the news profession could do a whole lot better here in Canada and especially in the U.S. I’m a former broadcast journo who limits viewing to the lead story on the local TV news and is gone in 15 seconds when the lead is the weather, a cat in a tree, or an Intl story it has no ability to cover properly. I’ll re-read his diatribe once more, but I didn’t get the sense that it was all that politically motivated or that he wanted to be commentator. It seems it’s more about content, similar to Chris Hedges polemic “Empire of Illusion” in which the media, the corporates, and most importantly the audience takes a whipping for forming a symbiotic cabal of stupidity. I turned off mainstream news because, as a former reporter myself, I got sick of the t-heads not asking the right questions, just following the dumb-dumb script of the industry, self-policed through the atmospheric “if-you’re not one of us…” police. OJ was my first real gag moment. I remember seeing the breaking news on CNN, while in my own newsroom, and thinking, who cares. Joey Buttafuco, Tonya Harding, Michael Jackson, Paris Hilton, and dozens of sensationalized domestic murders later, I am clearly focused on much more important matters…..which actually matter. I think young blog boy is probably the same.

Comment on The impatient idealist by Kristen

Kristen — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 02:24:48 +0000

Will you marry me?
If Nagata is getting proposals for his post, I think you deserve a couple too.
I’m so glad you wrote this – it was what I was thinking, but said more eloquently. Secretly I thought I was a bit of a jerk rolling my eyes and scrolling through his post, which seems to have touched so many people. So, this was like a big sigh of relief. I too felt that while he was spurning the modern media, he also conveniently exploits it. Hell, it enables him to be this phenomenon. Being a fallen member of the media has clout – nobody cares why I’d quit my job.