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Buy the Book
The Way We Live Now
Joseph Epstein on the ever expanding roll gossip is playing in American public life.
(Page 2 of 2)
AS ANOTHER GOSSIP REPORTER, Epstein singles out Seymour Hersh, the Pulitzer-winning reporter “who has lived off leaks.” Hersh, he writes, “is a journalist…who without the benefit of leakers might just be out of business. His professional life has been based on the anonymous source…. Like any good gossip, Hersh prefers dramatic over staid stories. A good Hersh piece might have the U.S. government secretly financing an Arab terrorist group out of Henry Kissinger’s Swiss bank account.”
He chides the New York Times, a publication increasingly dependent on gossip, for its shabby election year front-page story about John McCain’s imaginary relationship with an attractive lobbyist, based solely on leaks and gossip; and for its refusal to go ahead with a reliably sourced account of the despicable John Edwards’s affair.
There are moments when Epstein speaks of the deep personal damage that gossip and the new media transmitting it can do. “Malice…is also too often an element of gossip, and the Internet…can be a powerful aid to malice, by spreading falsehoods-or even harmful truths—with a speed undreamed of by small-town-over-the-back-fence gossips.”
Epstein, who taught English for two decades at Northwestern, and who knows that our campuses are among the nation’s busiest gossip centers, says that he “is glad to have ceased teaching before the internet culture got going in a big-time way.” This new culture, he continues, “has quickened, and much intensified, the harm that gossip can do to its victims.”
But that’s the way we live now. And in the end, Epstein concludes, “Once a secret vice, gossip threatens to become the chief way we obtain our information, and there doesn’t appear much we can do about it…. ‘Live with it,’ as the kids say, and we may as well learn to do so, because living without the intrusions of gossip seems unlikely except in a Trappist monastery, and maybe, gossip has it, not even there.”
About the Author
John R. Coyne, Jr. a former White House speech-writer, is co-author with Linda Bridges of Strictly Right: William F. Buckley Jr. and the American Conservative Movement (Wiley).
Letter to the Editor View all comments (8) | Leave a comment
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Appleby| 3.22.12 @ 7:16AM
When Tony George went on his warpath to destroy Champ Cars and turned out (to the glee of those who will always loathe him) to be Samson pulling his own house down on top of him ... his Indy Racing League, founded in a pique because they wouldn't allow him to be Emperor of Open Wheel Racing in America, is chiefly known by the witty observation that unlike NA$CAR, where the fans know all the drivers by name, in the IRL the drivers know all the fans by name...those who lined up with him greeted every hopeful sign of recovery by Champ Cars with the ominous words, "I hear..." followed by something that directly contradicted what the rest of us heard, and was designed to help Tony destroy Champ Cars. Eventually the gossip brought the house down (along with a management that, it seems, had bought Champ Cars as a place to park their assets while they fought a massive lawsuit, as the day that suit was settled, Champ Cars announced it was closing its doors) and Tony George was kicked to the curb by his own sisters, and nobody really cares about the IRL anymore. (Tony forgot that even when you take all the other choices away, there are still two choices: take it or leave it. We'll leave it, thanks.)
Gossip destroyed open wheel racing in America. I daresay it has destroyed many businesses and not a few movies, stage shows, public and private lives along the way. And now that Tweetheads have an instant gossip spreader welded to their thumbs, it'll probably eventually bring down the world.
SUBVET| 3.22.12 @ 12:01PM
Oh ! I thought you were talikng about Brian France......and did you see the stands at Bristol, a track where you had to buy tickets for next years race when you left the track.
This might be the last year for NA$CAR. With sponsorship getting tough and all the new rules. If you are a driver and have an opinion about how things are run by brian and the REGIME you pay a fine. Going GREEN they have made the owners go to an outdated induction system circa 1960's. Last year they went to a fueling system that cost teams over 500 K. This year at daytona they changed the cooling system only run at plate tracks that cost over 800 K your talking only 4 races.
All this just to watch a follow-the-leader race.
Notary Sojac| 3.22.12 @ 10:56AM
Gossip is playing a larger roll every day. Unfortunately, it is usurping the space formerly occupied by spelling.
albert constantine jr.| 3.22.12 @ 10:57PM
Perhaps the headline writer was referring to a baked good being portrayed as an assumed character (a role as a roll). In the alternative, perhaps gossip is a round or cylindrical object on a slope succumbing to the force of gravity in increasing dimensions.
Petronius| 3.22.12 @ 11:41AM
The only solution then is to be a recluse. Speak to nobody and you will not be the subject of any conversation.
Tired Taxpayer PRM| 3.22.12 @ 4:00PM
When asked if you can keep a secret answer, "No" and walk away.
Eventually they get the hint.
POST American| 3.23.12 @ 12:25AM
---YES! ----STOP gossiping about
Andrew Breitbart! ---and that nonsense
about the CFR handing over our entire
economy to RED China.
------And that other nonsense about
RED China having a 'bad' history
---and snuffing the elderly and unborn
------ 'wage slaves' and forced abortions
and body parts blackmarketing --and this
GM food and EUGENICS silliness!
PURE and utter NON---sense!
JUST KEEP ON MOVING!
-------the BILL Gates lie just ahead!
-------------------MOVE! ------------GIT!
------------------HUAC/ Nuremberg 2012-------------
shipley130| 3.24.12 @ 12:14PM
It's weird how gossip can often times be a reflection of the truth. A few tidbits of gossip that were true..... John Edwards blaming his illegitimate child on his political aide. Check. Nixon break ins. Check. Obama is buddies with Bill Ayers. Check. Obama's birth certificate is a forgery. Just waiting for the checkmark. Eric Holder's fast and furious was about gun control. Just waiting for the checkmark.