Meltdown?
Via Swiftee at Fiskwa (his hobby gig when he's not doing Pair o' Dice), I encountered this fascinating thread at Jay Rosen's Pressthink, on Nick Coleman.
It started with a letter from Coleman himself. It sounds like Jay has had some of the same fun I had with Coleman's communications:
Coleman is now claiming his letter above was personal, intended only to start a dialogue with me. Alas, there was nothing in the letter about that. When a communiqué to my PRESSTHINK mailbox is not for publication what most people do is write "not for publication" or "personal" somewhere in it. And calling me an "academic press faker" is perhaps not the most efficient method of signaling dialogic intent.
The thread - and the attached comments - go on, and on, to about 100 postings.
At one point, before closing the discussion, Rosen notes (in response to Twin Cities leftyblogger Mark Gisleson), with emphasis added by me:
Coleman is a clown, and a professional embarrassment to the Star-Tribune. (I agree with your comparison to Churchill, by the way.) They created him and now have to deal with him. From Wednesday afternoon to Thursday evening I received 15 abusive e-mails from Coleman. I printed only the first one; the others have much richer material for his "fans" out there.
He said he was contemplating retaliation in his column, and said he would follow up with my university-- the kind of threats that the right wing crazies make when they get going on "leftist academic" this and "you liberals" that.
Sounds familiar, doesn't it? From my 12/17/04 post:
...the discussion was interesting; curious phone messages, threats to slime me in his column ("I'd hate to have to write about how you cut and ran" being an excerpt)...
You should read Rosen's whole thing.
UPDATE: Jay Rosen writes to note that I originally called him Jeff Jarvis. Oddly, I called him "Rosen" for the rest of the post. Blah. Sorry.
Sorry, Jay, but in fairness, I originally wrote "James Lileks".
Posted by Mitch at
April 25, 2005 08:01 AM
| TrackBack
Isn't Coleman threatening to "slime one in his column" akin to a baby threatening to "poop one in his diaper?" In the latter case, only the parents (and maybe a devoted aunt or two) are likely to notice or care; I guess in Coleman's, his editors are acting in loco parentis - in so many ways.
Posted by: Brian Jones at April 25, 2005 08:31 AMThanks for the link. You're about the 20th blogger to type "Jeff Jarvis" when you meant Jay Rosen.
So don't feel bad. But "Jeff Jarvis's Pressthink" I cannot let stand.
Posted by: Jay Rosen at April 25, 2005 08:34 AMJay - Schwoops. I updated and corrected.
Brian - Re "in loco parentis" - not even. Parents will at least correct a child's errant behavior. The Strib's sole editing of Coleman would seem to be running spellcheck.
Posted by: mitch at April 25, 2005 08:45 AMNick Coleman threatening to slime someone via his column? I'm reminded of Mr. Burns on the The Simpsons taunting the Germans. "Oooh, Nick Coleman's threatening to slime someone! Oooh, he's so big and strong!"
Meh.
Over the weekend, I was up at my girlfriend's in Roseville, and she deigned to buy the weekend Strib. I found myself actually thumbing through it specifically to find Coleman's column, and I thought "you know, most people looking for his column are probably people who hate it. That's kind of sad."
Posted by: Ryan at April 25, 2005 09:33 AM