Monday, July 18, 2005

Shame on them.

Lauren read about a story today on Suburban Bliss that really affected both of us when we read it. The New York Times published a sensational essay entitled "The New Nanny Diaries Are Online" by Helaine Olen, who with her husband employed a young blogging future academic as their nanny, and fired her when they became uncomfortable with her writing. The essay, which is worth reading if you enjoy unintentional self-caricature (and who doesn't?), describes the author's dawning realization of her employee's life outside their family and subsequent dismissal for contrived reasons.

I love the New York Times. It is really the best newspaper in America, which makes the publication of this essay all the more disappointing. This article is simply not fit for print. It isn't news and it isn't even factual, if you believe the nanny's excellent rebuttal, which you must read. All it did was serve to devalue another person and their personal thoughts for the self-serving, and ultimately ridiculous, purposes of the of the author. Shame on them.

2 comments:

Jonathan said...

One more thought though - maybe bosses don't always need to know about blogs? Mine do, and we talk about how blogs might benefit our business. Not everyone is so open-minded though, and I think most of the time you know going in whether they are going to like it or not.

Jonathan said...

Possibly, if that were the standard. But the Times' motto is "All the News That's Fit to Print." I'd say this fails on two counts, being neither news nor fit to print.

Sure sensationalism sells, but we can get stories like this in the check-out line where they belong. In the New York Times I want journalism.