Ezra is of course a prime mover of explainer journalism in the last decade and I have a whole other problem with that, which I did a rant about over the weekend.
Just hit me that explainer journalism is the one genre of modern pre-Weirding media that survived the Great Weirding completely intact. Didn’t miss a beat.
It got big explaining the subprime crisis and has taken everything since 2007 in its stride.
I saw that. I think that’s exactly the key bit to track tbh. Vox populi guy — explainer, polarization, media critique — bellwethering the mainstream. 🤷🏻♀️
There’s a whole field of anti-explainer study in my corner of the blogosphere 🤣
I don’t unreservedly dislike them since there is a minority of good ones, but overall it’s a grifty part of blogo-newslettero-podcasto-sphere just a notch above Taboola-grade click farming
I am somewhat sympathetic to both POVs here since I started to straddle both spaces (so you can argue I have no cred to critique either!). I have definitely had editors in popular press edit out all references to theory, even accessible “pop theory”, in writing I submit.
It is completely different writing styles. But as for who gets to write the big piece in mainstream pubs, shaping the debate for the public…that does often go to pundits.
I assume whenever I write something that touches on an academic discipline I’m not part of, 20 very angry people will find me on twitter to tell me why I am completely wrong/outdated ab their field. :) It is a good opportunity to learn but, I get their frustration.
Yep, which I instinctively resist… it also tends to metastasize into other exhausting representation issues like women nor being cited/credited by male pundits etc. Scholarly fields sometimes behave like minority or under-represented identity groups.