Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Miles from the Mainstream
D. R. ZUKERMAN, proprietor
Washington Post Watch

JANUARY 5, 2004 --

This being a website committed to the populist principles of Federalist No. 57, I reacted with a kind of "there THEY go again" grumble on seeing this January 5 Style section front page headline," The Populist Manifesto," over an article by Linton Weeks about a speech by Stephen King at the National Book Awards gathering in Mew York City in November.

Mr. Weeks noted that this event was "mostly overlooked and underreported." Indeed, that it was held at all was news to me in the Weeks piece, discussing "the war between popular fiction and literary fiction" that was said to be apparent from King's remarks and those that followed, by the literary author Shirley Hazzard.

Mr. Weeks suggested that the peasant writers of popular fiction were marching on the castles of the literary lords and ladies, toting torches. And this got me thinking of the curious comment from William Kristol, couple of primary seasons ago, that Republicans were supposed to march with the barons, not with the peasants -- not the kind of comment, I then thought, to win the heartland for the right side, however much Kristol might have feared the Pat Buchanan New Hampshire primary win that apparently provoked the sneer.

Even before finishing the piece, I called The Washington Post to get the e-mail address for Mr. Weeks. Well, an operator answered. How can one maintain zeal when calling an institution that still
reflects the human touch by way of a live operator?

And then, when the gracious lady connected me with Mr. Weeks' line and

he answered, live as well, not a recording, well--as the emperor in Amadeus (the movie) said: "there it is."

Actually, a newspaper that still has operators and writers who pick up the phone when anyone calls is, I think, fairly close to Federalist 57 principles, however much the writing itself might indicated straying. Certainly by test of operators and live answers, the Post is far closer to Federalist 57 than The New York Times. (I go to Manhattan every day to get The Washington Post; okay, I also still read the Times as well. Grumbling constantly, of course.)

And I must thank Mr. Weeks for giving me the idea, in quoting the concern of Ms. Hazzard that we are losing language, that perhaps we are on our way back to
hieroglyphics, so that books can easily be sold in New York, Paris, Madrid, New Delhi, Tokyo and Shanghei (whatever the spelling of that city, today). Certainly we are using hieroglyphs on our parking signs, the easier to confuse motorists? And see the hieroglyphs under your car's hood. It got me putting windshield washer fluid where it shouldn't, fortunately to no great harm although my gas mileage is not what the brochure says it should be.

Anyway, after speaking briefly with Mr. Weeks, and getting his e-mail address, I sent him a bunch of paragraphs that don't even rise to the level of popular writing -- and he acknowledged receipt not long after. Indeed, the Federalist 57 spirit seems to be hovering still at The Washington Post, even if it offers the chance to quibble about using the term
"populist" too interchangeably with "popular."