Peer Review: The Editorialiste (Or, my sort-of media criticism of a great media critic)

From now on, I am going to attempt to clean up the writing in my blog. It’s gotten sloppy as of late. I’d like it to be publish-worthy. But I not only want to boost my readership, as I’m willing to admit, I’d also like to strengthen my own writing through, well, writing better.

Part of my inspiration? My new favorite blog on journalism! It’s called The Editorialiste and from what I gather, it’s run by a recent college graduate* and aspiring journalist living in New York City. I think the blog represents individualistic media criticism at its best. Not hampered by the strictures of a publication. Or an obvious identity. And, what a terrific writer.

Not to mention that I couldn’t agree more with many of this person’s views. And he talks about so many of the issues in which I am most interested. Perhaps having a shared history of near-starvation while trying to make it in the Big Apple (albeit with differing durations and levels of success) helps fuel my affinity.

I’m also biased in favor of anyone who criticizes the New York Times, as he does, for example, in this piece:
How The New York Times Screwed Up An Easy Trend Story

Reading this post, I automatically sympathize with the point that being a starving professional in New York is not always so glamorous, and as a member of this population which I believe has fallen under the radar, I think this group’s story needs to be told.

But it was this post that led me to the blog in the first place. I was bitter and googling “unpaid journalism internships” when I came across it, and I don’t think it could be said better. I am contemplating writing a post about this myself, but due to the risks of expressing my own views on this frankly (or at least my fear that doing so could come back to bite me), I am still unsure about whether to write about it myself. Maybe I will.

But in the meantime, here’s to stellar peer inspiration!

And here’s to Columbia.

*I thought of the last line when I first wrote this post. I had essentially decided on going, and the fitting connection was that a superb asset of Columbia is your 200 stellar peers. I published the line a day later, after I had sent all my necessary goodbyes to my other school’s wonderful people. But in the meantime, I discovered this: The Editorialiste is a student at the Columbia Journalism School, class of 2008!

Here’s to Columbia!