James, Fetch Me My Hankie; the Barbarians Have Triumphed

Gatekeeper anxiety in journalism has now reached its Fatalism phase. Over on Romenesko's letters page yet another whither-journalism debate is raging on, with such overt blame-the-audience explanations as, well, "It's the audience," and "Do they read?"

A more strictly elitist look at elitist handwringing can be found in The New Yorker, where Columbia University Journalism School Dean (and New Yorker staff writer) Nicholas Lemann has penned a lengthy, interview-filled, admitting-we-have-a-problem essay, misleadlingly entitled "Why is everyone mad at the mainstream media?" (Misleading because about the only "mad" person Lemann quotes is Karl Rove; the rest is mostly bewildered guessing from beleagured big-city editors bravely suffering the indignities of occasionally unfriendly e-mail.)

Though there is much of tangible value in the article (including long, cherry-pickable quotes from New York Times Editor Bill Keller), Lemann's inability to recognize the resentment-stoking influence of journalistic elitism sinks to the level of farce, as in this beautiful sentence:

My grandfather, who was a pediatrician in the town of Perth Amboy, would sit in his easy chair on Sundays reading the Times in a spirit not dissimilar to that of someone taking the sacrament.

Well my grandfather, who was a painter and drywall-man in the town of Portland, would sit in his Archie Bunker chair on Sundays cussing and spitting out his teeth at the Trail Blazers on TV in a spirit not dissimilar to that of someone taking a crap…. Anyway, class resentments aside, Lemann's conclusion sounds a paranoid, blame-the-audience note that may set the tone for elite response to anti-MSMism:

Journalism that is inquisitive and intellectually honest, that surprises and unsettles, didn't always exist. There is no law saying that it must exist forever, and there are political and business interests that would be better off if it didn't exist and that have worked hard to undermine it. This is what journalists in the mainstream media are starting to worry about: what if people don't believe in us, don't want us, anymore?

ADDENDUM: See also the Columbia Journalism Review's "Let's Blame the Readers."