Friedman: Ron Rosenbaum Will Save The Internet
Marketwatch media critic Jon Friedman's MEDIA WEB QUESTION OF THE DAY: "Who is your favorite writer on the Internet?" Ours is MarketWatch media critic Jon Friedman! Today he wants to introduce you to 61-year-old Ron Rosenbaum, who, writing at Washington Post-owned internet magazine of conventional wisdom plus occasional contrarianism Slate, "represent[s] a turning point in the evolution of online journalism." Finally, these new-fangled internet websites are hiring ultra-established, book-writin' old white dudes.
Friedman hopes Rosenbaum will "help class up the Internet, which is home to so much nonsense. (For a prime example, check out some bloggers' shameful rumor-mongering about actor Heath Ledger's death this week.)" Ha! Take that, you Mary-Kate Olsen rumor-mongering Internet hooligans at the New York Times city desk!
We do like Rosenbaum's writing, but he's hardly our favorite Internet writer. Has he ever written a sentence as dryly, subtlely hilarious as this? "As Rosenbaum has shown by tackling such unpopular subjects as Hitler, a journalist doesn't have to yell or preen or act like Mike Wallace on steroids to appear courageous." Finally, a writer willing to take on that sorely underreported "Hitler" fellow!
