One February evening, my Spring ‘06 digital journalism class had a guest speaker, as we did about every other week or so. Since our other speakers had included such cyberspace pseudo-celebrities as Amanda Congdon, then of Rocketboom, Jessica Coen, then of Gawker, and Joan Walsh, then and still of Salon, I admit I was less enthused at the announcement that our next speaker was a (male and middle-aged) business columnist and culture writer from The New York Times who had recently become the Grey Lady’s very first blogger. Yawn.
As a class assignment, we were to write up the Q&A session as a profile piece. This was my “scene-setter” graf:
David Carr looks like any other family man from suburban New Jersey. With a self-described “radio voice and a newspaper face, ” he looks rather tired in his sharp, blue suit as he speaks in a dry, apathetic tone: “I seem sort of goofy and friendly, I’m not, I’m actually a jerk,” Carr said of himself. “I play a nice guy on TV.”
And admittedly, I believed him. My post-teenage indifference blinded me to Carr’s subtle, endearing modesty:
“I live in New Jersey, I’ve got a yellow lab, I’ve got three daughters, I got a Ford Explorer. The headlight went our on my car this weekend–that isn’t the kind of things that’s going to rock anybody’s world,” he said.
As he droned on in his nasally voice, deadpanning lines like “I never wear any pants when I blog,” I kept thinking, This guy could be my 10th grade history teacher–Bueller? Bueller?
Imagine my surprise when, more than two years later, I read this article about his upcoming memoir, The Night of the Gun.
David Carr? An overweight, girlfriend-abusing crackhead? The same man I compared to a Ben Stein character? Boy, was my face red.
But never before have I had so much respect for a writer. To air your dirty laundry in public to sell books is one thing, but to pull it off with Carr’s sincerity—not to mention his beautiful prose—is just not done in today’s fame-obsessed, shock-value memoir media world. As a professional journalist, Carr actually is taking a risk by telling the story of his gritty beginnings, unlike celebrities, who feign apprehension about dishing their own dirt, when really, it’s fantastic (and carefully planned) publicity for their careers.
Even one of my other classmates, who wrote up the session here, seemed to agree that Carr’s appearance is deceiving, especially to a roomful of know-it-all NYU kids.
Despite not having come of age along side the internet like us young’uns, he’s got some great insights about the world of digital media and blogging:
“[Blog writing] should have a definitive point of view, it should seem fresh,” he said. “If you’re writing about something besides what’s between your ears, I think there’s value in that.”
Erm, I hope David Carr never reads my blog.
Filed under: Media | Tagged: blogging, David Carr, memoir, The New York Times
