02.10.05

Gilliard Goes Postal

Two good posts from Steve Gilliard:

First, in The Selfish Man, he slams on Michael Jordan:

Michael Jordan has never given a shit about anyone or anything but himself. His mistresses have disappeared, the bitter conflicts with teammates vanished, his crude and insulting behavior covered up. Of the athletes who have held the world stage as he has, Ali, Pele, Beckham, he has been the least involved and most selfish of them all. He’s never cared about Nike’s working conditions, American politics or anything else. Compared to Charles Barkley, who was always able to give a straight answer, or Dennis Rodman, who quietly paid for James [Byrd’s] funeral after he was murdered by Klansmen, Jordan has never said dick about anything but his wallet.

Damn, you know you’re looking bad when people are comparing you unfavorably to Dennis Rodman (here’s more about the Byrd case if you’re interested [pdf file]). But from everything I’ve heard, Gilliard is right on target.

Secondly, Gilliard informs us of a shake-up at Salon—-founder David Talbot is stepping down as Editor-in-Chief and Chief Executive of the online journal.

I don’t agree with Gilliard’s opinion that “Salon’s problems come down to very uneven writing and way too much bashing from their writers”—-that description, to my mind, more accurately describes The Village Voice than Salon. Besides, given the evidence of the Jordan pullquote above, can he really complain about writers bashing their subjects?

Anyway, I take hope from his article that Salon may go back to a free format in order to regain readers it lost after switching to a subscription-only/day-pass site.

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By Matt
posted at 5:16 pm in Media Criticism

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