Is writing for the rich only? I asked in a recent post, and it seems like maybe it really is. Matt Haber in The New York Observer decries the rise of celebrity dilettante journalistm in connection with actor Ethan Hawke's current Rolling Stone profile of Kris Kristofferson:
For a working hack--that word is used here without judgment--it's hard enough to get a pitch accepted by an editor (much less an 11-page evergreen on a 72-year-old who's in not in the Jonas Brothers). But now you gotta compete with writers editors think are cooler, better connected, and who don't even need the money.
Haber also points out recent journalist endeavors by Brad Pitt, apparently also a writer and photographer as well as an actor; Sean Penn, who fancies himself a foreign correspondent; and others.
George Packer at The New Yorker's blog Interesting Times laments how fame offers access to newsworthy personalityes that the nonfamous cannot hope to compete with, particularly with reference to Sean Penn's recent interviews with the likes of Hugo Chavez. And then he rips into Penn's presumptions in taking on the journalist's job:
In a meritocracy, actors who act well get good roles. They don't get to be journalists, too--a job that, in a meritocracy, should go to those who do journalism well. Nor should any journalist, however accomplished, expect to land a leading part in Penn's next movie.
Would Penn cry foul if a role he was up for went to a nonprofessional actor? I bet he would... and he should.
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Fiction writer John Sandford was also filing reports from Irag for a time. He started as a reporter and then moved to fiction so where would he fit in a meritocracy? I'm a teacher and a writer; would I have to choose one?
A meritocracy is an idealized state of affairs and therefore unobtainable. But if we did have the chance to enact something like this, wouldn't it prohibit an individual's growth and force them to forever remain whatever society has originally pigeonholed them as.
We as a society will never be completely whole until we stop applying unnecesary and inaccurate labels onto each other and a meritocracy only encourages this.