The people at ‘The Daily Maverick’ owe me for this blog:
‘The Daily Maverick‘ is a substantial and satisfying read. They have bold taglines that position them as mostly thorough and passionate journalists like, “Who says the news has to be boring?”, “The buck starts here” and “Knowledge. The final frontier.” I thought they had done away with the offensive, “An unashamedly elitist website”, but they have not. That does not appeal to me, it offends me.
Tagline in bold before the date
Fortunately they vary those taglines and I do not have to be affronted by the offensive one with every article I click on. Apart from their misguided belief (or could this be an instance where they have not engaged in thorough and rigorous thought) that the information they are sharing should remain only with those who think they are superior, rather than with everyone – because everyone has a right to access knowledge, information and the truth, the journalism is generally exciting.
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20 December 2009 at 10:49 am
Phillip de Wet
Ah, well, you see, if you take us entirely seriously all the time, then you’ll be missing out on the best that The Daily Maverick has to offer. Especially when it comes to the taglines.
However, it is true that the readers of The Daily Maverick are considerably more intelligent, successful, good-looking, witty and desirable than the average. The research institutions we have approached seem loath to take on the challenge for some reason, so we still don’t have a definitive answer as to why this is. But there are a couple of compelling hypotheses:
* Selection bias. The kind of journalism we perpetrate seems to attract some people while repelling others. Our articles relate to closed-mindedness much like garlic relates to vampires, and it is certainly true that open minded people are more attractive than fundamentalists.
* Paranormal activity. Tracking our readers over time shows that they become smarter, and the more often they visit the site the faster they improve. Stranger still, they actually seem to become physically more handsome (though this may, admittedly, be a case of intellectual confidence shining through). The only explanation is some kind of transformational effect that lies outside the boundaries of the current understanding of science.
* Alchemy. Our readers make more money faster than non-readers, especially subscribers to our First Thing e-mail (http://bit.ly/4qcfWN). Their business ventures are more successful, they are more likely to get promoted, and they make better investment decisions. Now some would say this is simply a case of having a better understanding of the world and more potent social currency at their disposal, but that seems a little naive when people are turning lead into gold right in front of your eyes.
20 December 2009 at 4:58 pm
TLS
Phillip! Thanks for reading my blog.
I enjoyed your disingenuous comments, although I do disagree that “intelligent, successful, good-looking, witty and desirable” are traits of being part of an elite. But if you say it often enough, you may begin to believe it is true.
Maybe you need to be clear about what “elite” means at ‘The Daily Maverick’, or qualify what kind of elite you’re talking about. Or simply scrap that tagline.
I find it offensive because in South Africa both access to information and access to everything else is mostly determined by economic power, not by intellectual ability. This specific tagline runs dangerously close to feeding the notion that people who are poor, are in that position because they are stupid. And this particular position ignores the history of South Africa where the aim was to create a class of poor people to assist a class of rich in their unbridled and guiltless accumulation of wealth.
And here are some names of people considered either good looking or successful, or both by many and intellectually challenged by me:
Keanu Reeves
David Beckham
Oprah Winfrey
Tom Cruise
Rhianna – English is her first language, but you wouldn’t believe it listening to her speak
George Bush
Jeannie D
Donald Trump – now he’s in a class of his own: conventionally successful, but intellectually challenged and not good looking.
A short list, but these people are economically the elite and they have influenced the world (okay, not Jeannie D) through their media presence. Is this whom ‘The Daily Maverick’ keeps company with?