Red Room Where the Writers Are

I am Jewish and (ahem) some of my best friends are Jews. A remarkable number of those friends are, well, high up in the news and publishing business. If there were, say, a “Jewish Conspiracy”to control the news to advance a particular agenda, my friends would be the ones having the secret meetings to make it happen. 

I remember many years ago watching a grainy, videotaped speech by Louis Farrakhan, on a cable station in New Orleans, in which he introduced me to my now favorite offensive-conspiracy-vocabulary word: Jewspapers.  

So, while these friends of mine are Jewish and have nice titles on their doors, the reality is that they are powerless over their own email inbox, back problems, former spouses’ continuingly inappropriate behavior, and the news and publishing business in general. I’d be surprised if they had any energy left to attend secret meetings when they can’t even make time for the gym.  

If they really were powerful and able to stick to an agenda, I believe their agenda would be to lose a few pounds, go through those old boxes in the closet, and finally write the books they’ve always talked about writing. Not something oppressive to a segment of humanity. The mere suggestion of such a thing would cause any of my friends to spit out the water they were going to use to swallow their medication with.  

So let’s turn our attention to a major newspaper that, in fact, is controlled by Jews. Openly pro-Israel Jews, even. Founded in 1918, it’s called Haaretz, and has the distinction of being Israel’s oldest Hebrew language daily newspaper. Maybe we should buy a gift subscription for Mr. Farrakhan. It’s a paper that tends to be read by educated Israelis, and is considered by some to be “The New York Times” of Israel because of its high-quality political, editorial, and cultural reporting. I don’t mean to conflate being Jewish religiously or ethnically with being Israeli citizens or with people who speak the Hebrew language. But I think it’s safe to say that the paper is controlled mostly by people who happen to be Jewish. 

And here’s what those in power over this newspaper did on June 10th, 2009: They turned the newsroom over for one day to the novelists and poets of their country. Now, I know how much authors will take any excuse to procrastinate from finishing their upcoming novels, so I’m sure these authors were delighted to play journalist for a day. The special edition was created in conjunction with Hebrew Book Week and it created a little stir of awareness about writers. 

According to Daniel Estrin of the Forward, http://www.forward.com/articles/107571/, the poet tasked with covering the weather wrote a poem about summer, the author tasked with covering the stock market wrote “Everything’s okay,” and a celebrated author suffering from cancer related touching scenes of other cancer patients. These unusual correspondents sometimes posed in the pictures with their subjects and often wrote in first person.  

I read one story in which an author wrote about Netanyahu’s oration: “It was a speech for this watermelon season. A watermelon is 92 percent water, and so was this speech.” 

I think The New York Times should hand over the newsroom to our American novelists and poets once a year, too, and my local San Francisco Chronicle should maybe do it every day. Now that I think about it, why not try this at Bloomberg.com? I will call my high-placed friends immediately and try to get an actual conspiracy going at these organizations. 

Let the novelists and poets write the news and be in the photos, reflecting something different back, inspiring readers to think differently about their society. Haaretz turned their power over to a handful of uncontrollable artists brimming with imagination and individuality. And everything’s okay.