Christopher Schroeder

Category: local

  • No More Author Events Please

    Local author Renée Rosen discussed her most recent book Let’s Call Her Barbie in a conversation with another local author Shelby Van Pelt at the Harold Washington Library Center last week.

    Rosen was personable, and shared interesting information that would appeal to anyone who read her book. Van Pelt was well-prepared with a list of open-ended questions that encouraged elaboration and allowed for responses.

    I just couldn’t understand why I was there, and left before the Q&A could start.

    I should have expected from the event description that the “conversation” would center upon Rosen’s new book. I just don’t know why these conversations appeal to anyone, and why the library would continue to sponsor these.

    These events reflect a cult of celebrity that fetishizes authors and writing as ends rather than means. As such, book tours are marketing campaigns — come for the celebrity, leave with a purchase — that seem more concerned with increasing sales than promoting ideas.

    Contemporary society is already too saturated with advertising for me to donate an hour to endure even more, especially when I leave with little more than I could have gotten from consuming the content on my own.

    I realize that I’m the minority on author events. I actually overheard someone praise this specific event at one of my book clubs this past weekend.

    I certainly am not advocating for the decontextualization of ideas, and believe in the need for historical and conceptual contexts. I’m just less interested in authors, and seen enough to know that production processes are idiosyncratic.

    I am also sympathetic to the forces felt by my librarian friends, who might have mixed motivations, and have to make compromises for the greater good, including the relevance of libraries. I just wonder whether they might be limiting efforts to reimagine libraries in contemporary democratic societies.

    A better event would be one that asked Rosen to use her research and experience for something more than the book she already wrote. For example, she could have been asked to elaborate on the effects of Barbie upon the cultural zeitgeist or to consider the ways that toys reflect the politics of their creators.

    Anything that involved an argument, or offered a position or a perspective that couldn’t have been obtained from her book, would have been worth the forty-five minutes I sat in the sparse audience on that cold February night.

  • My Bike

  • No NPR No

    NPR reported this morning about Univision CEO Daniel Alegre’s recent public observations about presidential campaigns. Alegre has argued that successful campaigns will do more than offer ads in English and must engage Spanish-language media.

    Part of this interview involved a question about whether Univision should be more critical of Trump’s claims, including on air with him. This question emphasized that its one of its most prominent journalists has been critical of the way Univision has covered this politician.

    Alegre in the interview this morning was allowed to sidestep the question and offer some platitudes about the organization he leads. The interviewer asked no follow-ups, and didn’t even note that Alegre hadn’t answered the question, were presented.

    I was dismayed but not surprised. I’ve noticed that NPR often allows its interviewees to avoid answering questions, including and especially more challenging ones.

    I should first clarify that I generally agree with Alegre that multilingual campaigns will likely be more successful because they’re more inclusive, and that American attitudes about multilingualism are surprisingly uninformed and embarrassing provincial. At the same time, I’m increasingly aware of the need for a shared cultural context, which could include a shared language, for successful communication and full participation.

    My bigger concern this morning is this seeming strategy to placate anyone who agrees to go on the air with NPR reporters. Some seem more willing to challenge responses than others, but most seem reluctant to do so, which makes me wonder whether this non-confrontational approach is an organization-wide strategy.

    Such a strategy clearly contrasts I believe with many BBC interviews I hear, which on my local NPR station are broadcast after the NPR morning news program. Those BBC interviewers don’t always elicit answers to their questions but seem relatively willing to confront interviewees who refuse to do so.

    Perhaps the NPR reporter asked follow-up questions and even confronted Alegre in the actual interview, and some editor or producer decided to remove that part for the on-air account. That however would suggest a bigger problem I believe.

    A functioning press has long been a central component in successful democratic societies. This need is greater now in this misinformation and disinformation era more than ever.

    NPR must do a better job of confronting public figures, and reporting the results of such efforts. That, especially if direct yet dignified, could provide a model of all of us who aspire to such conversations in our everyday lives.