Salon | Letters to the editor

_______________ DRUDGING ADMIRATION BY MIKE GODWIN (02/02/98)

Mike Godwin's admission that Matt Drudge's one-man journalistic enterprise will triumph in the end fails to put the Drudge controversy in a broader context. As a Generation Xer, I am appalled to see how baby-boomer journalists strenuously vilify Drudge. This reaction is clearly not because Drudge in fact has significantly lower standards than "major news outlets." Instead, it is because baby boomers are eternal, self-centered adolescents who believe that they are bright young things and will remain so for eternity. Their worst nightmare is being outdone by someone younger, faster, hungrier, with more techno savvy. Drudge, especially since the advent of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, personifies this nightmare for them.
The vilification of Drudge is one small example of a generational warfare that is endemic. Generation Xers throughout the country are finding that their elders -- baby boomers -- have no interest in mentoring them. In fact, boomers go out of their way to do precisely the opposite. Boomers make professional development of young people as difficult and obstacle-ridden as possible. Consider the skyrocketing, and already skyrocketed, costs of higher education (not incidentally bankrolling boomer administrators and professors). Consider the necessity of an expensive college degree for almost any white-collar job, not to mention the nonsensical desirability of a time-wasting master's or doctorate degree. Boomers have rendered entrance to every profession more and more unlikely. It is as if the hurdle that used be three feet high when boomers made the leap is now 30 feet high.
"Major news outlets" are bursting at the seams with overpaid boomers who will stop at nothing to protect their turf. Their hysterical reaction to Drudge manifests their panic when they belatedly realize they are old, and young people are beginning to replace them.
-- Kathleen Reilly
The worst thing about the latest "-gate" ("Penisgate" -- please!) you guys are all obsessed with is that we antipodeans are driven by sheer envy to be obsessed with it as well. If our current prime minister were ever caught in flagrante with some young staffer, his popularity would go through the roof. You just don't know how lucky you are.
-- Iain Scott
Sydney, Australia
SALON | Feb. 6, 1998

R E C E N T L Y+| IS BILL GATES A CLOSET LIBERAL? BY ANDREW LEONARD

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_______________ DRUDGING ADMIRATION BY MIKE GODWIN (02/02/98)
	Mike Godwin's admission that Matt Drudge's one-man journalistic enterprise will triumph in the end fails to put the Drudge controversy in a broader context. As a Generation Xer, I am appalled to see how baby-boomer journalists strenuously vilify Drudge. This reaction is clearly not because Drudge in fact has significantly lower standards than "major news outlets." Instead, it is because baby boomers are eternal, self-centered adolescents who believe that they are bright young things and will remain so for eternity. Their worst nightmare is being outdone by someone younger, faster, hungrier, with more techno savvy. Drudge, especially since the advent of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, personifies this nightmare for them. The vilification of Drudge is one small example of a generational warfare that is endemic. Generation Xers throughout the country are finding that their elders -- baby boomers -- have no interest in mentoring them. In fact, boomers go out of their way to do precisely the opposite. Boomers make professional development of young people as difficult and obstacle-ridden as possible. Consider the skyrocketing, and already skyrocketed, costs of higher education (not incidentally bankrolling boomer administrators and professors). Consider the necessity of an expensive college degree for almost any white-collar job, not to mention the nonsensical desirability of a time-wasting master's or doctorate degree. Boomers have rendered entrance to every profession more and more unlikely. It is as if the hurdle that used be three feet high when boomers made the leap is now 30 feet high. "Major news outlets" are bursting at the seams with overpaid boomers who will stop at nothing to protect their turf. Their hysterical reaction to Drudge manifests their panic when they belatedly realize they are old, and young people are beginning to replace them. -- Kathleen Reilly The worst thing about the latest "-gate" ("Penisgate" -- please!) you guys are all obsessed with is that we antipodeans are driven by sheer envy to be obsessed with it as well. If our current prime minister were ever caught in flagrante with some young staffer, his popularity would go through the roof. You just don't know how lucky you are. -- Iain Scott Sydney, Australia SALON \| Feb. 6, 1998