While part of me thinks I should just let it slide (after all, who am I to criticise anyone else’s writing style?) I think I’ll flag this ‘article’ up as an example of just how appalling journalism, and especially american journalism, has become. I still get a Google alert for news of the 2024 olympics, so I found it in my inbox this morning. It is nothing but a rant about the olympics, riddled with xenophobia and stereotype. I suspect it’s writer, Dave Barry, thinks he was being funny, but he comes across as extremely arrogant. For example, he writes ”Dong Dong won the silver medal, and although he was clearly disappointed, he showed his class afterward by making a remarkably thoughtful, generous and self-effacing statement, although nobody knows what it was because it was in Chinese.” I would expect such schoolboy stuff from a personal blog, but to see it printed in the Miami Herald, which I presume to be a proper paper, staggers me. It’s as if the writer hasn’t realised he’s writing for a paper rather than ranting his xenophobic bull on facebook. What worries me is that this is very revealing of a growing arrogance in american culture: such belittling of other states is becoming increasingly acceptable; they take the stance that only they matter, hence the jibe about nobody understanding Chinese. One hears it on their talk radio. Of course there is a time and a place for all opinions, but to call this journalism, and for barry to call himself a journalist rather than the arrogant little wanker he comes across as, makes a mockery of the profession. Could this, however, be the way writing, journalism, and indeed culture, are going?