Tom McGeveran

We’ve seen scandals before at News Corp. properties, and in normal circumstances, the obsession with the fates of these editors would be a matter of forgetfulness. Do we not already know that top editors and executives in Rupert Murdoch’s international media empire, like naughty nephews of the Caesar, need only to be assigned to a lush manor in a remote province for a time before their behavior there necessitates their return to Rome, their old sins in the capital long-forgotten?

This is one version of David Carr, which he endorses: a veteran of the alternative newsweekly scene, and the media-focused Web 1.0 craze; a former crack addict and single father on welfare who has written a memoir all about it without sparing himself, who tweets with abandon, moves comfortably among the paper’s enemies at dinners, parties and media events; a journeyman reporter who is content to have the ear of the executive editor and the cub reporters alike on an informal basis, grateful as he is to have the job he has. It’s not wrong, but it’s not complete.

You can change the particulars however you want, and set the time anytime you want. Some examples: The website, famous for its slideshows and linkbait, wants real reporting now; the magazine, famous for its celebrity profiles and fashion spreads, wants features on the state of women in Afghanistan; the newspaper, famous for its discounting of the importance of work on the web, wants to liberate you to blog all day; the blog, famous for its short, pithy takes on other people’s news, wants long essays. A website that has traditionally treated its “editors” as “product managers” who spend more time in bizdev and marketing meetings than editorial meetings wants to liberate them to provide meaningful guidance, support and direction for a new editorial team with beefier journalistic bona fides.