I’m getting twinges in my neck indicating that I’ve been spending too much time looking at the computer, and I’ve got some computer-heavy work coming up in the next couple of weeks, so expect reduced blogging in the next few days. I couldn’t let this essay in the New Yorker (via Matt Yglesias) pass without comment, though. It’s arguing for a model of endowment-supported nonprofit journalism, but along the way it takes a shot at my alma mater:
Not to pick on any one institution, but, from a constitutional perspective, how did we end up in a society where Williams College has (or had, before September) an endowment well in excess of one billion dollars, while the Washington Post, a fountainhead of Watergate and so much other skeptical and investigative reporting critical to the republic’s health, is in jeopardy?
I just can’t let this one slide. Sure, Washington Post broke the story about Watergate, but don’t think Williams had no role: Jeb Stuart Magruder is a Williams alumnus.
Williams also produced former Education Secretary and noted gambler William Bennett, and Yankee owner and noted loudmouth George Steinbrenner, so Williams has done a lot for journalism. Steinbrenner alone probably accounts for at least 10% of the revenue of the New York Post over the past three decades…