Ferguson Response

Megan Skelton

Andrew Ferguson

Response Paper

10/28/2008



As usual, when working my way through the required readings for our upcoming visitor, I was torn with what to focus my response on. Until reading “The Literary Obama” article and watching the provided video, I imagined Andrew Ferguson as a young, witty, sarcastic, and bold journalist, much like Matt Welch. After reading Ferguson’s perception on young writers who issue memoirs, I came to the conclusion that he himself must have had many years on me. A youngster myself, I tend to favor the memoirs of the young who I can find a way to relate to. People who have either overcome many hardships or accomplished much in early in life intrigue me. I think there is something to be heard from those people who can illuminate the story of their lives on paper. I myself have neither overcome many hardships, nor accomplished many goals. I also would not have the drive or desire to write a personal memoir.

I noticed not only in Ferguson’s writing, but also in his speech, his gift of becoming affected by the people that he meets and the things that he reads, then turning it into a captivating story. He exhibits many literary facets like sarcasm, irritation, excitement and sympathy. Therefore, I found it hard to find an all-encompassing theme in his writing. It was almost as though he was not just a journalist, reporting the news, but a storyteller sharing an experience.

In “The Media Builds a Monument to Itself”, I understood that he was trying to make the reader believe that the Newseum was almost a mockery of the journalism profession, not leaving anything to the human imagination, I was intrigued by each description of the museum and was excited to continue through the rest of the sites. He asserts that the museum is “ a perfect illustration of a paradox of the digital age: Overstimulation leads in the end to passivity”. This statement could not be juxtaposed more closely to Adorno and Horkeimer if it tried. Or maybe he was trying; I suppose that would also make sense. Journalists from what I have collected from most of our readings in this class seem more concerned with the reputation of their career, than their career itself. Ferguson breaks that mold a bit in this article by saying that the Newseum (supposedly representing the life of every journalist) over-“sanctifies” the life of the journalists by deeming it not only dangerous but also extremely impressive. He follows up by saying that “for the unimaginably vast majority of journalists, of course, journalism is as dangerous as bagging groceries at Whole Foods”. The joke being that Whole Foods is the least dangerous of all grocery stores.

I gathered from the last article as well as his speech, that Ferguson is more concerned or at least absorbed in history and the lives of those before us than current news. His views seem more relatable to another generation. In fact, while watching the video I couldn’t help but think that he looked and somewhat sounded like Donald Sutherland. I hoped that by some chance he might randomly blurt out “Would anyone like to smoke some pot”?

I found it interesting that Ferguson had personally been a speechwriter for George H. W. Bush. When formulating his conclusion about Obama’s second book, Ferguson expresses a bit of cynicism regarding the affects of politics on writing. He says, “an admirer…can only marvel at the crudity of passages like this. Has there ever been a better display of the destructive effects- the miniaturizing effects of professional politics? For the only thing that separates the writer of one book from the writer of the other is ten years as a politician”. Not to say that writing speeches for a politician necessarily makes you a politician, but isn’t it somewhat close? I feel as though he is inadvertently saying that the soul was ripped from his own writing after having served as a political speechwriter.

I collect that Ferguson, like many his age, is not so much bitter about the technological and cultural advancements of media, but somewhat misunderstanding of its evolution. He writes about blogging and the Internet in his first article alluding to the fact that Internet is so very disconnected from natural human interaction. Yes that is true, but it is also just an additional option for communication; a way of opening up communication to a vast audience.

I am very interested to sit down and have a more natural conversation with Andrew Ferguson to better grasp who he is and what he stands for, to see if I picked up on any bit of his essence.



Questions:

Did you feel as though being a political speechwriter hardened you at all?
Was it difficult to write a book on a topic so widely discussed and set it apart from the rest of the herd?
You have done a wide variety of types of writing: speech writing, book writing, journal articles… Which is your favorite?