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No Cure for the Anonymous Virus |
The
Warren Adler E-Sheet 23
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No Cure
for the Anonymous Virus
The
"anonymous" virus is a two-headed creature
that proliferates in an ever-expanding
circle. It has the capacity to inflate or
destroy depending on its whim and the
tenacity of its virulence.
I am
reminded of the power of this virus by two
oddly unconnected stories. The first
is the flap over Robert Novack's use
of a "protected anonymous source" to reveal
the identity of a CIA operative who happened
to be the wife of a severe critic of the
Bush administration.
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Is this the source
of your information? |
The second
is a story about Amazon readers who
write their own reviews of books
anonymously. In Canada, a glitch in the
Amazon hardware revealed the names of the
review writers and, after a quick flap, the
software was changed and the reviewers were
once again anonymous.
On the
journalist front, I think the use of
anonymous sources has gotten wildly out
of hand. Gossip rules these days. How
can any respected journalist quote
"anonymous sources" and still retain any
semblance of journalistic integrity? Every
time I read or hear such phrases as "on the
condition of anonymity" or "unnamed
sources", I shudder and immediately think
"payback" or "hidden agenda" of the
journalist.
As a
fiction writer, I do appreciate the irony.
But a journalist cloaks himself in the
mantle of objective observer of real events,
not an inventor of characters and plot turns
to move the story forward.
Journalists
will argue that the search for the so-called
"truth" requires the use of such sources,
many of whom would not come forth for fear
of retaliation, real or imagined. I am
reminded of the famous "Deep Throat" who
"anonymously" brought down the Nixon
Administration.
I have
always been skeptical of the "Deep Throat"
assertion, considering it more a
book-marketing ploy or, at best, a
composite of anonymous sources that exposed
an incredibly stupid action by over-eager
partisans in an election cycle. Of course,
Nixon deserved his fate on the grounds of
blockheaded retaliation.
But if the
"Deep Throat" assertion were true, then why
doesn't the real "Deep Throat" step forward.
Where is the retaliation factor now, decades
after the event? Indeed, if "Deep Throat"
really existed he would be wise to reveal
himself and pick up the book contracts and
movie money before he, or she, becomes a
historical footnote.
The flap
over the anonymous reviews by "readers" of
books on Canadian Amazon is a subject close
to my heart and career. Amazon's idea is a
variation of guerilla marketing. The
reader speaks. The idea is to have the
reader step up to the plate and either
recommend or denounce the book.
On the
grounds of free speech, I have no quarrel
with that, but why the accent on
anonymity? What's wrong with standing up
to be counted? The issue raised is that many
of the glowing reviews have been written by
the author's themselves or their friends in
order to hype the book and the negative
reviews are written mostly by the author's
enemies for reasons of jealousy, personal
pique or sheer hatred. In other words, they
are an exercise of "payback" and
"retaliation" for some real or imagined hurt
or deep-seated personal prejudice against
something embedded in the content or style
of the text.
As for the
charge that authors and their friends might
write ecstatic reviews of their work to
enhance sales, I can only remark that the
gullibility of most people is boundless.
Consider the act comparable to a celebrity
who cheerfully endorses a product. We know
its baloney, but at least its "honest"
baloney and not anonymous.
I suppose
in the laissez-faire world of the infinite
Internet, a medium through which anybody can
say anything, (like me) sell anything, tout
anything, hate anything, voice opinions on
anything, seduce, debauch, entice or
corrupt, such observations are futile. The
winner in all this is operations like
Amazon. We are all bathing in snake oil.
Indeed, the
publishing industry, and book retail
outlets, through its trade journals,
particularly Publisher's Weekly and
Kirkus and various satellite online
so-called review services rely heavily on
anonymous reviews for their advance shelf
stocking purchases.
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Author, meet
your reviewer. |
Why
anonymous reviews? Why are these journals
afraid to name their so-called
reviewers, all of whom are paid a pittance
for their piecework. Are they ashamed of the
people they choose to render what are often
life and death opinions on various books?
Who are they? What are their credentials for
judgment, if any? Are they truly unbiased?
Do personal animosities enter their thought
process? Have they hidden agendas? Why
the secret?
Having been
on the receiving end of both glowing and
terrible reviews, I am always curious to
know the identity of those who pass
judgment, positive or negative, on my work.
On the other hand, the reviewer lives in
constant fear of being confronted by someone
to whom he has given a bad review. His
face-to-face confrontation with the
victim of his wrath often leaves him deeply
uncomfortable, certainly less high and
mighty than when all he had to confront was
the blank page. After all, he must think,
somewhat chastened by confrontation in the
real world, it is, after all, only his
opinion.
Unfortunately, good, bad or indifferent such
critical conclusions become a guide to the
wholesaler and can determine the fate of a
newly published book. Booksellers will argue
that the reading public is the final arbiter
and that word of mouth is the engine that
powers the sales ship. They would be
correct, of course, but the mouth won't
cooperate if the eyes can't find the book on
the shelf.
Hollywood
has another version of the anonymity virus.
It's called coverage. Many new books
are "covered" meaning read by a vast army of
piecework practitioners mostly entry level
recent graduates of film schools and English
majors, unemployed actors and failed
writers, who determine whether a book is
worth adapting to a movie. The coverage boys
and girls check off their opinion on a
survey form of what they believe will make
or not make a good movie. These are then fed
into computers and preserved forever as a
database of considered opinion. Translated,
this means that the anonymous virus
lies in wait in the hard drive of
movie-oriented computers.
Producers
will often say with pride that they never
rely on "coverage" and always read books
they buy or persuade others to buy. If this
is so, why pay the coverage people?
While I've
merely scratched the surface of the
influence of the anonymous virus, I leave
you with this thought.
If you've
ever been the victim of malicious
gossip, or been ostracized for perceived
opinions not your own, or have experienced
unjust alienation from some circumscribed
group, or excluded in your hometown for
dubious or manufactured reasons, or frozen
out unjustly from what you thought
was your circle of dear friends, or have
written a book or poem or created a work of
art that has been blasted by an
unidentifiable critic, blame it on the
anonymous virus and bite the bullet. You
have no choice. No cure for the anonymous
virus has yet been found.
Children of the Roses
Coming in April!
Children of
the Roses nearing publication in April,
along with reprint of
The War of the Roses.
We Are Holding the President Hostage
This one caused quite a stir when it was
published eighteen years ago. Unfortunately, it
has morphed into a cautionary tale that is as
relevant today as it was nearly two decades ago.
***
We Are Holding the
President Hostage
A Mafia Don swings into action when
terrorists capture his daughter and
grandson.
EVEN HERE, MARIA THOUGHT, a pebble’s throw
from the grimy once-ornate facade of the
Egyptian Museum, the fetid stew of Cairo in
July hung in the air, noxious and unhealthy.
From the car she could see shimmering
thermal patterns, like ghostly dervishes,
whirling through the late-afternoon
falluca traffic on the river.
Joey’s rubber ball made pocking sounds against the rear deck
of the Mercedes. It printed smudges in the
dusty surface but left no damage, and she
let him amuse himself. Her gaze drifted
toward the hodgepodge of vehicles thrashing
forward in the streets: ramshackle buses
choked with people, trucks belching dark
exhausts, cars of every vintage, donkeys
pulling flatbed carts, a slow-moving river
of molasses. She contemplated the impending
Friday run to Alexandria. It would be a
gut-wrenching punishment.
One more time she looked at her watch. Robert had told her
that the schedule called for the delegation
to be finished with the museum tour by four,
which meant five or thereabouts,
acknowledging the Egyptian penchant for
defying punctuality. It was now fifteen
minutes past five.
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