Thursday, January 21, 2010

How many journalists does it take to write a memoir?

This evening I came across a review of a memoir by Mika Brzezinski. Mostly because I don't have cable, I had never heard of her. From reading the review, I found out she is a journalist who co-anchors a show called "Morning Joe" on MSNBC, and she had written her new book with her co-author, Daniel Paisner.

Read that last sentence again. She is a journalist, and she needed a coauthor. That struck me as odd, to say the least, but I thought maybe her life story was so long and rich that it must fill a tome of at least 500 pages. Nope, actually 232.

What kind of self-respecting journalist can't even write a book by herself? I'm not picking on Mika--heck, I've never heard of her until today. But I can't help but think that this little tidbit says a lot about the sorry state of journalism today, and I suspect that Mika was not chosen for her current television position because of her facility with the English language.

2 comments:

dave starry said...

Calling Mika Brzezinski a "journalist" is stretching the definition of that word just a bit (quite a bit, actually).

bloggermike said...

I am a viewer of Mika and "Morning Joe" on MSNBC and I agree w/the previous comment. Hoping I don't sound too sexist, she's the pretty blonde on the set.