{"id":218,"date":"2012-01-12T11:37:16","date_gmt":"2012-01-12T15:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/?p=218"},"modified":"2019-03-24T07:17:26","modified_gmt":"2019-03-24T11:17:26","slug":"tales-from-flyover-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/tales-from-flyover-country\/","title":{"rendered":"Tales from Flyover Country"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since I am one of Iowa’s newest residents, I suppose I should finally comment on professor of journalism Stephen Bloom’s screed<\/a> against my poor benighted state.\u00a0 In a nutshell, he takes about 6000 colorful words to argue that Iowans shouldn’t have such a prominent role in selecting presidential candidates because we’re all corn-shucking crackers who don’t represent the beautiful mosaic of American diversity.<\/p>\n

If you haven’t already, I encourage you to read both the original article<\/a> and Iowahawk’s pitch-perfect satire<\/a> of it.\u00a0 But the long and short of it is that the way Professor Bloom revels in Iowan stereotypes manages to fulfill just about every stereotype of elitist left-coast professors.\u00a0 As Mollie Hemmingway<\/a> put it, “This reads like a parody of what conservatives claim journalism professors and journalists think about them. Except that, you know, it\u2019s not a parody.”<\/p>\n

This is old news, but it seems that Professor Bloom was on NBC last week<\/a> defending himself against criticism from the hordes of dangerous Jesus-freaks that surround him.\u00a0 It’s worth watching simply to see him continue to expertly play the part.\u00a0 He takes the classic elitist professor stance of claiming that everybody is upset because he’s too hardcore for them to handle–which pretty much makes him the Charlie Sheen of academia.\u00a0 Unlike most Iowans, he’s not on meth, but he is<\/em> on a drug.\u00a0 It’s called Stephen-freaking-Bloom!\u00a0 Or maybe it’s just tenure; I don’t know.<\/p>\n

Of course, it’s all an act.\u00a0 In order to maintain his elitist persona he has to begin by expressing surprise that anyone could be such a simpleton as to be upset over what he wrote.\u00a0 Then towards the middle of the interview he realizes that he doesn’t want to look naive, so he tells Willie Geist that he knew he was stepping into a dangerous situation when he wrote it.\u00a0 And, of course, he indicated elsewhere<\/a> that he’s “sorry” people are offended, but in the same breath tells us that causing offense is the point of journalism (it’s not).\u00a0 So I guess he’s both sorry he’s a journalism professor and surprised that he’s successful at journalism?\u00a0 <tangent>In academia, art has been all about causing offense for a long time.\u00a0 I guess journalism is now too.\u00a0 How long until the day comes when causing offense is the only knowledge college graduates have?\u00a0 I’m glad I graduated before computer science and economics are all about offending.<\/tangent><\/p>\n

In any case, it seems fairly clear that Bloom’s screed against Iowa is about Iowa only in pretense.\u00a0 His stilted version of the state is merely a foil by which he attempts to establish his own social standing.\u00a0 At the end of the day, elitists only write about themselves–nothing else interests them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since I am one of Iowa’s newest residents, I suppose I should finally comment on professor of journalism Stephen Bloom’s screed against my poor benighted state.\u00a0 In a nutshell, he takes about 6000 colorful words to argue that Iowans shouldn’t … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nTales from Flyover Country - The 96th Thesis<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/tales-from-flyover-country\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tales from Flyover Country - The 96th Thesis\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Since I am one of Iowa’s newest residents, I suppose I should finally comment on professor of journalism Stephen Bloom’s screed against my poor benighted state.\u00a0 In a nutshell, he takes about 6000 colorful words to argue that Iowans shouldn’t … Continue reading →\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/tales-from-flyover-country\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The 96th Thesis\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-01-12T15:37:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-03-24T11:17:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Matt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@matt_e_cochran\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@matt_e_cochran\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Matt\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/tales-from-flyover-country\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/tales-from-flyover-country\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Matt\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/026b49396f19b6940e8bb4a68d94b5fa\"},\"headline\":\"Tales from Flyover Country\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-01-12T15:37:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-03-24T11:17:26+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/tales-from-flyover-country\/\"},\"wordCount\":460,\"commentCount\":2,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/026b49396f19b6940e8bb4a68d94b5fa\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Culture\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/tales-from-flyover-country\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/tales-from-flyover-country\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/tales-from-flyover-country\/\",\"name\":\"Tales from Flyover Country - The 96th Thesis\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-01-12T15:37:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-03-24T11:17:26+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/tales-from-flyover-country\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/tales-from-flyover-country\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/tales-from-flyover-country\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Tales from Flyover Country\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The 96th Thesis\",\"description\":\"The Devil Never Sleeps; 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