I stopped by the University library yesterday to take a look at
the latest issue of American Literature because it includes not only some interesting essays about Samuel R. Delany, a fellow I've written about a bit myself, but also a fabulous essay by
Aaron Bady, "Tarzan's White Flights: Terrorism and Fantasy Before and After the Airplane".
In this essay, there is what may be my favorite statement-required-by-a-rights-holder evah (as they say). It accompanies
a drawing by Robert Baden-Powell, author of
Scouting for Boys, that appeared in the
Daily Mail in 1938 and is titled "Policeman Aeroplanes":
Reproduced by kind permission of the Scout Association Trustees. The Scout Association does not endorse Mr. Bady's article or the use of air power against civilians.
So relieved to have that cleared up!
The cover for this issue of
American Literature, by the way, reprints the famous
August 1928 cover of Amazing Stories. If
Duke University Press, the journal's publisher, were to sell posters of this cover, I would buy one in a second, because seeing
Amazing Stories on the cover of
American Literature gives me irrational, childlike joy.
Through a bit of luck, I was able to get a copy of the November 1926 issue of Amazing Stories (vol. 1, no. 8) for an affordable price (because it's not in very good condition). I've wanted to see a complete issue of one of the early, Hugo Gernsback-edited Amazings for ages -- yes, aside from the material they reprinted from Wells and Verne and Poe, most of the fiction they published was atrociously bad and even occasionally illiterate, but Amazing as an idea and institution was an important step in differentiating science fiction from other types of writing.
The editorial by Gernsback in this issue has separated from the binding, so here, for your amusement, is a scan of it (click on the image for a full-size view):
Citizen journalism has already upset a lot of traditional boundaries between journalists and regular people.
Blogged book reviews are competing against struggling newspaper review sections and more citizen reporters are filtering information collected by newspaper journalists.
Today, Jeff Jarvis is writing about what he calls Vigilante Journalism--a new breed of punchy citizen reporters with videocameras who ask uncomfortable questions. A recent television feature about Jimmy Justice, a citizen journalist who confronts traffic cops, treated his work as obnoxious.
Jarvis responds with a passionate essay about the nature of citizen journalism, reminding us that even though the boundaries have shifted, the work a journalist, citizen or otherwise, has not changed. Check it out:
"On the Today Show this morning, David Gregory got on a high horse interviewing Jimmy, asking whether he wasn’t just a bit obnoxious...Well, what’s any less obnoxious about a reporter asking the same question? That’s exactly why subjects so often think reporters are rude: they’re being asked questions they don’t want to answer."
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That is quite an amusing disclaimer. I wonder what compelled them to write it...
I would show you the correspondence, but that would probably be breaking some kind of implied confidentiality agreement or something. Basically, the Scout association holds the rights to the picture I wanted to use, and they didn't want to deny me the right to use it (being very reasonable people, it turns out) but they also didn't really like what I was saying about the founder of the Scouts (or implying), so that disclaimer was urged on me as a compromise. I'm just glad they didn't make me pay to use the picture, which would have been fully within their rights.