|
|
Barbara Goldsmith Laments Post's Liz Smith Losswww.WowOWow.com
A FRIEND STOPPED BY | February 26, 2009 Barbara Goldsmith Laments Post's Liz Smith Loss By Barbara Goldsmith Editor’s Note: Barbara Goldsmith is the bestselling author and historian of five notable award-winning books. Also, her articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. Ms. Goldsmith has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was recently designated a “Living Landmark” by the New York Landmark Conservancy. “Even a cat may look at a Queen.” Liz Smith often starts her columns with a quote, and this one gets her perfectly. She’s a Texas kitten who came to the big city and, to her own surprise, became the Queen herself. I’ve known her since she ghosted the “Cholly Knickerbocker” column more than 40 years ago — and made gossip an American staple. I’ve sat on her floor gobbling Texas-style chicken-fried steak while she told me of her dream to raise money to teach the illiterate (she has, to the tune of $20 million). But in all this time, Liz never stops being the ultimate fan, an encourager of talent, a Boswell of celebrities and the stars who give her great scoops because she never betrays them. When the New York Post let her go this week (too much money? She’s 86, etc.), what really went is a gold standard of journalism. Liz manages to tell it all with integrity (remarkably, she checks her sources), kindness, humor and audacity. She is never out just to titillate a reader by vicious jabs and heard-through-the-grapevine scandal. As a writer and historian, I’ve seen this lowest common denominator stuff (I can’t call it journalism) grow huge and all-consuming like the plant in "Little Shop of Horrors" who cries out, “Feed me, feed me.” For me, there’s no longer any reason to buy the Post. Oh wait a minute, except for the horoscope (I try to forget that everybody born in the same month is advised to do exactly the same thing). But don’t worry about our Mary Elizabeth. For starters, she’s just been hired by Parade (that’s 40 million readers) to replace the late James Brady. She’s blogging on this site, writing for Daily Variety and is on TV. I’m exhausted just thinking about all she does. Oscar Wilde said, “Gossip is charming … but scandal is gossip made tedious." The pendulum of down-and-dirty gossip is swinging away from the tedium of shock and scandal toward glamour and fun. I picture Liz Smith, riding that swinging pendulum, the Queen’s crown on her very blonde head. 
|
|
