Institutions, industries, sport federations and all kinds of
groups have a member that towers above all the others for a time till it is
replaced by someone else.
You see this scenario unfold in sports where, for example, a
boxing champion dominates the game for a few years then loses the crown. You
also see it in each industry where the stock of a company becomes a favorite
among investors, thus rises to stratospheric levels before it corrects or
crashes. And you see the same thing happen just about everywhere else.
But how does it happen that the wearer of the crown loses
its high position? Well, diligent observations suggest there are two ways for
this to happen. There is the digital way, and there is the analogue way. For
the purpose of this discussion, we define 'digital' as the clear-cut and
observed proof of an occurrence. And we define 'analogue' as the fuzzy and
implied indication of an occurrence.
For example, in a game such as soccer, a goal is a goal. The
team that scores the most goals wins the game. This is a digital manifestation
of what has occurred. But when it comes to a boxing match where no one has
scored a knock-out, the judges watching the game decide who won by points. This
is the analogue manifestation of what has occurred.
Thus, it is apparent that in the analogue system, judgments
are made that can vary from one observer to another. In fact, it can even
happen that the same observer may have an opinion one moment, and change it a
moment later. This implies that “goodwill” engendered by the player is a factor
in how the judges decide. In turn, the judges' decision determines whether or
not the wearer of the crown keeps it or loses it. And the implications of this
process are so important; they should interest institutions like the Wall
Street Journal.
The undeniable history has been that publications have come
and gone over the decades because they did not engender enough goodwill to
maintain a loyal following. Some publications tried to innovate in an attempt
to catch up with the changing times, but lost anyway. They lost because they
overlooked two important requirements: the integrity of their performance which
they neglected, and the respect they should have shown for their followers
which they did not.
A publication can affect these two requirements with a
performance such as that rendered in the Wall Street Journal on December 4,
2017. This was the day when an article appeared under the title: “Anti-Israel
Activists Subvert a Scholarly Group” and the subtitle: “The American Studies
Association boycotted the Jewish State. It wasn't by popular demand.” It was
written by Jesse M. Fried and Eugene Kontorovich.
To put the matter in perspective, an article whose content
is of such low quality would not have interested the educated crowd if it were
printed in an ordinary publication. But because the Wall Street Journal carried
it, a number of readers got interested in it. This means that the Journal
imparted to the article some of its own goodwill. The catch, however, is that
playing with goodwill in this fashion is a zero sum game. That is, the writers
of the article gained what the Wall Street Journal lost. When a publication
repeats this kind of performance too often, it keeps eroding its position till
it loses the crown, ceding it to someone else.
But really, what is wrong with the Fried and Kontorovich
article, anyway?
To put it simply, what's wrong with the article is that it
makes big hay out of an ordinary, everyday occurrence. Look at the opening
sentence: “Emails appear to show that the American Studies Association's
decision to boycott Israel
was orchestrated by a small cadre of academics.” This is the event, as bland as
it is.
But the readers got a taste of how the writers of the article
were planning to proceed by what they said next. It is this: “...academics that
infiltrated the ASA's leadership to demonize the Jewish state.” Clearly then,
the intent of Fried and Kontorovich was to assign bad motives to people they
say “infiltrated” to “demonize.” It is upon this foundation that the two
writers built a case full of false descriptions and devoid of substance.
Meanwhile, whatever aura of respectability their accusations
have gained, it was subtracted from the storehouse of goodwill that the Journal
accumulated over the decades.