Bill Keller's Bully Pulpit
Last week Emma Keller, the wife of New York Times columnist and former Times executive editor Bill Keller, wrote a post for the Guardian about Lisa Adams, a young Connecticut mother who has been tweeting for years about her breast cancer treatment and the ways she has been dealing with her illness. Adams' cancer metastasized in 2012, and she has been receiving palliative treatment at Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York, where she has also assisted and advocated for research efforts. Emma Keller questioned Adams' approach. As Greg Miller of the Nation explains,
Emma Keller compares it to a 'Reality TV show.' She complains that Adams posted an update on her condition that morning and then had the nerve to post another one just hours later -- and wonders if her too-many tweets are 'a grim equivalent of deathbed selfies.' And she charges: 'You can put a "no visitors sign" on the door of your hospital room, but you welcome the world into your orbit and describe every last Fentanyl patch.'
Keller also asked, "Should there be boundaries in this kind of experience? Is there such a thing as TMI?" (too much information). In fact, as Hamilton Nolan of Gawker pointed out last week, Emma Keller tried to couch her criticisms as rhetorical questions.
Readers weren't impressed. Responses to Emma's post were understandably harsh, and the Guardian -- in a rare move -- deleted Keller's post with Lisa Adams' consent because, the editors wrote, the post was "inconsistent with The Guardian editorial code." Later the editors wrote that the post had "been removed pending investigation," perhaps because Emma Keller had published, without Adams' consent or knowledge, personal e-mails between the Adams and Keller. Keller apologized for this aspect of her post, which Daniel D'Addario of Salon characterizes as "a breach of ethics of a high order," but not for its content, which researcher Zeynep Tufekci writes, "also greatly misrepresented what was happening with Lisa Adams."
There is a certain sick irony in Emma Keller's complaints about Adams. Keller herself had a double mastectomy and wrote in September that not having to go through radiation and chemotherapy (as Adams has) filled her with guilt. Keller wrote in the September Guardian post,
What I've learnt over the past year or so is that those whose lives are upended by breast cancer are constantly hunting for information about how to live with it. The best way I can contribute is to help inform.
To that end, Emma Keller hosted three Guardian live chats. So breast cancer patients are "constantly hunting for information about how to live with it," and Adams is daily relating how she lives with her advanced-stage cancer. Adams' Twitter account has quite a following, so presumably many people appreciate the "information" she provides. But. As far as I can tell, Emma Keller thinks that she should be the arbiter of taste as to how people confront their illnesses, and she should be the conduit for dispensing just "the right amount" of information.
One supposes Emma Keller would be chastened by the criticisms of her post. Maybe she was and has simply declined to say so. But comes now husband Bill Keller to her defense -- and to the offense of Lisa Adams and most of the rest of us.
Bill Keller used his platform at the New York Times to contrast Lisa Adams' "fierce and very public cage fight" with his elderly "father-in-law's calm death.... His death seemed to me a humane and honorable alternative to the frantic medical trench warfare that often makes an expensive misery of death in America." By contrast, Bill Keller writes, "Adams is the standard-bearer for an approach to cancer that honors the warrior, that may raise false hopes, and that, implicitly, seems to peg patients like my father-in-law as failures." Keller mocks Adams, suggesting she is a foolish woman who, in a "morphine haze," can't face the fact that she is dying: "Lisa Adams is still alive, still blogging, and insists she is not dying, but the blog has become less about prolonging her survival and more about managing her excruciating pain. Her poetry has become darker.... I cannot imagine Lisa Adams reaching a point where resistance gives way to acceptance." He goes on to describe just how sick she is. He seems to be rooting for the Grim Reaper.
The responses to Bill and Emma Keller's attacks on Adams were swift. Greg Mitchell records some of the early tweeted responses. The Huffington Post has more. "... what's really undignified here is a married couple idly trashing a woman with Stage 4 cancer because they have a notion of what is the proper way to die," Daniel D'Addario writes.
They seem to believe that Ms Adams is being a diva, not just for tweeting about her illness but for her desire to struggle against the disease to the very end. They advise that she should go gently into this good night instead -- much as an elderly person who has reached the natural end of his life evidently. That these privileged jerks should even venture an opinion about how someone else should deal with a life-threatening illness reveals exactly what's so wrong with our elites. It really is all about them -- even how we should die. -- Digby
Zeynep Tufekci describes Bill Keller's post as
... what I can only call cancer-shaming: Don't tweet so much. He also pretty much calls on Adams to accept her fate 'with grace and courage,' quoting someone who 'perused' Adams' blog, directly implying that Lisa Adams is neither graceful nor courageous.... Both Kellers miss every point Lisa Adams makes -- and write articles unrelated to her actual experience, or the community around her.... Emma Keller's ... piece … is about Emma G. Keller's existential anxieties....
Bill Keller, on the other hand, has something he wants to say about how end of life is perhaps unwisely prolonged in small, painful increments with massive technological intervention in this country, so he projects this situation to Lisa Adams -- except that is not applicable in this case....
Bill Keller's piece is worse [than his wife's] in other ways because instead of trying to understand why his wife's piece drew such ire, he furthers the misunderstandings which are not just wrong, but are hurtful to a gravely ill person who is not yet dead, thank you very much. Also, Bill Keller has a huge platform so he should have spent more time actually researching the piece rather than what seems like an ill-advised rush to defend his wife.
Read Tufekci's whole post. He outlines everything the Kellers got wrong about Lisa Adams. Which is, well, everything.
Molly O'Reilly writes in Commonweal: Bill Keller "seems not to have thought for very long about how a mother with kids at home, however many there are, might legitimately approach her diagnosis differently than an elderly man like his father-in-law, whose choices Keller believes are dishonored by Adams's."
... the Keller family has written a bang-up pair of obituaries for her, if obituaries were think pieces about their writers. -- Hamilton Nolan
Margaret Sullivan, the Times' public editor, who emphasizes that it is "not my job" to critique columnists' opinions, nevertheless criticizes Keller for "issues ... of tone and sensitivity." Sullivan also cites proofs that Keller was unfamiliar with Adams' writings and of her personal history. Sullivan strongly implies Keller didn't know WTF he was writing about: "Mr. Keller's views here fall within what journalists would call 'fair comment' only to the extent that they are based on facts," she writes circumspectly.
Keller himself is not repentant for using, misrepresenting and abusing Adams. He suggests to Margaret Sullivan that many readers aren't very smart; they "misread my point, and some -- the most vociferous -- seem to believe that anything short of an unqualified 'right on, Lisa!' is inhumane or sacrilegious." To justify his attack, he pretends that Lisa Adams is a public figure, thus a legitimate target: "By living her disease in such a public way, by turning her hospital room into a classroom, she invites us to think about and debate some big, contentious issues." He denies that he and his wife "slammed" Adams.
Molly O'Reilly responds to Keller's self-defense,
Here I thought we'd have to wait till next week for Bill Keller to issue an 'I'm the real victim here, but I'm being big about it' nonresponse to his many critics, but Sullivan got it out of him before the day was out. Let's see, patting himself on the back for having 'touched a nerve'? Check. Smug disparagement of Twitter as a venue for response? Check. Why, it's almost as though he doesn't feel the least bit accountable to either readers or the actual facts.
Despite Keller's attempts to cast her as such, Lisa Adams is not a public figure. She is a private individual who has chosen to share her private thoughts. Her reasons for doing so are multiple. As Meghan O'Rourke of the New Yorker remarks, Lisa Adams "may be allowing us to overhear her decisions, but she is not asking us to callously debate them as if she were not still here."
That doesn't mean one can never ridicule or criticize private citizens. I do it occasionally, as when a bunch of wealthy people claimed "hardship" that they had to pay a little more for health insurance. You don't have to be a genius to see the difference between, say, wealthy whiners and people suffering genuine hardship. Neither must you be an excessively sensitive or thoughtful person to know it is heartless and cruel to disparage a person who is coping with debilitating illness. You don't have to approve of her methods of coping, but if you don't, you keep your mouth shut and wish her well. You offer what support you can. You let her know you're on her side. You offer encouragement, sympathy, empathy. That's not extraordinary; it's common decency. Almost everybody gets that and practices it.
A bully is a person who picks on people with less power than he. Bill Keller is a bully. He used Lisa Adams to promote his wife's work when he wrote approvingly of Emma's writing about Lisa Adams and linked to Emma's (now-deleted) post. Bill Keller misrepresented Lisa Adams' personal situation and her writings. And he abused her in other ways I've tried to outline above. That he did all this from the heights of his bully pulpit at perhaps the world's most prestigious big media outlet, that he did this to a private citizen who is struggling with illness and whom his wife had already decked, is unconscionable. I'll give Digby the last word:
Why would they think that using their perches at the top of the media food chain to bully some poor woman who is dealing with a deadly disease is even slightly appropriate? It's just bizarre.
Note: Below, I am reposting earlier comments on Bill Keller's column. Thanks to Barbarossa for bringing Keller's column to our attention.
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Reader Comments (12)
Posted by Barbarossa yesterday:
Most of today's news is just depressing or "so what else is new, but this note from Digby enraged me:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-elite-way-to-die.html
Who in hell gave the Kellers the right to tell someone else how to die?
As someone fighting my own battle, I'll do it my way, thank you. I have no intention of "going gently into that good night." I intend to fight every step of the way, and I don't need any unwanted advice from the Kellers, and if I choose to share my experiences: As Al Roker said to Rush: STUFF IT!
Posted by Akhilleus yesterday:
Barbarossa,
I have to admit I tend to avoid the trivial and largely puerile mewlings of Bill Keller but the articles to which you allude in which the Kellers, vir et uxor, exhibit their disdain and exasperation with a woman who, they suggest, should just shut up and die already, are beyond ignorance. For Keller to describe this woman's battle to stay alive as "defiance" which, in the context of his piece comes across as much more insolent and tedious than heroic or gutsy, removes future opinions of his from any possible consideration as coming from a thoughtful, decent, and well rounded human being.
Fuck you, Bill. This for you and this for your wife. This type of behavior makes the imperious Romneys look like Albert Schweitzer and Mother Theresa. We had a lot of fun at their expense during the campaign (and rightfully so) but I can't recall at any time one of them coming right out and complaining that another person's expressions of pain and suffering were tiresome and rude and that that person should just go off and die and stop bothering them.
Fuckers.
Bill's next job should be writing speeches and copy for Paul Ryan. It's a perfect fit. "Shut up, old lady, and eat your cat food. We're trying to enjoy the good life here and help out our wealthy friends and you're making too much noise about being cold and hungry so STFU!"
Asshole.
Posted by Rose in Michigan yesterday:
@Akhilleus: I seem to recall a picture of the GWB gridlock with a guy standing outside his car, apparently attempting to find out WTH is going on. I believe MSNBC has aired it on at least a couple programs: Rachel, Chris, perhaps Steve. I've tried to locate it and failed. {Sorry -- but I'm sure it's out there.} Still, it would be my choice for "iconic picture of BridgeGate."
@Barbarossa @Akhilleus: But that's nothing compared to "Kellergate." I followed the links from Barbarossa's post (for which thanks), and I am breathless with outrage. It's particularly personal for me, because I have a friend and former colleague who is in a similar position: she's in her early 30s, married with 3 young children and fighting lung cancer. She's brilliant, artistically gifted, and potentially has a wonderful future ahead of her --IF she can beat the disease. She also has a blog:
http://lil-lytnin.blogspot.com/
(If you go there, scroll down to the December 31 post -- it's poignant and beautiful.)
This is where we're headed: people like this monumental asshole Keller (et ux) telling the rest of us when we should fight and when we should just give up and die already. Alan Grayson said it almost perfectly a few years ago (missing the mark only in attributing it solely to Republicans, when it's actually the plutocracy, both Republican AND Democrat): "Don't get sick, but if you do, die quickly." Why is this "man" still allowed to spew his excremental verbiage all over the New York Times -- or any national news outlet, for that matter?
I'm looking forward to Charlie Pierce's take on this.
Posted by Kate Madison earlier this morning:
Just have to make another comment on the horrendous, elitist and completely unempathetic Kellers, Bill and Emma! When you have been given a death sentence after a cancer diagnosis, will you please write another column? I am sure it will be quite different, and perhaps more humane and caring.
I am a former Hospice supervisor, and I have nothing but praise and pride in the patients and hospice workers I had the privilege to know. The patients personified "death with dignity." The Kellers most probably will not be so lucky. Hubris does have its day.
@Barbarossa - YOU GO GUY! I appreciate and admire your spirit! And I am grateful to be a fellow commenter on Reality Chex.
Posted by Barbarossa this morning:
Barbarossa <roberthicks@mac.com> (Unregistered) added The Commentariat -- Jan, 14, 2014:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/former-nyt-editor-bill-keller-and-his-wife-under-fire-for-commentary-on-cancer-patient/2014/01/13/d40a0ac4-7ca0-11e3-93c1-0e888170b723_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines
Looks as if the Kellers found a whole bunch of people who were offended by their insensitivity. Advice to Mr. Keller: When you're wrong, just STFU. Don't try to justify what you did. I'm just as angry with you today as yesterday. CW pegged this guy as a loser some time ago.
Here is the Keller story packaged as "Concern Trolling", by WP's Alexandra Petri:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2014/01/13/enter-the-concern-troll/
She doesn't write it, but it seems to me that to be a Concern Troll, I mean a really sincere one (read: oblivious), you have to think you are pretty superior to those to whom you extend your concern. Seems a natural style for Mr. Keller, from what we have read from him over the years.
So widdow Billy is unhappy that people aren't hoisting him on their shoulders and carrying him down Broadway for really giving it to that whiny cancer lady.
My favorite quote, well, one of them, demonstrating this guy's complete disconnect from the world of real people is his self pitying moan that "...anything short of an unqualified 'right on, Lisa!' is inhumane or sacrilegious".
You know what Billy? It pretty much is. Inhumane anyway. What's wrong with a simple expression of support for another human who is battling to stay alive to be with her children as long as she can? What? Huh?
How 'bout we start collecting money to hire cheerleaders to surround the Keller home or hospital bed when it's Billy's turn to check out? "Go Bill Keller, go! Go Bill Keller, go. Just say "fuck it", kick that bucket. Go Bill Keller, Go!"
I'm in for five bucks. Anyone else?
There has to remain room in this and many other discussions to retain the distinction between morality and taste.
Seems to me the Kellers got the two confused, something easily done when you come to think of yourself as a public sage and let your ego seep outside the boundaries of your skin.
At base the Kellers find Lisa Adams' approach to dying tasteless. All this sharing, which they think to be a spectacle, is something they would never do; it runs counter to their sense of dignity and rightness. I don't know if the Kellers have a clear notion of a "right" way to live, but they do seem sure of the "right" way to die, and raised as I was in the don't complain, stiff upper lip culture, insofar as that is their argument, I have some sympathy for it. But as I have not died yet, I am very aware I don't have little idea how I will handle my own demise when the time comes. If I'm aware enough to notice, I will see.
Where the Kellers went wrong, it seems to me is in their inability or unwillingness to see the uncertainty or relativity in such a fundamental human matter as the way we die, and it is that void in their thinking and sensitivity makes them far less than wise.
They apply their own notions of propriety, confusing them with morality, to everyone else, and haven't even noticed that in the long tradition of brave, dignified dying from which they apparently come (and will presumably uphold when it comes their time to shuffle off), an ideal that tells them what is right and proper, there was no internet, no twitter, no video cameras and no way for all those who established those traditions of meeting death fully composed to share their dying outside their immediate family or clan, certainly not with thousands of strangers.
(And I haven't even mentioned a more universal belief in a certain afterlife that I suspect undergirds a large part of the tradition that they think Adams' behavior undermines. This post is already long enough.)
Just because that sharing seems unseemly to them does not mean it is wrong. And while we do all die alone, it seems to me that the urge not to die lonely is very understandable and hardly an occasion for moral one-upmanship.
In a changing world, it is confusing personal taste with morality that is unseemly.
Re: the price for livin' is dyin' too. or "Out, out brief candle". I think the Kellers made their mistake when they went public with what I see is a private matter. If the woman in question wants to comment on her own health and death that's her business. Dying is personal, even twitting about it is a personal choice. Here's another story.
My neighbor; long time FBI agent, was told he had incurable stomach cancer. One day he called his son up and told the young man to be at his dad's house at 3PM sharp. He called the fire department and reported a suicide; wrapped himself in a plastic tarp and shot himself in the head in his garage at 2:55PM. His son and the fire and police arrived at the scene at the same time. I knew "Pete" and I knew what he did was his way of "taking care of business". Few if any, in my neighborhood understood the "Big Why". Everybody goin' to die.
To remark on one person's way of "going" publicly is in really bad taste and I'm no "Dear Abby".
What's wrong with Keller's wife? Jez, She's fuckin' dying; give her a fuckin' brake would ya?
By the by, Old "Pete" had a set a balls on him if you ask my opinion.
I've read Keller's NY Times article, Sullivan's take and the following post which is a must read before commenting.
www.medium.com/technology-and-society/4d811b45840d
When you learn Lisa is not in hospital undergoing treatment for cancer both Mr & Mrs Keller posts fall into the category of WTF. The impression I got from Mr Keller was that he had some familiarity with the case. That was apparently exaggerated. Greatly.
I have some personal acquaintance with cancer. Few of my examples are cheering. The important thing is that they were all told their treatment options and the likelyhood of the outcome. They were under no illusions as to the future other than the amount of optimism humans are subject to. They were allowed a period of time to face the future with their family. That is what is important to me. To be able to say goodbye to my loved ones in good time and then exit however I choose. My nightmare is to be at the mercy of a gung ho medical team fighting a disease to my bitter end.
@cowichan: A curious comment re: Tufekci's post, since I link it twice in the body of my post, cite it extensively & urge readers to read it to understand what-all the Kellers get wrong. Not sure why you're linking it a third time & suggesting (others commenters &) I should not have commented on the Kellers' posts without reading Tufekci.
I don't see how you can infer I didn't read something I cited. Is there something in my post that conflicts with Tufekci's post? Do tell.
Marie
I'm quite late to this discussion. I've had that ugly flu and haven't been among the world for a few days. Talking about cancer is something I rarely do in a group or in written form. I tend to offer an ear to individuals who may see me as understanding their feelings, which I can tell you are mostly just plain terrified. I had ovarian and uterine cancer at age 33, which was successfully treated. My son was 3 years old.
Everyone manages illness and especially cancer, on their own terms. People, whether they survive or are terminal, can share that experience or not. Each person finds his or her stride, publically or privately. To judge, in such a pathetically arrogant way, how others must conduct themselves in their personal situation is truly disgusting. I am struck by the thought that Emma Keller's "existential anxieties" are raw terror about a possible reoccurrence. There is no shame in that part, I'm pretty sure we all feel it. Perhaps the disdain she expresses for Adams is the way she puts some distance to her terror. At any rate, those Keller pieces were profane.