Snark unit

New Yorker critic David Denby reckons that the interweb thingy has "lowered the tone" of journalism, and has coined the word "snark" to describe this. The paperback version of his book, called (funnily enough) Snark, came out last Thursday.



Earlier, Denby and Toby Young, author of the insipid (if I remember rightly) How To Lose Friends And Alienate People, had a food fight on Radio 4's Today programme about it. Young didn't agree with Denby, saying it's the oldies versus the newbies or perhaps the intellectuals versus the plebs.

John Humphrys didn't seem to give a monkeys either way, while I was distracted somewhat by thoughts of Lewis Carroll...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8241000/8241214.stm