Wired’s Disastrous Piece About J.D. Vance’s Venmo Friends Demonstrates How Badly We Need Good Editors

And they are a dying breed

If you’re a young writer lucky enough to find yourself under the wing of an experienced, competent editor when you’re in your twenties, something very important will happen to you, more than once: that editor will roll his or her eyes at you.

Depending on this editor’s personality, it may or may not be a literal eye roll, but the point is that this editor will indicate that some argument you’ve made, or some sentence, or even the entire article you’ve written, just isn’t up to snuff. It doesn’t make sense. There’s a missing link.

The reason this is important is that many people in their twenties strongly believe they know things. This isn’t their fault — it’s just a common symptom of being in your twenties. And until a boss type who you respect disabuses you of this notion, you might continue to believe it, which is really dangerous for anyone who styles him or herself a budding journalist or public intellectual type in general.

I had editors like this at The Boston Globe, where I was an editorial-page permalancer for a couple of years, and at New York magazine, where I worked for three years, and I’m immensely grateful for the times they rolled their eyes at me. Not just because it helped make me a better thinker and writer but because it also aided in my comprehension of the distinction between being an actual journalist and being a hack (though that journey is, to say the least, as yet incomplete).

I thought about all of this after I read Wired’s July 18 article “J.D. Vance Left His Venmo Public. Here’s What It Shows.”