I hadn’t spoken to Todd Gitlin in some time. But I think I can say that he was a friend. Todd was a deeply humane, learned and funny guy. He was one of those people who had a deeply moral engagement with the world over a long life, much of it on the public stage.
2/ I remember back in the 90s when I was trying to figure out what I was doing and whether I wanted to leave what I was doing and become a writer I was reading a piece by him in Salon. It was about political media culture. And he had this line that this media …
3/ culture was premised on making citizens “cognoscenti of their own bamboozlement.” By which he meant that this media culture … well you know what he meant. And I read that and thought God I want to write phrases like that. I really want to do this. I want to be like that.
4/ And later I got to meet Todd and know him and have that thing where someone you’ve admired from afar has at least a reasonable impression of you. Todd was one of the half dozen contributors to the original TPMCafe. I’ll miss you, Todd. A great man has left us.
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