Demagogue

Actually, a better question would be "who the hell does Dana Stevens think she is?"

Stevens writes the Surfergirl blog for Slate, a self-described "blog about TV and popular culture."

In her most recent post, she takes exception to Nightline's decision to let Don Cheadle "report" from Sudan

But good intentions and moral outrage don't make Cheadle a journalist. Koppel introduced the actor as "Don Cheadle, who reported and narrates the story for us ..." But Cheadle wasn't reporting last night's dispatch from the refugee camps at Darfur - he was hosting it, providing a spoken commentary and a likable, recognizable face to some unseen news producer's take on the congressional mission to Sudan. The distinction seems important in a world where journalism is fast becoming a cult of personality.

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Once again, I applaud Don Cheadle's desire to draw more attention to an event as horrific as the one that, in his own words, he "spent last year fictitiously experiencing." But when it comes to Nightline's journalistic probity in choosing to cast Cheadle as a fictitious reporter, I'm less than impressed.

Stevens also apparently reviews books, as evidenced by a semi-recent Washington Post review of "The Brontë Myth" where she was identified as

Dana Stevens (aka Liz Penn) is a scholar of comparative literature. She writes about television for Slate.com and on film and culture for the High Sign.

Now, having an advanced degree in comparative literature certainly makes her qualified to write about the Bronte sisters, but I don't really see how it makes her qualified to criticize Nightline's journalistic standards.

(On the other hand, I don't have an advanced degree in anything, so I probably don't have the right to criticize Stevens at all. For that matter, by my own standard, I don't really have any right to criticize anyone or anything that is not focused solely on misanthropes and their obsession with genocide. Hmmm ... well, if you come across any other genocide-obsessed misanthropes, let me know and I'll eagerly attack them for being complete poseurs and/or dilettantes - rhetorically and pseudonymously, of course.)