As many you have already heard Sean Penn sat down with El Chapo for an interview back in October for Rolling Stone, who recently published it. Since then many journalists, publications have come out against Penn saying that he gives a bad name to journalists, that he should be charged because he knew of El Chapo’s whereabouts but did not notify authorities. Chelsea Handler also said “He’s very funny. He also takes himself very seriously, and I didn’t know he was a journalist — I mean, what the f— is that?” Add that to the media outlets like Gawker condemning his decision to conduct the interview.
In this day and age with social networking anyone with a smartphone can be a journalists. You don’t need the backing of a publication anymore,you get to hear different voices and point of view you would have never of heard before in the past and that is a great thing. But with that you will also get many more shit writers and trolls but that just comes with the change. But to say someone isn’t a real journalist because they didn’t go to college is laughable. I have seen more stories broken on Twitter versus any network or news publication in the past five years. Thats where stories break, and get picked up now.
Going back to the Penn article , how many of his detractors would have turned down an opportunity to exclusive interview with El Chapo ? Exactly , it may not be the best piece in the world because El Chapo had the final edit of the interview and it wouldn’t have gotten published otherwise but I give Penn credit because going into the jungle and meeting with one the most dangerous men on the planet has to be frightening. That takes massive balls and he did it, so Penn has my respect. Sure he can come off as a blow hard sometimes but I just think he gets so passionate about things he can’t help himself. He was going for a different style of interview and trying to humanize El Chapo and discovering why the way he is and what caused that. Sean has done many great things here in the USA and around the world for the much less fortunate from helping with reliefs efforts in Haiti and in New Orleans after Katrina. So people need to give him a break and try to make the world a better place like he has done before they break out the pitchforks.
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