Readers objected, of course, starting a thread on Twitter called #YASaves. But here's the most interesting part of the story: the Wall Street Journal posted a subset of those tweets to their Storify account, pointed to it from their Twitter account, and invited further comment to their Facebook page.
So what do you think about the stodgy, conservative old Wall Street Journal proving to be the savviest of new-media newspapers?
It's sort of nice that the WSJ are incorporating some of the comments from the #YAsaves twitter stream. But I think it would be better if they would actually publish articles by people who know what they are talking about.
See this excellent blogpost for a dissection of what is wrong with the WSJ's article and what should be done: http://www.gayleforman.com/blog/2011/06/06/wall-street-nonsense/
I find it interesting that online trolling has gone from a technique John Dvorak used to pump up his page views in the online tech press, to a WSJ staple. I haven't read any of the newer books mentioned in that article, but the comparison to Judy Blume seems apt: remember the hullabaloo over her work?
Going back further, S.E. Hinton? Robert Louis Stevenson? Ms. Gurdon is either profoundly ignorant, or just trolling. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume the latter.