A tale of two Romenesko-featured stories that make me want to say fuck it, spend the day on the beach, and hope a magic dolphin arises from the waters and carries me off to FUCKING DROWN.
First, if we don’t all uncritically love newspapers, our only other choice is some total douchemook:
A note to the notably angry, sarcastic American, the “snarlygaster”
who, in letters to this columnist or in postings on baltimoresun.com
talk forums, expresses glee at the troubles of the U.S. newspaper
industry and the hope that the nation’s dailies disappear:Be careful what you wish for. You may end up with Andrew Breitbart.
[snip]
Daily newspapers make mistakes. They usually deal with the basic facts
of stories — the title someone once held, the name of a suspect in a
criminal matter — and corrections appear in print every day. Newspapers
have had some reporters and columnists who made stuff up (years ago, aWashington Post reporter won a Pulitzer for a fabricated story) or copied the work of others. Those people were all fired.Had any producer at a local TV station, network or cable newsroom
cobbled together a video like the one Mr. Breitbart posted of Ms.
Sherrod, that producer would be among the nation’s unemployed today.
At least until CNN, Fox or the Washington Post picked them up as regular commentators because of their unerring instinct for igniting firestorms of controversy and getting people talking about phenomenony phenomenal things! Fingers! On the pulse of stuff! Oh, sure, they’d spend a few minutes in the wilderness, but really:
Miller will be an on-air analyst and will write for Fox’s Web site.
“She has a very impressive resumé,” says Senior Vice President John
Moody. “We’ve all had stories that didn’t come out exactly as we had
hoped. It’s certainly something she’s going to be associated with for
all time, and there’s not much anyone can do about that, but we want to
make use of the tremendous expertise she brings on a lot of other
issues. . . . She has explained herself and she has nothing to
apologize for.”
From the Sun story:
Only with public support of a news culture grounded in the fundamentals
of journalism — solid reporting, fair and informed analysis, respect
for the truth and the public good — does this democracy survive.
Settling for less means settling for Andrew Breitbart.
Yeah, about that news culture of decency and truth being ruined by all us unwashed Internet assholes:
The court-appointed examiner inTribune Co.‘s
Chapter 11 bankruptcy case determined that the company’s 2007 leveraged
buyout was “marred” by the “dishonesty and lack of candor” of its
then-senior management and that the deal rendered the media
conglomerate insolvent from the moment the two-step transaction closed.
So our only other choice is Andrew Breitbart?
Is death an option?
A.
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