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| Journalists Are Scum |
| 2008-06-24 |
| An oldie but still very pertinent goodie from John Derbyshire at the National Review. The journalists-are-scum assumption has a long pedigree in the land of my birth. It is almost as if, since show business became respectable, British journalists have inherited the old prejudices about the acting profession — 'vagabonds and strumpets.' When the London satirical magazine Private Eye, back in the 1960s, wanted to invent an archetypal denizen of Fleet Street, they named him Lunchtime O'Booze. Forty years earlier Humbert Wolfe had written: You cannot hope to bribe or twist Thank God! The British journalist. But, seeing what the man will do Un-bribed, there's no occasion to. I think newspaper people have generally been held in higher regard in this country than in Britain. The tone over here was set by George Washington Cutter: Soul of the world! the Press! the Press! What wonders hast thou wrought? Thou rainbow realm of mental bliss; Thou starry sky of thought! The professionalization and credentialization of American journalism soared to new heights, especially after the Watergate crisis allowed two mediocre Washington Post reporters to present themselves as national heroes. Bill Deedes, my old editor at the London Daily Telegraph, started working as a national-newspaper reporter in 1930 at age 17, after the Wall Street Crash wiped out his family's finances. Nowadays you need several years' worth of college degrees on your résumé before a big-city American newspaper will let you in the door. The main effect of all that education, of course, is to dull the mind and fill up its empty spaces with left-wing flapdoodle. Newspaper reporting isn't difficult work; an intelligent person can pick up the essentials in a few weeks on the job. To say such things out loud, though, is of course gross heresy in this over-educated, over-credentialed age. The older sensibility survives in Britain, where there are still four heavyweight national broadsheets and half a dozen lesser national titles. Each one has a carefully cultivated personality of its own, and growing up in Britain you get a strong impression of each, as if they are family members. In Britain they have a fizzing variety of fascinating newspapers written by people whom everyone believes to be drunks, misfits, dropouts and lowlifes. In the United States we have vast gray broadsheets that are about as much fun to read as Kant's 'Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic', but which are staffed and written by people generally believed to be credentialed experts of unimpeachable integrity, pillars of society, and tribunes of the people. Personally, I shall hold on to the beliefs I grew up with. I refuse to take journalists seriously, and shall continue to believe that they all invent a good proportion of what they sell us. After all, journalists know what is expected of them. |
| Posted by:Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) |
| #6 Our impending victory in Iraq will be the worst setback for activist journalism since Goebbels shot himself. |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2008-06-24 10:30 |
| #5 consider the dim bulbs that come out of J-school, and you understand why, when combined with Hubris and general ignorance of most subjects they report on, we get the biased mush we get. |
| Posted by: Frank G 2008-06-24 09:44 |
| #4 Journalists as scum was the generally held opinion in this country until WWII. But the Greatest Generation had a media that served it with Ernie Pyle et al. It wasn't until we discovered Uncle Walter lied about Tet that the scales began to fall off and we realized what every previous generation had known. They are scum. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2008-06-24 09:38 |
| #3 Or - I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. William Tecumseh Sherman - which the NYT has shown to be. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-06-24 09:10 |
| #2 “If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from hell before breakfast.” William T. Sherman quote |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2008-06-24 07:52 |
| #1 newspapers written by people whom everyone believes to be drunks, misfits, dropouts and lowlifes. lol! Drunk on a barstool is the new impression of today's American journalist. It's all just agenda driven crap and everyone knows it, except maybe grandma. |
| Posted by: Sninert Black9312 2008-06-24 03:48 |