Eugene David
...The One-Minute Pundit

Front page



THE NEWS HACK'S CREED:
I know more than you.
I make lots more money than you.
I'm smarter than you.
I'm sexier than you.
I appear on TV all the time.
I work ten minutes a day.
I rule the universe.
I'm going to live forever.
You are an idiot.

THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 2:
A lie isn't a lie when it tells THE TRUTH.

THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 3:
I've come to realize that the looseness of the journalistic life, the seeming laxity of the newsroom, is an illusion. Yes, there's informality and there's humor, but beneath the surface lies something deadly serious. It is a code. Sometimes the code is not even written down, but it is deeply believed in. And, when violated, it is enforced with tribal ferocity.
--JOHN "OMERTA" CARROLL.

THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 4:
News isn't news when we don't report it.

PERMALINKS:

THE NEWS HACKS' DICTIONARY

THE EUGENE DAVID GLOSSARY

AMERICA'S MOST UNINTENTIONALLY FUNNY WEB SITE!

Blogroll Me!

[Powered by Blogger]

Sunday, March 02, 2003

Posted 10:45 AM by Gene

People who want an example why news hacks don't know what they're doing should read this New York Times press release about a Bertelsmann schlock spewer. While not as egregious as the LALA Times's recent backscratching of Robert Johnson, the intent is the same: to kowtow to the subject and insult the reader. True the man earns Howell Bonus Points for being black, but the author would probably have slathered on the adjectives regardless because he's in SHOW-BIZ. Here's the clincher: at 2,126 words this piece of bullhockey is almost three times the length of the Times's dispatch on the arrest of the holy cockroach Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. I can already recite the excuses: Well we have no eyewitness accounts! We can only report it second hand! Haven't you heard of feature stories? Blahblahblahblah. Sorry, devoting 783 words to the capture of a leading terrorist, and 2,126 words to hero worship of yet another musical junkmeister, shows (at best) misplaced priorities.

Home
Site Meter eXTReMe Tracker