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!
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Anyway, most people now say they get their "news" from the Internet and TV.
That's why everyone is so smart and so well-informed about the world around them.
If there were no stodgy newspapers to set the agenda with boring stuff like government, world news, politics and finance, TV news would be free to give viewers what they want - more weather, cute animal videos, traffic accidents, house fires and "special reports" on the dangers (or promise) of cosmetic surgery.
The dilemma: While people get their news from the Internet, the Internet gets its news from newspapers.
Without newspapers, who provides the content?
Bloggers!
Blogs are an excellent source of "news," much of it overheard and passed along by the blogger's girl friend. If she's sick, the blogger can make something up. No editors or accountability gum up the works.
When you tire of the "news" (in a minute or two), you are just a mouse click away from porn.
Newspapers can't touch that.
1. If your employer and its friends had charged for news most likely you'd have been overwhelmed by free Web news anyway. We may add, Stu, that the Internet is not entirely responsible for weasel words, slants, plagiarisms, and other such heroics that have led newspapers to resort to creative counting and Lucky Bucks.
2. Why are you in such a wad about TV news? Newspaper chains own TV stations. KnightRidder owned TV stations. The Daly Nooz was once run by THE AMBASSADOR, the founder of TV Guide and Dick Clark, and the godfather of IF IT BLEEDS, IT LEADS. Seems to me your biz has had a lot of RESPONSIBILITY for it.
3. Happily the news biz has its own accountability through -- what? Shareholder revolts?