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.
Not counting The Night of the Hunter -- an old film and a "classic" film and therefore from another galaxy -- let's do the math: 23.5 stars divided by 7 movies equals 3.357 stars. It is foolish to judge reviews by star ratings -- they only obscure matters, which is why movie ad-blurbists love them -- and maybe Rog has been in a mood lately, but obviously he thinks we're in a MEGA-PLATINUM AGE OF MOVIES. I've long believed Rog and ESPECIALLY his late unlamented partner in millions GENE raved three-quarters of the movies they "reviewed," and judging that GENE's widow put his condo up for $8.25 million I'd say they did well by it. Whether WE'VE done well by it is, natch, another matter.