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
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Franklin Roosevelt put it this way in one of this country's darkest hours: "It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something."
In this dark hour for publishing, Roosevelt's dictum needs to become the new mantra of the newspaper business.
Richard J. Tofel was formerly the assistant publisher of the Wall Street Journal, and, earlier, an assistant managing editor of the Journal.
Columbia doesn't say WHICH Journal, so we'll hazard a guess what the news biz should try: if it's the LIBERAL Edition, it's more two-by-four-walloping and chest-beating and brain mushing over the evil of our war and capital punishment and how the abortion right should be absolute and how show-biz is the fount of all wisdom. If it's the CONSERVATIVE Edition, it's more two-by-four walloping and chest-beating and brain mushing over how greed is good and caveat emptor is better and how Dubya is our greatest president and Dick Cheney is the fount of all wisdom.
PLEASE guys, don't try ANYTHING. You've already tried ENOUGH.