Posted 9:52 AM by Gene

Yesterday we came across the HOLY GRAIL of COMEDY: "The Associated Press Statement of News Values and Principles", just issued Tuesday. Every word is mirth-provoking PR. We'll start (and end) with these: "[W]e abhor inaccuracies, carelessness, bias or distortions." Just this sentence we can dissect to nothingness. Inaccuracies and carelessness must be the norm for any outfit that disgorges OVER 20 MILLION WORDS A DAY, and though MOST of the inaccuracies are unintentional, not all are, they being the inevitable result of spin. And in processing OVER 20 MILLION WORDS A DAY how can any "news" organization possibly protect its readers from them? It can't. As for bias, well, we just saw the GREAT CONCERTED CAMPAIGNS of the 1,000 and the 2,000, campaigns impossible without thousands of hacks uniting in mindless conformity, threaded together by the connective tissue of their PRO-FES-SION, and the likes of Curley's apparatus. Distortions are the best of two worlds: they can result from spin and from bias, and therefore allow us to at least double our mischief. Any news organization that can claim it will control "inaccuracies, carelessness, bias or distortions" is engaged in hubris, or is lying. We will not say the latter; Curley's (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) Stooges, though united in their contempt for the public, at least mean well by it, and given they're very self-centered people we know they must at least TRY. So we'll just say hubris, which will come when you're among the anointed.

Perhaps Curley and his gang really do strive to be the best typists they can; but in modern America the line between striving and self-serving platitude is a fine one, and as noble institutions like Corporate America and the Insane Asylum on Capitol Hill prove, the line often does not exist.