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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I think the strategic conceit of creating new buzzwords and jargon to protect bureaucrats, consultants and ideologues is one of the more fascinating constants of the human condition (I think Vaclav Havel wrote a play on this and Orwell was obviously a hero in the battle against this sort of thing.). If you don't know the lingo, you're on the outside. But often the only thing that justifies you're outsider status is your ignorance of the lingo. Intellectuals, obviously, are the greatest culprits when it comes to using words as bouncers (I wrote a column about it here a long time ago)...
...and then at the last second shoots himself in the foot:
...but as we move deeper into the New Economy, it's only going to get worse.
...and someone notices:
Update: From a reader:
Subject: pot, kettle?
"but as we move deeper into the New Economy..."
Loved the disquisition on the hubris of buzzwords, but
isn't "New Economy" a hollow buzz phrase too?
Jo-NAH! B. S. DEFENDER! This buzzword's for YOU!