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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In 1980, Hampton and the board wanted to endorse incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter for president, but then-Executive Editor John McMullan favored Republican challenger Ronald Reagan. The two newsmen compromised -- and endorsed the independent third-party candidate John Anderson.
Four years later, a majority of the Editorial Board wanted to recommend Democratic challenger Walter Mondale. But publisher Richard Capen insisted the paper should endorse Reagan.
''In protest, I handed Dick a letter of resignation,'' Hampton recalled in a 1998 commentary. ``He tore it up and persuaded me to accept an unprecedented (some would say infamous) compromise.''
The Herald's editorial endorsed Reagan, but alongside it ran a column by Hampton with the headline: ``Most of us preferred Mondale.''
Hampton minced no words.
''In behalf of the substantial majority of this newspaper's Editorial Board, I respectfully but strenuously dissent from today's recommendation of Ronald Reagan for president,'' he wrote.
Hampton persuaded Capen's successor, Lawrence, to allow the paper to forgo presidential endorsements in 1992 and 1996.
On Friday, McClatchy, which purchased the Herald's owner Knight Ridder two years ago, closed at $11.09, near its lowest level since it went public 20 years ago. It took more than the DO-NOT-CALL LAW to pull that one off.