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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Monday, January 10, 2011
Posted
8:53 PM
by Gene
It should go without saying that most mentally ill people are not violent—and that those who are violent might not be if they received appropriate treatment. But, too often, they don't get it. And that's when tragedies occur.
Was this such an instance? Was the Arizona gunman among those the mental health system left out? If so, might a stable, coordinated care environment have offered effective treatment—the kind that might have changed his behavior and, in so doing, spared the victims of yesterday’s violence? If so, were there missed opportunities—and who or what missed them?
After a major disaster, like an airliner crash or terrorist incident, we conduct thorough investigations to determine what caused the tragedy and how we might avoid another one like it. This occasion calls for a similar response. We may never know whether a better mental health care system would have averted this massacre. But we can be sure that it would avert some future ones.
