The Dave Weigel Flap and Why You Watch What You Write to Complete Strangers

The scandal du jour in the press concerning Dave Weigel has journalists--who claim superhuman strength to separate their personal biases from reporting--up in arms.

The bareboned facts of the story are this: Weigel was (past tense) a reporter supposedly covering the Republican Party. Weigel's contempt for the GOP was palpable, and some intemperate comments on the leftwing list serv Journolist prove it.

Now we're being told that e-mails to that list were and should be considered private, and that it is unfair that Weigel's nasty remarks have cost him his job. Unfortunately, I can't really have any sympathy for a guy who makes his living as a writer, specifically a writer on the internet. How anyone can correspond on computers and think it's like calling your buddy late at night is beyond me. There's nothing secret that you say in internet forums, period. And that includes wishing people dead for disagreeing with the president. Weigel likes to use the term "ratfucking" when discussing Republicans. Seems to me he's the ratfucker that's been ratfucked.

UPDATE: After reading that asshole TBogg, I have even less sympathy for David Weigel. After all, according to nutbag TBogg, an important part of journalism is digging dirt on whoever you're covering. Sadly, that dirt seems to only hit Republicans (a coincidence, I know), and Weigel's donkey pom-pons prove it. Even some on the right argue that Weigel separated his ideology from his writing, but I'm a big consistency buff, and I doubt conservative reporters who ranted about their whacko subjects (and stratagized about spinning events for the GOP) would be given the same leniency. We've seen it before, after all.

UPDATE: I suppose the real lesson here is that "off the record" is meaningless, for generals and for journalists.

Bloggers Beware

Courts may not allow you to use journalists' protections in law suits.

A blogger sued for her online criticism of a software company on a porn industry message board cannot invoke New Jersey's press shield law, a Monmouth County judge says in a case of first impression in the state.

Superior Court Judge Louis Locascio's June 30 ruling allows the company, Too Much Media, to ask blogger Shellee Hale the sources for comments she posted on Oprano, a Web site that proclaims itself the "Wall Street Journal of porn."

Locascio also made a second novel ruling in the case, Too Much Media LLC v. Hale, MON-L-2736-08, holding the company can pursue damages even without a showing of pecuniary loss, based on postings that accuse it of criminal conduct and business incompetence.

In denying Hale protection as a journalist, Locascio said courts "are now being faced with the task of evaluating a virtually limitless number of people who claim to be 'reporting' on issues, but who are, many times, doing little more than shouting from a digital soap box..."

Though calling New Jersey's shield law one of the nation's broadest, Locascio denied Hale's motion because she failed to make a prima facie case that she was connected with the news media. The law protects persons "engaged on, engaged in, connected with, or employed by news media for the purpose of gathering, procuring, transmitting, compiling, editing or disseminating news for the general public."

Locascio found no evidence Hale ever worked for a newspaper, magazine or media entity. He discounted as a "sham affidavit, entitled to no credence" her certification saying she had published articles in one newspaper and several trade journals because she did not provide specifics and she lied in a prior certification concerning a jurisdictional motion, when she denied any knowledge of the plaintiff's residence or domicile.

There was "little evidence (other than her own self-serving statement)" that she "actually intended to disseminate anything newsworthy to the public." Also, Hale's failure to contact Too Much Media to get its side of the story "certainly does not suggest the kind of journalistic objectivity and credibility that courts have found to qualify for the protections of the Shield Law," wrote Locascio.

He analogized Hale's postings to the written public comments that often appear below articles published on Web sites of newspapers and magazines, noting such comments require no fact-checking or editorial review and there is "so little accountability" that it is nearly impossible to determine the identity of the poster...

Locascio also held that as a nonjournalist, Hale would not enjoy another protection afforded the media in defamation cases: the requirement that a plaintiff prove actual malice, rather than mere negligence, as a basis for liability.

In addition, he denied Hale's motion to dismiss based on the alleged absence of pecuniary damages, saying Too Much Media and its principals could recover for harm to reputation and standing in the community, personal humiliation and mental anguish.

Basically, the judge is throwing this blogger to the sharks, based on her lack of credentials and outrageous conduct online. This isn't to say that other bloggers might not enjoy protection under the law, but one must show a certain degree of journalistic integrity (don't laugh!) to be covered. This sounds about right to me. It's not fair that any Tom, Dick or Sally can say what they please about individuals and companies without fear of reprisal. There has to be some standard for these things, after all.

More on CNN's "Objectivity"

Video and more at Hot Air.
They teach that arrogance in J-school in Snobbery 101.

Beyond the Conservative Bubble

Interesting article on attempts to move conservative ideas beyond conservative circles.

(Conor) Friedersdorf had a different idea in mind. "I’m not sure another Buckley’s what we really need," he wrote. "Instead, I’d prefer another Tom Wolfe, or better yet a dozen. As his generation’s conservative commentators railed against The Great Society, insisting its urban anti-poverty programs encouraged radicalism, bred dependence on the welfare state, and ignored the root causes of unemployment, Mr. Wolfe did something different: reporting." Wolfe had gone to the conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein’s cocktail party, watched Park Avenue’s finest flatter themselves by sharing hors d’oeurves with Black Panthers, and wrote about it in scathing detail, first in New York magazine—the cover featured three white socialites in glittery cocktail dresses with raised fists—and later in Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers. In doing so, Friedersdorf believed, Wolfe had made a far stronger case for conservatism than the collected works of L. Brent Bozell. And Wolfe hadn’t had any need to work within the confines of a conservative shadow institution; writing in New York and Esquire, he had reached and potentially persuaded an audience that didn’t subscribe to Buckley’s National Review. In sum, Friedersdorf wrote, "the right must conclude that we’re better off joining the journalistic project than trying to discredit it."

Friedersdorf is neither the first nor only person to advocate for conservatives to leave the safe havens of conservative publications and think tanks to the outside world, but the idea is still true. Conservatives rail about liberal reporters, but they eschew jobs at newspapers and television stations for other careers.

The fact is, journalism will probably never be a bastion of conservativism, no matter how many moonbats argue about corporate ownership and manufactured consent. The sort of people who want to work in the news business approach life from a different viewpoint than, say, a Brent Bozell or Charles Krauthammer. But there are enough conservatives to write news in such a way that conservative views get a fair hearing.

I'm not proposing that conservatives suddenly start slanting news reporting to the right, but simply to ensure that both the successes of conservatism and the failures of liberalism get more airplay. Yes, it's very difficult to argue against housing subsidies when the other side constantly portrays all homeless as hapless victims unable to help themselves. But it's more effective to show how housing subsidies create generational governmental dependence and stifle freedom by showing those escaping those situations, as well as the liberals eager to keep people dependent because they are "helping the poor."

These are stories that need to be published in mainstream organizations, where independents and those in the mushy middle will have a chance to have their minds changed.

Joe the Plumber, Citizen Journalist

You don't need a fancy degree to be a good journalist, but you do need to think that reporting the news is important.

There's plenty of legitimate criticism of the way journalists have behaved while covering our wars in the Middle East. But arguing that reporters should be banned from war zones is appalling. There are plenty of important stories for journalists to tell, and doing so does not necessarily mean giving aid and comfort to our enemies. Wanting better journalism out of supposedly seasoned reporters doesn't mean becoming mouthpieces for the government, but, unfortunately, Joe the Plumber is the story, rather than just the historian.

H/T The Weekly Standard.

Journalistic Credentials

Leftwingers are sneering at Joe the Plumber (Joe Wurzelbacher) becoming a war correspondent. These people obviously don't know or understand what "freedom of the press" means or how journalism works.

First of all, there's no certification to become a journalist. That means you don't need any education whatsoever to publish your thoughts. Your nail specialist at least has to get a license from the state to practice. But journalists? Nope. Any guy or girl can be a reporter.

About 35 years ago, newsrooms around the country decided that, to cover school board meetings, you really needed some shlub with a B.A. in communications (or a shlub that, at least, was in college trying to obtain that B.A.). That's because taking that Chemistry of Photography course made you a better picture-taker and fact-checker (true story: reporter is hired from fancy named paper. Writes story and gives to editor who asks, "Did you fact check this?" Reporter says, "I thought you had people who did that." Editor replies, "We do. They're called 'reporters.'").

Secondly, war correspondents have always come from a variety of backgrounds. Ernest Hemingway never went to college and I don't think the same sniffy news readers looking down on Joe Wurzelbacher would call Hemingway a hack.

There's also the most famous correspondent of World War II, Ernie Pyle, who never had a degree.

None of this is to say that having a bachelor's degree is a bad thing, but having a piece of paper doesn't make you a good reporter. What makes good reporters is a natural curiosity, a desire for truth, and a personality that allows a person to ask inconvenient questions, like how increasing taxes on business owners isn't punishing success.

Back when I was in school a million years ago, my teacher told us that it was important for journalists to be well-rounded; that is, a good reporter should know about a lot of things besides writing and sitting on his ass in front of a computer. The idea was that if a reporter understood the world around him, he'd be better at writing about the things he was covering. Unfortunately, today's news readers and P.R. hacks think that journalism is a "profession," and one only worthy of those chosen few who didn't flunk their exams in college because they were drinking too much the night before and who hold the proper opinions. Journalism is actually better when a variety of opinions and viewpoints get expressed.

Objective Journalism

When I was in j-school back in the Dark Ages, we heard a lot about "objective journalism." The theory was that reporters and editors had an obligation to keep their opinions to themselves and simply report facts.

So, if you were covering a school board meeting, you used the agenda of the meeting as a guide, figured out which topics were either most crucial or most controversial and led with those. You added quotes from various players to explain or describe the events of the meeting.

Except for the occasional spontaneous protest or unfortunate gaffe, these stories are informative but not terribly exciting. But they are objective.

Now, suppose, your editor tells you that they want you to write a story. Not just ask some questions and interview various players. The editor tells you what they want the story to say.

I had this happen to me once. One of our leading museums had decided to charge admission for an upcoming (and very popular) exhibition. This was not done at the time. The powers that be (at least including my editor) didn't like the decision and wanted to "drop a bag of shit," as my editor so eloquently put it, on the museum's doorstep.

I interviewed the museum curator, who told me that bringing such exhibits to town was very expensive, requiring very high insurance, and that this was why they were charging. I accepted this logic.

I then interviewed the curators of the other local museums to see if they were planning to charge for traveling exhibits (they said no). Then I wrote my story. My objective story, which quoted the curator explaining the costs of insuring very famous artworks. Then I turned it in.

My editor didn't like the story.

"Look, we want this story to lambast the museum for charging for this exhibit," he explained. "The museum has a big endowment. They shouldn't be charging people."

I told him that other museums (including in Dallas) charged admission for special exhibits, and that the curator had said we might not get certain exhibits if the museum couldn't charge.

"Look, if you don't want to write the story, we'll just give it to somebody else who will," he responded.

I'm ashamed to say, I rewrote my story to give them the angle they wanted. It was my one and only front page headline in a major newspaper. What I learned from that experience was that journalists talk a lot about fairness, objectivity, standing up for the "little guy," informing the public, and "holding politicians accountable," but, in the end, they are, all too often, more about getting results they want as opposed to telling the truth.

So, it's ok to trash a museum curator for bringing major art exhibits to your city if he crosses your imaginary line of "fairness." Pay no attention to whether patrons think the practice is acceptable. It's your opinion that is important. Because you are the press.

I thought about this while reading The myth of objectivity at Echidne's site.

When I was a working journalist, a few newsroom critics accused me of pushing a feminist agenda.

They were right.

My agenda was to improve conditions for women inside our newsroom and coverage of women inside our pages. But opponents saw a feminist agenda as more subversive – a breach in their belief that journalists must be objective.

They were right about that, too, but didn’t realize they were not objective, either. They thought that being a feminist made me biased. It didn’t occur to them that not being a feminist was also a political stance. No one is neutral. You challenge the system, or you support it, even if it’s just with your silence and inaction.

This is an old debate in j-school: objectivity versus "advocacy" journalism. People who don't want to rein in their opinions argue that it is impossible for us to be objective in writing and still tell the truth.

Maybe you can't always be objective. Or maybe you shouldn't always be objective. But there are places for opinions and it isn't in news stories.

As my experience shows, there are lots of ways to express opinion and bias in reporting. There's leaving out inconvenient facts. There's not quoting people who won't say what you want. There's running multiple stories from one angle to show a "trend." There's treating presidential candidates differently in the press. There's fact checking one candidate and not the other. But in the end, none of this gives the public the information they need to make their own decisions. But it might advance a journalist's agenda.

More Objective Journalism

I suppose by now, the term "objective journalism" is not merely quaint but becoming an oxymoron. This article from American Journalism Review is a good example.

AJR is something of a trade publication written by and for journalists, so, I guess I should forgive the writers and editors for letting their masks of objectivity slip so badly. But the article titled Whatever Happened to Iraq? would be funny in its foul moodiness if it weren't such an accurate depiction of how MSM types genuinely think about the war. In short, they are distraught that Americans haven't forced an end to the Iraq War by now. And, more germaine to reporting, they are deeply saddened that news coverage of the war has dwindled.

Well, I'm disheartened that coverage of the war has waned, as well. But my concern is that, as the war for Americans has gotten better, reporters and editors have lost interest. This video of what coverage of D-Day would have looked like had the modern media covered it is sadly accurate:

The AJR article is filled with quotes from reporters and editors complaining that the corporate overlords have demanded they produce articles that readers want to read (i.e., more local news, less national and international news) and use less money (foreign correspondents can be expensive).

Ellen Hume, research director at the MIT Center for Future Civic Media and a former journalist, believes the decline in Iraq news could be linked to a larger issue — profits. "The problem doesn't seem to be valuing coverage of the war; it's more about the business model of journalism today and what that market requires," Hume says.

And when the writers weren't blaming those nasty corporate owners, they were blaming readers.

The public also got a scolding for its meager interest in a controversial conflict that is costing taxpayers about $12.5 billion a month, or nearly $5,000 a second, according to some calculations.

and

During the early stages of shock and awe, Americans were glued to the news as Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled in Baghdad and sweat-soaked Marines bivouacked in his luxurious palaces. It was a huge story when President Bush landed on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, and declared major combat operations were over.

By March 2008, a striking reversal had taken place. Only 28 percent of Americans knew that 4,000 military personnel had been killed in the conflict, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. Eight months earlier, 54 percent could cite the correct casualty rate.

But at least some people were honest about why they aren't writing about the war.

The reader representative for the San Francisco Chronicle doesn't think placement of stories about Iraq makes much difference. He reasons that five years in, most readers have formed clear opinions about the war. They're not likely to change their minds one way or another if a story runs on page one or page three, says Dick Rogers. "The public has become accustomed to the steady drumbeat of violence out of Iraq. A report of 20 or 30 killed doesn't bring fresh insight for a lot of people."

And, believe me, the new breed of journalist is most interested in what used to be known as editorializing--injecting opinion into stories--versus reporting what happens.

Throughout the article are two competing emotions: frustration that more people don't care ("Americans might care if they could witness more of the human toll.") and desperation to ensure that readers understand we are losing in Iraq ("grueling war gone sour," "bleak sameness has settled into accounts," "bloody and seemingly endless conflict"). But overall, the tone suggests that journalists should be ashamed that they haven't been able to force America out of Iraq already by providing that relentless drumbeat of negativity which influenced so many so early.

A.P. Wants to Decide What Is Fair Use

Fair use is a copyright concept whereby some people can use small excerpts of others' work without paying for it. The theory is that such use encourages greater innovation, commentary, and free thought in a free society.

Copyright holders loathe fair use and have tried for two centuries to squash it. The Recording Industry Association of America has made a living suing moms and dads and children for downloading music.

Evidently, the Associated Press wants to get in on the bad press action by bullying bloggers who dare to quote A.P. stories.

Last week, The A.P. took an unusually strict position against quotation of its work, sending a letter to the Drudge Retort asking it to remove seven items that contained quotations from A.P. articles ranging from 39 to 79 words.

On Saturday, The A.P. retreated. Jim Kennedy, vice president and strategy director of The A.P., said in an interview that the news organization had decided that its letter to the Drudge Retort was “heavy-handed” and that The A.P. was going to rethink its policies toward bloggers.

39 words is too big a quote from a story? Dana at Common Sense Political Thought tries diligently to limit direct quotations of copyrighted material. Me? Eh, not so much. If they wanna sue me for reproducing enough of a given work so that readers understand the story, I'm willing to take the risk that with 49 hits per day, no one will care. But such heavy-handedness by the A.P. simply encourages bloggers to bar A.P. copy from their websites.

The A.P. doesn’t get to make it’s own rules around how its content is used, if those rules are stricter than the law allows. So even thought they say they are making these new guidelines in the spirit of cooperation, it’s clear that, like the RIAA and MPAA, they are trying to claw their way to a set of property rights that don’t exist today and that they are not legally entitled to. And like the RIAA and MPAA, this is done to protect a dying business model - paid content.

You can't blame the A.P. for wanting to protect its lawyers' jobs.

Tim Russert Dies

I was deeply saddened to hear that Tim Russert had died. It is stunning and he will be greatly missed.

I like the Daily KOS take.

UPDATE: Ann Althouse has a post about the churlish commenters at Matthew Yglesias's site. I suppose "class" is so provincial these days. Like Mama always said, "If you can't say something nice..."

Anatomy of a Buyout

Howard Kurtz waxes sentimentally about the slow decline of newspapers and the Washington Post's latest buyout offer in yesterday's WaPo. I can't really blame him; even after being out of the business for 14 years, I still get all misty-eyed about the newspaper life.

I discovered journalism my junior year in high school and instantly fell in love with it. I worked on college papers and our local fish wrap, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. I worked in a variety of departments in the 10 years I stayed at the Startlegram, and I generally enjoyed most of what I did, which was mainly clerical with just enough reporting and editing thrown in to keep me hanging around.

My life was the newspaper. My friends were there. My colleagues were there. My first husband was there. And we marked life by newspaper events. My first child was born the day the Soviet Union fell, but, to us, the really big news was that the Dallas Times Herald finally folded.

Kurtz doesn't really go into it much, but the truth is that newspaper life is hard, both personally and professionally, and newspapers have been in decline since the 1970s, long before I darkened the door of one. He talks about newspapers being slow to catch on to the digital revolution, but that was always the way of the press; we used antiquated equipment cast off from other organizations long after computer pagination was common.

The important part of Kurtz's column comes at the end, when he discusses the attitudes of Millenialists.

The ticking time bomb here is the wholesale abandonment of newspapers by younger people who grew up with a point-and-click mentality. When I was speaking at Harvard recently, a smug graduate student said, "I get everything I need from YouTube. What are you going to do about it?"

"What are you going to do about it?" I shot back. If people want to tune out the news, no one can compel them to change their habits. We can be smarter, faster and jazzier in providing information, but we can't force-feed the stuff. If newspapers wither and die, it will be in part because the next generation blew us off in favor of Xbox and Wii and full-length movies on their iPods. Network news faces the same erosion. Maybe, in the end, we get the media we deserve.

For Kurtz and other news junkies, it's difficult to comprehend that most people don't really care about the newspaper (unless they are paying for it and it doesn't show up on the porch one day). No one believes the press is objective, nor do they think the press is generally looking out for the U.S. over other global interests. Those on the left complain about corporate ownership and those on the right complain about liberal personal bias (both arguments have merit, btw). In the end, though, news will still be passed on, even if there isn't a quarterly profit margin to meet.

How Not to Support Moderate Islam

GetReligion has a nice critique of this Newsweek edit--er, article which ostensibly tells about intolerant Christians and tolerant Muslims. The problem is, the article does more to bolster the theory of Muslim extremism than that Christians are intolerant. I can't do a better job, so head to GetReligion for the story.

What it does note, however, is how many journalists put on their blinders where Christianity and Islam are concerned. So desperate to portray Islam as inclusive and peace-loving, reporters downplay the numerous frequent violent episodes triggered by Muslim intolerance for difference, free expression, or individualism. Equally, journalists desire to portray Christians as Inquisition-and-Crusade-causing, blood-thirsty hypocrites that they turn the mildest expressions of difference as violent or intolerant. Such excesses do little to bolster the MSM's flagging reputation as bastions of truth and objectivity.

Liberal Support of Free Speech: William Kristol and the New York Times

Dana has a nice post on the liberal hysteria on display over the New York Times' hiring of Bill Kristol as a columnist.


Liberals seem to come unglued any time a prominent news organization hires a token conservative to write opinion pieces sporadically. In this case, Kristol's column will appear once a week. So, currently, the NYT has:

Maureen Dowd--not a conservative

Thomas Friedman--definitely not a conservative

Frank Rich--definitely not a conservative

David Brooks--the liberal idea of conservatism

Bob Herbert--definitely, definitely not a conservative.

Roger Cohen--a man best described as "continental" in that he doesn't seem to particularly like American foreign policy but can't come up with anything better, so, he snipes about it.

Gail Collins--definitely not a conservative

Nicholas D. Kristof--not a conservative

William Safire--a libertarian who doesn't mind bashing conservatives when it suits him.

And now they've added Kristol, arguably the most conservative writer there. And, with the exception of Frank Rich, all the other columnists write twice weekly. In other words, the moonbats are upset that one conservative voice is heard weekly. In the immortal words of Echidne:

What's worse, this wingnut favoritism means that readers get many more conservative takes on every topic than they get liberal ones (all the major "liberal" newspapers are full of Republican writers and of course all the major conservative newspapers are chock full of them).

I'm not sure which liberal newspapers are "full of Republican writers." Certainly no newspaper I've ever read regularly. But the mask slips when liberals complain about conservative writers getting space in the supposedly elite New York Times: what they are truly afraid of (and they are afraid, yes, very afraid) is that reading conservative views will actually cause people to agree with those views. I guess if your ideology is bankrupt, you really can't afford for people to read anything other than your own propaganda.

Journalistic Snobbery Rears Its Ugly Head Again

I always chuckle when I read articles like this one by David Hazinski decrying the "citizen journalist." The pearl-clutching is priceless.

The premise of citizen journalism is that regular people can now collect information and pictures with video cameras and cellphones, and distribute words and images over the Internet. Advocates argue that the acts of collecting and distributing makes these people "journalists." This is like saying someone who carries a scalpel is a "citizen surgeon" or someone who can read a law book is a "citizen lawyer." Tools are merely that. Education, skill and standards are really what make people into trusted professionals. Information without journalistic standards is called gossip.

But unlike those other professions, journalism — at least in the United States — has never adopted uniform self-regulating standards. There are commonly accepted ethical principals — two source confirmation of controversial information or the balanced reporting of both sides of a story, for example, but adhering to the principals is voluntary. There is no licensing, testing, mandatory education or boards of review. Most other professions do a poor job of self-regulation, but at least they have mechanisms to regulate themselves. Journalists do not.

The arrogance in this statement is palpable. Unlike journalists, who, at most, need a 4-year degree to practice their craft (and many older journalists don't even have that), surgeons and attorneys must have advanced and specialized educations in order to apply for admission to their prospective regulated professions. One can't get a degree in French and go hang out one's shingle as a family law attorney. You can't major in political science and get hired at the local hospital as a surgeon. You can, however, have a 4-year degree in practically anything and get hired as a journalist.

I don't say that rashly, and I'm not trying to put down fellow journalists, many of whom are truly talented and well-trained beyond the B.A. level. But I knew plenty of reporters and editors when I worked in the field who had degrees in lots of things besides journalism. And many fine writers didn't have degrees at all, except the sort one gets from the school of hard knocks.

In fact, my high school journalism teacher told us that, in order to be a good journalist, you shouldn't specialize in journalism, but should show extreme curiosity about lots of other subjects. Her philosophy was that journalism classes could teach you how to write and how to edit, but only by becoming interested in many different subjects would a person display the inquisitiveness necessary to make a good reporter.

Hazinski displays the paranoia and arrogance of many longtime journalists who are both afraid of innovation and disdainful of practitioners. Threatened by even faster mediums than radio and television, journalists wring their hands at the idea that...ordinary people might make mistakes in reporting!

False Internet rumors about Sen. Barack Obama attending a radical Muslim school became so widespread that CNN and other news agencies did stories debunking the rumors. There are literally hundreds of Internet hoaxes and false reports passed off as true stories, tracked by sites such as snopes.com.

Having just anyone produce widely distributed stories without control can have the reverse effect from what advocates intend. It's just a matter of time before something like a faked Rodney King beating video appears on the air somewhere.

I'd be very surprised if Hazinski has never had to write a correction in his journalistic career. Reporters and editors make mistakes all the time. That's what the "corrections" column is for. Actually, it's the place where reporters and editors try to blame someone else for the mistakes they make in print, but that's a subject for another post.

And, can Hazinski honestly ask, with a straight face, about fake news? How many fake news stories have we been presented with over the years? From Janet Cooke to Jayson Blair to Dan Rathers "fake but accurate" story, journalists are making stuff up often enough that they shouldn't be wasting time fretting about other people making stuff up.

Citizen journalists may never replace the career kind, but it isn't because average, ordinary people can't witness and accurately describe or depict the things that happen around them. It's mainly because journalism requires a dedication to the craft day in and day out, whether a story is exciting or boring. Every journalist has had at least one top-tier breaking story in his or her career. But for every story like that, the same journalist has sat through endless boring school board meetings and new library dedications. They've tried to make face-of-Mary-in-dog-food stories interesting and written about controversies regarding new parking meters.

In short, citizen journalists cover certain niches, whether those are local happenings or specific topics. Professional journalists (that could be an oxymoron in some cases) have the time and commitment to cover other stories. Guys like Hazinski shouldn't be so jealous that some people get to cover stories while wearing their pajamas.

Book Review: That's Not News, That's Fark

When I first saw Drew Curtis's book at the library, I knew just from the subtitle it was going to be a great book. The subtitle is How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap as News.

Curtis runs Fark.com, a site devoted to all the garbage the networks, newspapers, cable, and radio try to pass off as news. Now Curtis has put together a book categorizing this junk into lists ranging from "Fearmongering" to "The Out-of-Context Celebrity Quote" to "Equal Time for Nutjobs."

You don't have to get far into Fark before you start recognizing the stories. Remember those stories about how bacteria is going to kill us all? Or the runaway bride (my God, she's got a Wikipedia entry!)? Or Justice Scalia's rude gesture? Yep, those are all examples of the crap media parades for us as news.

It's easy to identify the junk. Every top 10 list qualifies as well as every natural disaster, even those that didn't quite live up to expectations. And let's not even start with the how to articles.

Walter Cronkite once stated that almost everything that appears on the nightly news isn't news, it's filler. He was right when he said it, and the news has only gotten worse since then.

What Curtis points out (in his very humorous way) is that real news could be boiled down to a (roughly) 5 minute broadcast. The problem is, of course, that the 24-hour news cycle has created a need for news whether that news is real, fake, manufactured, or "fake but accurate."

Fark is a fun read and makes me remember some of my funnier moments in journalism. In fact, reading Fark is a bit like sitting in a bar nursing a beer with Curtis (I'd find that entertaining), only without the beer and, well, the bar. Very few books make me laugh out loud or say, "Honey, listen to this," but Fark has both. I'd recommend Fark to any recovering journalist (like me) or anyone interested in news. Even if you didn't learn anything, you'd be entertained. Which is a little like junk news, eh?