Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Journalism

Let's say that you're a reporter and someone tells you that I'm joining the Hillary Clinton campaign as her new Director of Blog Technology, charged with supercharging her electronic campaigning tools in order to deal with the expected crush of traffic after she gets the Democratic nomination. What is your first action to take?

  1. Call me and ask me if I'm going to work for the Clinton campaign, or
  2. Breathlessly go on the air and report that I'm going to work for the Clinton campaign?
If you chose #2, congratulations, you're officially qualified to be a Fox News reporter.

Okay, now let's say that you're a reporter who has breathlessly reported that I am going to work for the Clinton campaign. I call you and tell you that I am not, that I have a very good job where I am and am going nowhere. Which of these actions do you then take?

  1. Go on-air and issue a correction
  2. Call me a liar and continue spreading the story that I'm going to work for the Clinton campaign
If #2, congratulations *again*. Please send your resume' to Fox News, you've met every single qualification needed to work for them -- a willingness to believe anything if it conforms with your biases, combined with a willingness to believe nothing if it does not conform with your biases. My congratulations, please let me know how many millions of dollars they eventually pay you for being a partisan hack!

-- Badtux the Journalism Penguin

Posted by BadTux at 1/09/2008 03:01:00 PM
Labels: , ,

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous10/1/08 9:08 AM

    To be fair, I think that just about qualifies one to work in any major media outlet.

    ReplyDelete
  2. azgoddess10/1/08 9:44 AM

    problem is that people don't care who is the best news reporter - they only care who is the best looking..sigh

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous16/1/08 1:02 AM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous16/1/08 1:02 AM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete

Ground rules: Comments that consist solely of insults, fact-free talking points, are off-topic, or simply spam the same argument over and over will be deleted. The penguin is the only one allowed to be an ass here. All viewpoints, however, are welcomed, even if I disagree vehemently with you.

WARNING: You are entitled to create your own arguments, but you are NOT entitled to create your own facts. If you spew scientific denialism, or insist that the sky is purple, or otherwise insist that your made-up universe of pink unicorns and cotton candy trees is "real", well -- expect the banhammer.

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)