Washington Post bases an entire article off of a lame quote

Sure, it's important to cover Obama's jobs plan thoroughly, but WaPo tends to like to write non-stories and then publish them on the front page, as if it's reminding readers that "Hey, remember, this is happening?"

The Washington Post based this entire article - which is essentially identical to articles printed days prior - off of the quote, "We'll get to that."

Filler is one thing, but to waste valuable inches on what was essentially a blow-off Harry Reid gave your reporter? Not exactly hard-hitting. Intelligent readers would have given up on that story by the second graf. People who still read newspapers already know that Obama is touting his jobs plan, and that it takes time to pass bills in Congress.

Given the way this article reads, the reporter was clearly told to go get a quote from Harry Reid, couldn't get a good one, and instead decided to go off on a tangent. Unfortunately, given that "the aide predicted the Senate will debate the jobs plan sometime in October," it sounds like we'll face weeks and weeks of this filler.

Reporter asks "president's views on slavery"

Even White House correspondents can ask stupid questions. April Ryan, with the American Urban Radio Networks, asked the press secretary what Obama thought about enslavement.

It's questions like these that distract from the actual interrogation reporters should be doing.

For the record, Gibbs' response was great.

Classic: NBC 4's Pat Collins

To begin, I'll bring back one of my favorite examples of a local news buffoon making a fool of himself and degrading community reporting: Pat Collins. The Washington-area reporter has managed to swindle ten Emmy awards for his reporting, in which he usually treats the viewer like a five-year-old and scribbles his own graphics on a sheet of 8.5 X 11. Best known for his coverage of horrible weather disasters, I'd say that on the list of most embarrassing reporters, he's second only to "past perpendicular" Andy Fox:

"Like no one else."

Anyway, here's one of Pat Collins' recent reports.

 

I understand that the story is meant to be funny, but feeding your man-on-the-street interviews their lines isn't exactly celebrated in the journalism field.

Introduction to Jernalizm

Journalists and media organizations today face a lot of criticism about supposed bias in their reporting. That subject is exhausted and I'm not here to cover that.

What Jernalizm will cover goes back to the basics of reporting. I'm attempting to hold the media accountable for mistakes that simply wound the already-suffering field of journalism even further. Reporters today should not base an entire story off of the creation of a Facebook group. Media organizations should not turn to reading uninformative tweets off of a 3D "Magic" screen because they can't fill the 24-hour news cycle.

This isn't journalism. It's Jernalizm: some convoluted form of what respectable journalism once was. And this new form of media, with its crude spelling, insults both the consumers and the profession. It makes me angry. It makes me fear for the future of the field. And, I'll admit, it keeps me highly amused.

My media criticism is meant as an illustration to those in the field that the product is flawed. Good, informative, substantive stories are often being replaced with sensation and noise. Let's get back to what makes journalism a respectable, trusted source of information.