March 24, 2013
"If even this hastily convened national conversation can midwife a new way of writing — call it Journalism 2.0..."
"... will the tightly knit community that is the mainstream media finally begin thinking outside the box? Just imagining fewer cliches gives me a palpable sense of relief and bolsters my faith that perhaps this beleaguered industry can avoid an ignominious end."
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29 comments:
Don't they mean Journolism 2.0?
I count quite a few cliches in that quotation, which is too bad, as I'm all for new journalism.
That sort of humor is always funny, guaranteed, same as pulling your pants way up to your arm pits, bowing your legs, and sticking out your belly and going "um . . . duh . . . um . . . duh . . . um . . . duh . . ."
It's funny every time because you're actually doing it even though you know it's not funny but it's funny that it actually turns out to be funny.
I have a big, hairy hanging penis.
See what I mean?
Oh.
I am literally unmoved by this exercise.
The Kingmakers that pose as "journalists" think cliches might be their biggest problem?
The journalism community inside the Beltway demurred from acknowledging the truth: "It’s the politics, stupid."
Each new election and the subsequent reports on "governance" are like "GroundHog Day, Redux."
That’s just journalism being journalism.
Oh well. It is what it is.
More political theater.
Part and parcel of the ongoing lies from journalism.
One might think it's Main Street vs. Wall Street, but it's really Journalism vs. America.
See, this shit writes itself.
robinintn said...
I count quite a few cliches in that quotation, which is too bad, as I'm all for new journalism.
3/24/13, 9:15 AM
The article was intentionally full of them.
******
If they give up "that's just Joe being Joe", how are they going to explain Biden's gaffes from now on?
It's because these morons can't write because they've never been exposed to all that DWM literature.
The only "writers" they now are Marx, Lenin, and Mao.
Imagine journalists asking democrats tough questions...
nope. Won't happen.
Journalism is dead.
Then from the sidebar, these "new ways of writing"
The GOP’s problem? Conservatives.
Andrew Kohut MAR 22
Hard-liners are a drag on the party.
On Iraq, a media ‘failure’? Not quite.
Paul Farhi MAR 22
But journalists could have done more.
Leaning in [cliche of the season] without someone to lean on
Katharine Weymouth MAR 22
The Post’s publisher on single-mom CEOs.
Lessons from the gay rights movement
Frank Sharry MAR 22
What immigration advocates learned.
New writing, perhaps.
Same old one-sided world view.
"Literally" is fine if used properly. The problem is it is usually used to mean "figuratively"--the opposite of its actual meaning.
Meanwhile, I propose, in the order in which they appear in the article itself, banning "new normal" (ever), "double down" (except when writing about poker) and "feeding frenzy" (except when writing about feeding frenzies).
Never mind that second part, I was slow to get the joke.
Anyway...
s/b know, not now.
(the neurons are flaking off like dandruff...
or it's this keyboard)
Oh. It's the WP. The high school newspaper of record. Half the reporters of which get their copy right out of Obamas ass.
this beleaguered industry can avoid an ignominious end."
This was irony. Right?
About 60 years ago our local newspaper ran a human interest story in which my Dad was a player. Almost the entire story was bogus, it didn't hurt anyone, it was kind of charming, but it was dishonest in the extreme. Taught me a good lesson though. If you can't verify a story independently don't believe anything you read in a newspaper or see on TV. They care about ratings and ad revenue. The truth is secondary.
We don't need a midwife yet, we're still in the getting fucked stage.
Almost the entire story was bogus, it didn't hurt anyone, it was kind of charming, but it was dishonest in the extreme.
The same thing happened when one of my high school classmates died young, leaving a new baby and wife on their own. The story was written as if she had been his high school sweet heart and only woman in his life. Everyone who knew him even slightly,though, knew it was his second marriage and that he had another small child grieving his loss with his first wife.
Fewer cliches, better writing = good. Still those aren't the highest standards for a media that's needed to inform the people, and to stand by the people when the chips are finally down.
There's a lot of stuff still to be desired from the hastily convened national conversation. And it's certainly truer now of the mainstream media than it ever has been in my lifetime.
Mary Beth, I should have clicked through before being snotty. Now that I have, though, I'm still not at all certain I would have grasped the cliches as intentional. It reads like the usual self-referential, uninformative newspaper writing.
Fewer cliches, more stereotypes.
Parody, it seems.
Also a classic misdirection.
The biggest problems with journalism are laziness, stupidity and ignorance. Bias is more often than not the product of these flaws.
Journalistic bias is the responsibility of editors and news managers.
My biggest disappointment, nowhere to be found: "At the end of the day....."
But then it's something of a cliche that one shouldn't use cliches, isn't it? If one is too busy or indifferent to not think inside a small box, is it going to help one think outside the box by adding to his worries the worry of not using embarrassing cliches like "outside the box" suggestive of thinking inside a small box? To a discerning reader, forcing oneself to not use cliches may just make one's writing seem like it's trying to give itself dishonest airs of an origin in higher thought that isn't there.
“Gabby Giffords, my good friend, was shot and mortally wounded,” Joe Biden, hawking gun control, March 21, 2013.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/biden-gabby-giffords-was-shot-and-mortally-wounded_708770.html
“Gabby Giffords, my good friend, was shot and mortally wounded,” Joe Biden, hawking gun control, March 21, 2013.
Oh God. Another gotcha from Joe Biden. Thank you those who are keeping attuned to the importance of these that the hastily convened national conversation is emphasizing for all our benefit.
Now we know that whatever Biden was saying we don't have to think about because as this laughable misuse of a cliche (speaking of cliches, too!) proves once again, Biden is a moron.
Good thinking everyone!
@David,
The biggest problems with journalism are laziness, stupidity and ignorance.
Too true, but every journalist bumps up against the problem that knowing how to be a journalist (a skill in its own right) doesn't & can't make one an expert in whatever one writes about. Science reporting is the most obvious example of this problem.
I've noticed that the best reporting occurs, not in the "mainstream" media, but in the unsung reporting that occurs in "trade rags". That's because the reporters for the trade rags know their subject & their audience.
These cliches come in two or perhaps three categories.
Some are just the result of lazy writing, which I'm inclined to excuse on the theory that people working on deadline need some tools to simplify the job. This is many of the ones cited in the WashPo piece.
Some are in the foregoing category, but are too annoying to be excused. "Literally" is a prime example, as is "begs the question", "It is important to note that", etc.
I say "two or three" categories because the difference between the two foregoing categories is really just personal taste.
But the really serious problem is the cliches that avoid, and are intended to avoid, addressing the facts: "It is what it is", "that's just Biden [or whoever] being Biden", "Observers say", it "remains to be seen", there's "no silver bullet", "partisans on both sides", "growing body of evidence", and many more. These are what we should focus on -- "focus like a laser" in fact.
When journalists become razor-sharp then everything will be crystal clear.
Of course, it ain't gonna happen. Everyone knows that journalists aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer.
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