The Wall Street Journal tends to have very good, fair investigative reporters
Heh. tell that to Don Imus.
Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins. Twenty years old. Born on the fourth of July — and don't think there weren't jokes about that my whole life, mister, 'cause there were. 'Who's our little patriot?' they'd say, when I was younger and therefore smaller and shorter than I am now.
Anya ,'Potential'
Natter 34: Freak With No Name
Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.
DXMachina - Mar 31, 2005 8:04:30 am PST #1833 of 10001
You always do this. We get tipsy, and you take advantage of my love of the scientific method.
bon bon - Mar 31, 2005 8:07:33 am PST #1834 of 10001
It's five thousand for kissing, ten thousand for snuggling... End of list.
Apparently Mitch Hedberg died: [link] He was a very good comedian. [link] Although with a very bad addiction.
Frankenbuddha - Mar 31, 2005 8:12:15 am PST #1835 of 10001
"We are the Goon Squad and we're coming to town...Beep! Beep!" - David Bowie, "Fashion"
I like the Sith-Style Mouse Pad. I wanna get one - then I can say, "I'm mousin' Sith-Style." Or is Sith-Style something that one can possess independent of mousing?
Psst, tommyrot does it Sith style - pass it on.
Nutty - Mar 31, 2005 8:13:51 am PST #1836 of 10001
"Mister Spock is on his fanny, sir. Reports heavy damage."
I don't think I'd go as far as to declaim the entire profession's laziness and/or timidity.
Well, me neither. One of the things I like a lot about the Columbia Journalism Review (link) is that they occasionally go into raptures over good reporting, too. But they're marvelously snarky at the bad reporting, and there's a lot of it.
I should say, sports journalism also has the problem where most columnists do not report news. By which I mean, they rely on interview quotes and news releases for their facts, but don't do much actual investigating of their own. Murray Chass of the Times is one of the few who does it, and as a result, he sometimes breaks stories cold. (He was the one who discovered that the Yankees had deleted steroid language from Jason Giambi's contract.)
So if you're a cash-strapped newspaper, what do you do?
Well, there is a cash-strapped newspaper, which probably relies a lot on wire feeds, and then there are the wire reporters, who I think mostly specialize by topic. If your words are going to grace 100 newspapers instead of just 1, and if you're a specialist anyway, it behooves you to actually do your homework.
Some of the AP reporters are awesome, but some of them are really, really not.
lori - Mar 31, 2005 8:14:51 am PST #1837 of 10001
Monterey Bay Aquarium released the great white shark. She was getting too big for the tank, and she started hunting tankmates. oops.
t eta link to full press release
She gained 100 pounds while in captivity!
Frankenbuddha - Mar 31, 2005 8:16:25 am PST #1838 of 10001
"We are the Goon Squad and we're coming to town...Beep! Beep!" - David Bowie, "Fashion"
Monterey Bay Aquarium released the great white shark.
Let's just hope they did so far, FAR away from any public beaches (private beach owners can be chum for all I care).
cue Jaws theme
§ ita § - Mar 31, 2005 8:18:07 am PST #1839 of 10001
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
(private beach owners can be chum for all I care).
The water's all public, isn't it?
tommyrot - Mar 31, 2005 8:18:33 am PST #1840 of 10001
Sir, it's not an offence to let your cat eat your bacon. Okay? And we don't arrest cats, I'm very sorry.
Psst, tommyrot does it Sith style - pass it on.
The Emperor: Lord Vader.
Darth Vader: Yes, master?
The Emperor: Rise.
Frankenbuddha - Mar 31, 2005 8:20:05 am PST #1841 of 10001
"We are the Goon Squad and we're coming to town...Beep! Beep!" - David Bowie, "Fashion"
The water's all public, isn't it?
I dunno - if it's you (generic) and a great white, who's water is it?
§ ita § - Mar 31, 2005 8:21:38 am PST #1842 of 10001
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
I dunno - if it's you (generic) and a great white, who's water is it?
Well, not the person who owns the house that abuts what I understand is public sand. Anyone, as far as I know, can swim or be ripped to shreds by predators in the waters off Halle Berry's mansion.