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.
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!
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
(private beach owners can be chum for all I care).
The water's all public, isn't it?
Psst, tommyrot does it Sith style - pass it on.
The Emperor: Lord Vader.
Darth Vader: Yes, master?
The Emperor: Rise.
The water's all public, isn't it?
I dunno - if it's you (generic) and a great white, who's water is it?
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.
Well, JS just lodged some disturbing images in my head.
shudder
Nothing's uglier than Halle Berry in the throes of a feeding frenzy.
Dover, PA pastor admits that he's an idiot.
Pastor Ray Mummert is fighting to bring God back into the classroom and banish the teaching of Evolution in his small Pennsylvania town. In a news article about how a decision by the local school board ordering teachers to instruct their students that Evolution is “just a theory” and to teach Intelligent Design has left the citizenry deeply riven over the issue, Mummert essentially owns up to being a clueless moron:
"We’ve been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture,"
