Harper’s high horse

There’s really very little more pathetic than when a "professional journalist" at a self-important glossy like Harper’s Magazine attacks bloggers by pretending that he’s anything more than an ink-stained wretch plying a not-very-reputable trade. Grim at BlackFive gets his rebuttal exactly right:

"The journalist is also in error by suggesting that it is a disservice to the public to let the public read the actual words of military officers, instead of [journalism’s] filtered narrative. We ask them questions, often questions that readers have asked us to ask them; then we post the transcript, and readers can judge for themselves."

Ah, for the days when editors crushed spent cigarettes on the linoleum and kept a flask in their desk. They had more perspective than many of today’s "journalism majors," who make their two phonecalls in carpeted offices where they are endlessly agast at departures from the party line. Being so far removed from ordinary human behavior themselves.