Putin Interview

I have been thinking of sending our Timid Reporter out to see if he can find Vladimir Putin and pin him down for a short interview. (Perhaps I shouldn't say "short interview" because they are ALL short interviews.) If not Putin, then maybe the new pope - Felipe. Bill Gates might also be interesting. I have a feeling that Gates has a sly sense of humor so he might be a good choice. Anyway, it's all moot if I can't locate our guy. For all I know, he might be out in Tibet taking it easy - pretty much out of reach. I really shouldn't say "taking it easy" because he ALWAYS takes it easy. 

Lame Journalism

I'm dropping a brief note just to give you a sense of how lame journalism has become. This is my example (they say example is the best teacher, though that is highly debatable): NPR (National Public Radio) initially made a tepid and lame announcement regarding the earthquake that hit Japan yesterday (or the day before, depending on where you were on the globe.) From the tone of the announcement, you would never have guessed that the temblor was quite significant, though they did mention that it registered 8.9 on the scale. Their reporting on the event was so low key and innocuous that it rather surprised me. TODAY however, they are falling all over themselves to cover as much detail of the event as possible. This is extremist journalism - from nothing to overkill. And this is NPR, supposedly the least sensationalistic news organization out there.

Wall Street Journal

I saw an ad on this page for the Wall Street Journal and I asked myself why they would put one of their ads here. We have nothing in common. Really. I don't put ads on their page. I suppose there's nothing I can do about it. Maybe I'll just listen to some salsa music - they don't have salsa at the Wall Street Journal site.

War

A quote from Karl Kraus: "How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print." I don't know whether there's any truth to it. Probably not.

Off Street Journal

The Off Street Journal likes to make fun of serious absurdities. Somebody once said that there were only two things everyone needed to be serious about - as soon as they could remember what those two things were they would let us know. You get the point. Let the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and the Christian Science Monitor and The Economist and TIME and Newsweek and Portfolio and the Chicago Tribune do all the serious stuff. We'll take care of the fluff. They might soon be extinct anyway.

Journalism

So - what is journalism? Nobody knows. You think, you research, you write, and you get paid. You write hoping not to offend too many people because you could end up getting fired and not get paid. It is kind of self serving, no? Let us not pretend we do it for the love of writing. We do it to get paid - like everything else.