Jim Logajan wrote:

"gatt" wrote:
Gee, why would anybody trust a journalist about matters of journalism?

"... If you don't want to work, become a reporter. That awful power, the
public opinion of the nation, was created by a horde of self-complacent
simpletons who failed at ditch digging and shoemaking and fetched up
journalism on their way to the poorhouse. ..." -- Samuel Langhorne Clemens

I guess I could claim to have been a "journalist" too. Even a publisher.
The problem being, as Mark Twain understood (having been a journalist
himself) is that it appears takes no qualifications to become one.

That's rather like trusting an aviator about aviation. But the
difference between me and people who snivel about words like "slammed"
is that I -do- have military, civilian and academic experience in
journalism and I -do- have experience in aviation. So...

I'm afraid I see no real difference between you and those "snivelers".
Sorry.

IMHO, you are showing your ignorance. In fact, most of the
non-journalists here have agreed that "slammed" is a perfectly
appropriate word to describe what happened.

I am not a journalist, and I certainly deplore the bad examples of
journalists (which exist, just as in any other profession, although
much more visible in theirs).

But it strikes me that a good journalist does what I could never
accomplish--get a good, fast, surface level grasp of a situation and
describe it so that those with no background can understand it. In a
way, it is kinda like a CPA--requiring extensive, but not very deep
knowledge. And like a CPA, they are continually harangued about their
lack of knowledge in particular areas in which the haranguer has much
more knowledge.

Next time you want to jump on the bashing bandwagon when a particular
journalist shows a lack of knowledge in a field you know well, look at
his or her last few assignments and see if you know as much about
those areas as the journalist.

P.S. None of this is intended in any way to deny the existence of
dimwits in journalism.
--
Alex -- Replace "nospam" with "mail" to reply by email. Checked infrequently.