Tool Award

You know, it must be so tough to be a journalist these days! You really have to feel bad for a guy (who gets paid more a year than you'll see in a lifetime) when those pesky bloggers start to ruin the biz for him. Here's the thesis he develops,

The way to the top of journalism was no longer to test yourself on police beats and city hall assignments, under the skeptical gaze of editors who demanded precision in writing and careful weighing of evidence. It was to make a reputation as a clever wordsmith, a feisty advocate, a belligerent or beguiling political personality, and then market yourself to the media.

These hires were made by executives who themselves had little commitment to the solid and steady journalistic values that come from working a beat for a sustained period of time. They were looking for quick fixes for their circulation or ratings -- and they thought the star system or the "big story" would save them.

But to their dismay, TV news show ratings continued to decline, newspaper circulations slumped and the fickle public -- whose wishes editors now took as their command -- switched to even more sensational outlets: the cable talk shows and infotainment formats that put argument, gossip and amusement at the top.

When the Internet opened the door to scores of "journalists" who had no allegiance at all to the skeptical and self-disciplined ethic of professional news gathering, the bars were already down in many old-line media organizations. That is how it happened that old pros such as Dan Rather and former New York Times editor Howell Raines got caught up in this fevered atmosphere and let their standards slip.

It's so obvious! It's the bloggers that have forced Dan Rather to be such a lousy newsman for the past two decades! And see, it's the bloggers that make Hairy Wolf Blitzer keep repeating the same stupid liberal talking points. It's all the bloggers fault that the news media has gone corrupt. Jason Blair, Dan Rather, etc etc...It's all the bloggers' fault!

For being an intergral part of the elite media establishment that claims to love "freedom of speech" as long as it's his own freedom of speech and not others, for whining about a loss of integrity and blaming the only people who bother to use a fact checker for that loss, for covering over your cohorts failures and pretending to be appalled at them, and for being a general cry baby with nothing to say, for displaying just how useless the media has become, I applaud you David S. Broder. You are a tool!