Advice from a worn-out news-wire service
reporter:
Just stop reading or listening and use the
remote to find Nickelodeon when you see or hear the phrase "sources say"
!
In what my sons call "the olden days", we
called that Bull-Spitting...Bogus...AND unprofessional.
Nowadays this the way 80% of the stories on ESPN and
about 40% of the stories in "prestigious" information conduits begin or
end.
If these ink-stained wretches and
Kleig-blinded morons of Vidi-universe end up in court, they always have the
crutch of "privileged info" to fall back on in the matter of cornered rodentia
everywhere.
Nowadays, in the muck strangled stables of the
fourth estate, which no Hercules could clean, the appellation "FAKE NEWS" is
repeatedly hurled at these once trustworthy purveyors and arbiters of accurate
information.
Whether the pros have been supplanted by
rogues or traduced and brainwashed by America haters and race baiting
billionaires like George Soros, we will probably never know for sure.
But in a time when all children (up to 20) are
"kids"; where all law enforcement officers are "cops"; where males are "guys"
and black gangs are "teens" and where arsonist rioters are "protesters"--- where supposed news content and headlines may
contain "snuck" and "alleged fatality" and "hot pursuit" and "unclear
shooter"... Simple Ned's-first-reader articulation is sorely needed, but in
fatally short supply.
And with all this, the torturous reach for
superiority,hatefulness and derision are sometimes more easily
recognized by the expression on the face of the TV talking head than by the words that pour unintelligibly and inanely from their
pie-holes.
We plead guilty to having labored in an
earlier generation, and to being a purveyor of reverse ageism. But my mentors,
few of whom ever saw the inside of a journalism school all were more thoughtful
well spoken articulate and literate than almost anyone I can read today. My
television hosts and tutors were sticklers for understandable and measured vocatives.
On a newspaper one of the rules was "rape is a
vegetable... assault is a crime". The word "cop" was verboten. Respect was
foremost... Even on the crime beat.
Speculation and opinion appeared on two pages
of the newspaper and nowhere on local television.
And no one, not even the opinion columnists,
editorialists and syndicated savants ever built an essay on a foundation of unidentified dubious "sources".
Healthy skepticism is definitely the weapon of these days. Maybe even total distrust beckons.
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