Eight Days in a Mustang Later….
5th January 2012
The Other McCain looks at ‘journalists’.
Journalism has become an elite profession, and attracts basically three kinds of people:
- “Save the World” types who think of journalims as a sort of humanitarian charitable endeavor, wherein they’ll “make a difference” on behalf of the oppressed victims of society. Such people should be encouraged to join the Peace Corps instead.
- Neurasthenic intellectuals with literary pretensions. These people are essentially dilettantes, slumming it in the news business as a way to pay the bills until they can sell a screenplay or a novel.
- Would-be TV stars. The cable-news era has created a niche market for camera-friendly “personalities,” and a lot of these young kids in journalism nowadays are writing news or punditry as a means of auditioning for a TV gig. They wake up in the morning, turn on MSNBC, and imagine the days when they’ll be sitting at the table with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brezinski, who will chuckle at their pithy aphorisms and bon mots.
Good luck with that, OK?
In other words, ‘journalism’ is now show business for English majors.