"We old-fashioned types expect industrialists to understand how their machines work; we expect chief constables to know what it's like to arrest a miscreant on the street; we believe journalists are enormously improved by knowing the hell that breaks loose when you mis-spell the name of the winner of the dahlia class at the flower show."
Matthew Engel "Sorry tale from four men in denial" Financial Times, Feb 11 2009
Yup. My dad (who met my mum when they were both young journos on a local paper) has this as one of his bug-bears. If you got someone's name or age wrong on a local paper, your editor called you- because he'd heard from the person, and you got a bollocking. You learnt quickly not to get the fine details wrong again. That was the old-fashioned 'apprentice' system.
Now you've got "journalists" being produced by universities, then going to work for nationals. And there isn't that nitty-gritty feedback. And so you don't learn the ropes.
Oh, it's all falling apart, end of western civ etc...
1 comment:
At the risk of being seen to actually agree publicly with my husband, see Threeleggedcat for a quick example of the topic of this post: http://thethreeleggedcat.blogspot.com/2009/03/journalistic-bollocks.html
Post a Comment