Turkey Writers

This link won’t last long - http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-na-newspress7jul07,0,6468917.story?track=mostviewed-homepage. It’s an LA Times story, so after a couple of weeks, you have to pay to see it. News is free with advertising, but old news costs money.

The story is about how five editors and a columnist quit the Santa Barbara News Press. You read the News-Press, don’t you?

You don’t? I wonder why that is. Could it be you don’t LIVE in Santa Barbara? Even if you do, the circulation is 45,000. The population is about 90,000, but if you include the entire metro area, it’s more like 400,000. So about one in nine of the region read this paper.

I’m pretty sure none of those people live in LA, so why is the story in the LA Times? Well, the Times IS trying to be a national paper, so they attempt to broaden their story base. We get stories from Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Nevada, Des Moines, Nova Scotia, East Jesus Tennessee. They don’t mind writing about things that don’t have anything to do with them.

However, there’s another issue at work here. Here’s another quote from the Times:

“WHEN two CBS journalists were killed and a third was critically wounded this week, the war in Iraq officially became the deadliest ever for combat correspondents.” 6/3/06

On the same day, 4 US soldiers died in Iraq. So far, 71 dead journalists, 2766 dead coalition soldiers. That’s about a 39/1 ratio. And somewhere near 40,000 dead Iraqis, but we don’t count them because they’re brown. I bet the ratio of featured articles on dead soldiers to journalists is NOT 39-1. I’m not counting the obituaries.

Why do we care about the journalists? I admire journalists, especially the good ones. These are courageous people. They tackled Nixon, exploitation, and corruption. Our food is safer, our bureaucracy is better, we are more informed. They are my heroes. Woodward and Bernstein are my heroes. Upton Sinclair is my hero. Hunter Thompson is my hero. Lou Grant is my hero.

What’s my problem? Journalists are NOT NEWS. Yes, the first amendment is important. Yes, journalists are important. But it’s NOT important which turkeyhead wrote the info. Good guys, and thank you, but the minute you make them stars, you miss the message and start listening to Fox. The problem is that US Soldiers are ALSO my heroes. And they don’t do it for the press.

I’m sorry they’re so wigged out in Santa Barbara. These guys left over a principle. They hate their boss. The LA Times never writes about what kind of moron is running THEIR show.

So stop telling me Joe Boardpicker the journalist has problems on the SAME DAY Bill Joan Bob Don Rick Phillip Ronald and Gordo died from being gutshot in Iraq. In fact, stop telling me about Joe Boardpicker at all. He signed up for anonymity. He’s NOT news. He WRITES news.

Except for me. If I’m dead, there better be a front page story in the LA Times about how my prostate. I’m so damn important.