[Alas Babylon!]

Rush Limbaugh explains it best:

You go to any large journalism school and ask one of the students why they want to be a journalist and they'll inevitably say, "Because I want to make a difference! I want to change the world!"

Well that's wrong! Journalists used to tell us what happened, where it happened, when it happened, who it happened to, and how it happened. Want to change the world? Join a religious order or run for office. Volunteer for something. But this idea that journalism is about changing the world and making a difference is poppycock! And it's leading to journalism's decline.

[managusta]

Winston Churchill describing the battle of Omdurman,September 1, 1898.

"I DO not doubt that the reader is as anxious to see the walls of Omdurman and to come to the end of the affair, as were the army on the morning of the 1st of September.

Whether this is because I have interested him in the impending battle, or wearied him with the monotonies of the march, I shall not presume to inquire.

But he shall at any rate start at once with the cavalry, nor will I palter with tales of how the chilled soldiers warmed themselves before the fires that lighted the camp and cooked the breakfasts of a hurried meal; of carbines, rusted by the rain, swabbed with oil to make their bolts slide; of weary horses once more saddled---lame, girth-galled, or sore-backed notwithstanding; of great masses of brown-clad, armed men forming silently under the stars, while the light grew gently in the east. These are impressions he must some day gather for himself or forgo for ever.

The British and Egyptian cavalry, supported by the Camel Corps and Horse Artillery, trotted out rapidly, and soon interposed a distance of eight miles between them and the army. As before, the 21st Lancers were on the left nearest the river, and the Khedival squadrons curved backwards in a wide half-moon to protect the right flank.


While we were moving off, the gunboat flotilla was seen to be in motion. The white boats began to ascend the stream leisurely. Yet their array was significant. Hitherto they had moved at long and indefinite intervals---one following, perhaps a mile, or even two miles, behind the other. Now a regular distance of about 300 yards was observed. Our orders were to reconnoiter Omdurman; their task to bombard it.

We had not accomplished more than a mile, when about a hundred enormous vultures joined us, and henceforth they accompanied the 21st Lancers, flying or waddling lazily from bush to bush, and always looking back at the horsemen.


Throughout the Sudan it is believed that this portends ill-fortune, and that the troops over which vultures circle will suffer heavy losses. Although the ominous nature of the event was not known to us, officers and men alike were struck by the strange and unusual occurrence; and it was freely asserted that these birds of prey knew that two armies were approaching each other, and that this meant a battle, and hence a feast.


It would be difficult to assign limitations to the possibilities of instinct. The sceptic must at least admit that the vultures guessed aright, even if they did not know. Yet we thought them wrong, when we found the steep Kerreri Hills abandoned and the little Dervish camp, which had been shelled the day before, deserted and solitary.


The regiment halted at the foot of the Kerreri Hills as soon as it was known these were deserted. The scouts, Colonel Martin and a few other officers, ascended, taking signalers with them. We waited, eating some breakfast. Then presently a message was sent down which filled us all with curiosity to look over the crest. The signal-flag wagged tirelessly, and we spelt out the following words: "Khartoum in sight." More than thirteen years had passed since an Englishman could have said that with truth."

Nowadays, there are no reporters, only opinion scribblers.

[GOP_Raider]

Journalists used to tell us what happened, where it happened, when it happened, who it happened to, and how it happened.

Edward R. Murrow didn't.

[travlnmn41]

I sat through four years of journalism classes and can't seem to remember my professor (who was a liberal) telling me that my job was to "make a difference."
Another interesting point: I was taught that, when a criminal was at large, it's a newspaper's obligation to the public to include a detailed description of him or her. The liberal rag in New Orleans, the Times-Picayune, won't print the race of any wanted offender. You can guess why.

[LexBaird]

You go to any large journalism school and ask one of the students why they want to be a journalist and they'll inevitably say, "Because I want to make a difference! I want to change the world!"

The article decrees, "A decade later, two reporters from the Washington Post wrote a series of articles that brought down President Nixon and the status of print journalism soared."

On the contrary: that is the moment when they began to believe their own hype. They swallowed the poison of Hubris, and have been dying since. All it took was an alternate source of news, a crack in the hegemony, and the edifice of artifice began to crumble.