There are many problems with journalism today. Journalists are biased and untrustworthy. They’re supposed to represent us, to find out the things we’d want to know if we ever took the time to shout questions at people, but they’re now too lazy to get all the facts and instead fill the story in with their own biases.
What’s changed? How did things go downhill?
I’ll tell you what happened: They stopped wearing journalist hats.
A hat a journalist wore back when journalism meant something.
Back in the day, journalists took their jobs seriously. They would put a hat on that said “Press”; that’s how serious they were. And they all knew that with great hats comes great responsibility. If they ever failed at their job and didn’t get the public useful information, their hats would be burned and they would be exiled to the frozen north.
This is not a responsibility shared by today’s hatless journalists. They show up in sweat pants and ask questions based on what they heard on the Daily Show. They send their crazy old aunts like Helen Thomas to the Washington Press Club as a cheaper alternative to putting her in a home. Once again this is because, much like rats and cockroaches, they wear no hats. They are subhuman. They are filth.
If I were president, I would refuse to talk to anyone who was hatless. Journalist who are hatless show no respect for the office, and I would run them through with a cutlass (as president, I would dress like a pirate). As bloggers, people who are supposed to police the mainstream press, we need to start demanding of journalists, “Where is your hat?” We should then burn their houses down until they properly identify themselves by wearing a hat. If all else fails, then we must wear the hats.
This country is too great to tolerate the hatless.
I saw Keith Olbermann wearing a hat. Granted, it had “Dunce” written on it, but a hat is still a hat.
We’ll need to clarify the type of cover that it acceptable.
Worn out “King Ropes, Sheridan Wyoming” ball cap wit hoil stains on it: Acceptable
Snappy blue beret worn in fruity French manner: Unacceptable
Army or Marine soft cap: Acceptable
Barney Frank Sailor Boy Cap: Unacceptable
Big Stetson with rattlesnake band and eagle feather: Acceptable
British Schoolboy cap (unless you’re Angus Young, of course): Unacceptable
“They send their crazy old aunts like Helen Thomas to the Washington Press Club as a cheaper alternative to putting her in a home”
Priceless! People in general need to get back to the old days. Since we are entering The Great Depression II: this time it’s personal … we should bring back phrases like, “What’s your angle, Mac?” and, “Yeah, see?”
I fail to see why we shouldn’t burn down their houses just because they’re wearing hats….
Actually, I think they deserve the traditional punishment for treason, but I’ll take house-burning as a barely-acceptable substitute.
I say we hang them and burn their house.
What about wingtip shoes. Seems to me if you’re gonna require hats, the least they could do is finish the look with wingtips. Let’s make that a rule too. Then we’d know they were really serious.
Journalism changed when journalists began being celebrities. It helped launch the era of “journalists” trying to “make a difference”, creating the news instead of reporting the news, and trying to “make a name for themselves”. Journalism is not supposed to be a glamorous job.
I agree. There were so many great movies about reporters in the 1930’s and 1940’s back when they wore cool hats! I don’t think there has been a good newspaper picture in the last 50 years; probably because of widespread hatlessness.
Even the network news king, the grand poobah of news, Mr. NBC himself, Tom Brokah (aka Tom Brokeback) doesn’t wear a hat! I mean, what’s up with that?
I’d love to see him gag to death on his own flatulence.
Matt Drudge still wears the hat.
When a “reporter” came to interview me as an “expert” opinion on the measles epidemic for local news, she had on a nice blouse, make up, “big” hair…whole thing…..and ………..sweat pants with a hole in the knee. They are idiots.
http://www.marriedtothesea.com/071307/common-dignity.gif
As a student at the University of Nebraska school of journalism, I promise that the first thing I will purchase after graduation will be a fedora.
Thank you Andrew, there may be hope for us after all.
You always make me laugh, no matter how glum things are…thank you.
If you dress like a pirate, that means we can talk like a pirate everyday and make monkey faced liberals walk the plank, aye?
I couldn’t agree more, that’s why you’ll see me proudly wearing my “press” hat in my home page photo (below).
Wearing this hat reminds me to always be professional, accurate, and most importantly, non-partisan.
http://peacemoonbeam.typepad.com/Press_small.jpg
Being hatless is a legacy of he who made way for the obamessiah – john (the baptist) kennedy. kennedy didn’t wear hats, so no one in his “camalot” wore them either. The rest of the country followed him over that cliff along with too many others.
Fortunately, big ears and a big mouth are defects, not a styles.
Personally, I don’t think we should limit it to journalists. I have long been of the opinion that gentlemen should wear hats whenever possible. It adds an element of class that our country is sorely lacking these days.
Re: Journalists: “Once again this is because, much like rats and cockroaches, they wear no hats. They are subhuman. They are filth.”
Dittos !
I think a lot of journalists feel that being an asshat is close enough.
There are no journalists left! All the young ones come out of left wing journalism schools taught by the current dolts! And now we are stuck voting for a Liberal Republican or a Super Duper Hyper Liberal Democrat…sigh…
Coming home on the bus I had the guilty thought that I was too quick to pull the trigger on all journalists. I love the NY Post and The Wall Street Journal and National Review and Rush’s Newsletter and look at all you cyber journalists ! But seriously, the creeps who call themselves journalists should be hung (NY Slimes, Slime Magazine, and all television newscasters) except Foxnews. They are communist sympathizers, socialist numbskulls and self adoring morons that perpetuate lies, mischaracterization, assassination of morale and assist terrorists in their total dishonest propaganda. They are proponents of drudge and I love for sanity to listen to Rush and Mark Levin when I come home. I know I’ve said this before but maybe somebody will want to try it and it will change their life.
Hey! I resemble… er… resent that remark!
After almost 30 years in journalism my uber Conservative husband was given his walking papers. He’s first remark, “well at least I’m not sleeping with the enemy anymore”. He does not intend to go back into the fray, at least until something happens to bring the community back around to the center.
Armageddon perhaps, World War Three or maybe the Second Coming. Of course could you imagine the spin they’d put on that. I can see it now. They’d report that Barak had ordered Jesus to come back and told him how things should be. Then they’d report that God the Father was replacing the real Savior with our buddy Barak because he wanted to be in line with Affirmative Action guidelines.
I’m sorry but from the front lines I can tell you there is not a jot, a tittle, an iota of hope the people in that industry are going to change.
Sorry to hear your ‘news,’ seanmahair.
“The newspaper does ivrything f’r us. It runs th’ polis foorce an’ th’ banks, commands th’ milishy, conthrols th’ ligislachure, baptizes th’ young, marries th’ foolish, comforts th’ afflicted, afflicts th’ comfortable, buries th’ dead an’ roasts thim aftherward.”
Mr. Dooley, 1902.
“They are filth.”
Hahaha!
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