From an ink-stained wretch (part III)

Elsa cont:

"This is not to say that the "new media" is all bluster and fluff. For instance, Katie Couric's campaign-imploding interviews with Sarah Palin were the stuff of legend and great theater. But the theater was in watching Palin, not Couric. It was Palin who made a fool of herself while answering Couric's thoughtful and newsworthy questions. Couric didn't play "gotcha" journalism with the vice presidential nominee: she kept her faith with E.B. White and let Sarah be Sarah. Lucky for all of us (liberal) viewers, Gov. Palin took the ball and ran with it. Couric's interview was just Journalism 101 on the air waves.

You can't say the same for much of what passes for television journalism today. I confess that I watch--and enjoy--the array of nightly shows on cable every night. But to call them "news programs" is to insult generations of hard-working, responsible men and women who have regarded reporting as a noble calling essential to the democratic process. Glenn Beck? Bill O'Reilly? (Or if you're a radio listener, Rush Limbaugh?) These men are not-- in any way, shape or form-- journalists. They are performers in the circus maximus of public opinion.

And lest I leave the left-leaning pundits unscathed, let me add that they can be a sorry bunch as well. I love Rachel Maddow and consider her a breathe of network fresh air. But she and some of her MSNBC colleagues ought to be ashamed of their sniggling, downright puerile puns last week while covering the GOP "tea parties." They might have been privately funny, but in a public forum, night after night after night? As Maddow herself might say: not so much.

Am I just a grumpy middle-aged woman? Maybe so. But I still think a case can be made that old-fashioned journalism has a place--and must have a place--in this digital age. It's clear that journalism schools all over the country are struggling with how to make this happen.

There is a New York Times piece to be published tomorrow on the Sturm und Drang in j-schools across the country. No one, it seems, knows quite how to answer the question "whether journalism in today's world?" I don't pretend to know the one, true way myself.

But surely the answer is not to let the dissemination of news be confused with the daily bulletin board of opinions, gossip, video snippets and what-not that you can find on the air and over the internet. Reading Ashton Kutcher compete with CNN for followers on Twitter can be kind of fun. Seeing Susan Boyle knock 'em dead on YouTube is spine-tingling. But without more--without the facts that flesh out the razzle-dazzle--these experiences simply don't qualify as news. Call me old-fashioned, but in my book, they never will."