Self-flaggelation masquerading as journalism

The Hill Times, usually a source of sober political writing, is now reporting on the reporters covering the Helena Guergis/Rahim Jaffer story.

You know reporters are flogging a dead horse when they begin writing stories about their colleagues writing about the story and asking political commentators to comment on the story of the story. Since it's far too early for the summer silly season, this is just tepid journalism to fill space until something more interesting comes along to write about.

Call it the CNN effect, a habit the news network developed during the first Gulf War when they were forced to run interviews with reporters to fill time between bomb runs and Wolf Blitzer's bathroom breaks. There's nothing worse than watching one bubble-headed-bleach blond turning to another bubble-headed-bleach-blond or a Ken doll news anchor for insight just to fill time on a 24 hour news cycle.

On a related note, one of my pet peeves is "I" journalism, where reporters insert personal pronouns and their own perspective into a news story. A Calgary Herald reporter once did a first-person account of life as a prostitute (journalist = prostitute is hardly a stretch) where she spent an hour walking the mean streets with a couple of neighbourhood sisters. She also had two police cruisers, an undercover cop and a photographer sent to document the event a few feet away as cars rolled up and asked if she was a party girl or just waiting for the bus. In other words, she had far more protection for the two hours she spent in fish nets than most women walking the streets see in a year. Her "undercover work" did a serious disservice to the women she interviewed about life on the street, women who spend years at risk on the street from pimps and johns. These women were the the story, not the reporter's experience slumming for good copy.

Reporters should save the "I" stories and the "reporter on reporter" news copy for their association newsletters and stick to the facts.