Hastening the Death of Journalism, One Story at a Time

Katherine Mangu-Ward | August 12, 2009

As an pro-technology optimist, I'm generally reluctant to buy into narratives of modern social decline. But a newish site, probablybadnews.com, makes it tough to keep up a cheerful demeanor about the future of journalism (via Reason contributor Jacob Grier), especially the television side: 

Welcome to the temple of journalism’s hangover. Deadlines, sleepless nights, stoned editors… this former journalist has been there and seen it. And I’m probably responsible for my own fair share.

Probably Bad News is a collection of journalism’s worst hours—not the evilest, not the darkest, and certainly not our finest. Please enjoy before there’s no one left to bring you the bad news.

For instance, this:

One consoling thought: Some of the clips on this site are pretty old. Maybe this isn't a tale of decline, simply a chronicle of a constant strain of suckiness.

Comments

|8.12.09 @ 3:02PM|#

One Squirrel, One Cup

Mega-props on the caption. I salute you, Greenville News 7.

Abdul|8.12.09 @ 3:05PM|#

Wasn't this site previously the Dan Rather Journalism Archive?

Naga Sadow|8.12.09 @ 3:05PM|#

Why do I feel SugarFree was consulted on that caption title?

|8.12.09 @ 3:10PM|#

The bitches didn't pay me.

|8.12.09 @ 3:15PM|#

Here is the original video if anyone cares.

proud libitard|8.12.09 @ 3:17PM|#

Damn you, KMW! I'm wasting my whole afternoon at that site. It is one of the funniest things I've seen on the web. Seriously!

|8.12.09 @ 3:26PM|#

One Squirrel, One Cup

No friggin way...they can't be referencing what i think they are referencing.

gaijin|8.12.09 @ 3:39PM|#

The comments at the site (on that post) are, um, precious.

|8.12.09 @ 3:39PM|#

Actually there is a better version of the video...

Paul|8.12.09 @ 4:29PM|#

As an pro-technology optimist

As a language non-nazi, but someone who continually strives to improve his own grammar and usage-- with occasional failures, a friend and I who enjoy discussing all things letters are trying to figure out why so many learned writers do this on occasion, and if it's correct? It just feels wrong to me.

Eric S.|8.12.09 @ 4:29PM|#

Uh, Jay Leno's been at this for 15 years.

|8.12.09 @ 4:41PM|#

Paul, no, it's not correct. It probably happens because someone edited the sentence at some point and didn't correct article... if "pro-technology" was added late in the writing process, it would be easy to fail to change the "an" to "a".

Paul|8.12.09 @ 4:45PM|#

Joe_D. Thanks you (and apologies to the thread for the jack, but seriously, I see this a lot. A lot these days. From writers and journalists. So much so that I've been trying to understand if there's some mysterious circumstance which only the Guild Of Writers who are Better than Paul Is understands...

ed|8.12.09 @ 5:11PM|#

As an pro-technology optimist

This is what happens when your proofreading intern is out getting sandwiches.

|8.12.09 @ 5:56PM|#

It just feels wrong to me.

It is wrong. Its an artifact of drafting on computer, where you can easily parachute in a word that screws up your grammar.

|8.12.09 @ 5:57PM|#

Oh yeah:

Total, total win on the caption for that video. Its just too, too bad there weren't two squirrels.

hmm|8.12.09 @ 6:34PM|#

My wife used to turn story lines and plugs into band names. Some were quite good. That and the quote of the day in the engineering section was usually good. Cops supplied many of them.

hmm|8.12.09 @ 6:35PM|#

That and closed captioning errors. Almost as funny as the shit people say while on break in the headsets.