- Oct 31, 2012
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A National Media Emergency
According to Jill Abramson
Reporting’s getting sloppy
From rip and read to rip and write
On down to clip and copy
She edited The New York Times
She knows of what she speaks
No one does reporting now
They only process leaks
They write in the emphatic
And not in the declarative
And jettison the facts
Because the facts don’t fit the narrative
They lack the breadth of knowledge
That makes reports effective
They lack a sense of history
Or notion of perspective
The folks who run the J schools
Have made the crisis this is
Graduates who make the grade
Don’t know who Alger Hiss is
They haven’t read the Looming Tower
Much less the Bill of Rights
The last to leave the printed word
Please turn out the lights
O, for the days when newsrooms
Were two steps from Gomorrah
And scribes wore their credentials
In the brim of their fedora
When all the news that’s fit to print
Was what you had to know
And if you read it in The Sun
You knew that it was so.
Long ago Virginia asked
If old Nick was a saint
Sad to say, Virginia
If it’s in The Sun, he ain’t
A National Media Emergency - tarzanajoe.com
According to Jill Abramson
Reporting’s getting sloppy
From rip and read to rip and write
On down to clip and copy
She edited The New York Times
She knows of what she speaks
No one does reporting now
They only process leaks
They write in the emphatic
And not in the declarative
And jettison the facts
Because the facts don’t fit the narrative
They lack the breadth of knowledge
That makes reports effective
They lack a sense of history
Or notion of perspective
The folks who run the J schools
Have made the crisis this is
Graduates who make the grade
Don’t know who Alger Hiss is
They haven’t read the Looming Tower
Much less the Bill of Rights
The last to leave the printed word
Please turn out the lights
O, for the days when newsrooms
Were two steps from Gomorrah
And scribes wore their credentials
In the brim of their fedora
When all the news that’s fit to print
Was what you had to know
And if you read it in The Sun
You knew that it was so.
Long ago Virginia asked
If old Nick was a saint
Sad to say, Virginia
If it’s in The Sun, he ain’t
A National Media Emergency - tarzanajoe.com
