Monday, October 25, 2004
Hyphens On the March
So (via Gawker) I stumbled upon this message board for disgruntled copy-editors (the kind of people who would strongly object to my placing a hyphen in their job-description [I did it again!]). At first, it was all fun and games, funny curmudgeons arguing about the proper spelling of theatre/theater.
Then, they all ended up as more fuel for the fire of my anti-press crusade. In a perfectly legitimate discussion of the worth of newspaper endorsements, it became a high-minded "I went to J-School" bitch-about-the-ignorant-readers elitist bullshit session. Honestly, folks, you work for barely-written wire-reprinting rags with no importance or journalistic integrity. Where does some wage-slave at the Daily Podunk Tribune get off calling his readers (with only partial sarcasm) the "unwashed public" and bitching about how they occasionally call the paper and talk to him? You people work for the Unwashed Masses -- you are not smarter or better than them.
This is the shit that fuels the backlash, folks -- you're elitism is not doing your profession (or the country) any favors. |
Then, they all ended up as more fuel for the fire of my anti-press crusade. In a perfectly legitimate discussion of the worth of newspaper endorsements, it became a high-minded "I went to J-School" bitch-about-the-ignorant-readers elitist bullshit session. Honestly, folks, you work for barely-written wire-reprinting rags with no importance or journalistic integrity. Where does some wage-slave at the Daily Podunk Tribune get off calling his readers (with only partial sarcasm) the "unwashed public" and bitching about how they occasionally call the paper and talk to him? You people work for the Unwashed Masses -- you are not smarter or better than them.
This is the shit that fuels the backlash, folks -- you're elitism is not doing your profession (or the country) any favors. |
