Mr Alter, like most journalists, is terrified that the public will find out how lazy, biased and incompetent they are. The media is undergoing as great a transformation as happened when newspapers and pamphlets challenged the pulpit and back fence as trusted sources. No renaissance priest or preacher was as frightened of the people questioning their direct line to the truth. Talk radio, cable television and the internet are killing the carefully built image of an objective and dedicated press and returning reporters, like the clerics before, to human status.
nodak: the only use for that “rule” is that Democratic politicians know that they can spout off to a journalist, they will be protected. Sorry, that’s a big part of the reason no one respects journalists any more.
