A Media Critique We'll Relate To

We all know newspapers are struggling to find themselves in the Internet/blog era. Much worse, we know that journalists are penning all sorts of nausea-inducing analyses of the situation that focus on their great insights and the lack of insight by their peers. Puh-lease!

Finally, there's one worth reading. Gene Weingarten makes no real points in his WaPo column, but he scores some, like this:

Editors seem to believe that the way to attract more readers is to be nicer and more responsive to them, reversing a hallowed, hundred-year tradition in which journalists treated readers like fungi. Back in the crusty old days -- when newsmen gargled scotch from tankards, smoked cigars as thick as bratwurst and pistol-whipped sources into talking -- readers were essentially seen as nuisances. When a reader came into a newsroom with a complaint, he would be sent from desk to desk, finally being directed to the "complaints department," which turned out to be the fourth-floor urinal.

Today, if you have a complaint, the publisher himself will come to your house, apologize, wash your car, do your dishes, and so forth. Desperate, is what we are.

It's not quite worth reading in its entirety, but it's better than the average journalist lament, so click over and see if you can make it to the end.