Blast from the past...and present

My first job in professional journalism was working as an editorial intern at the Syracuse New Times while I was in grad school at SU waaaaay back in the last millennium. I remember it as a friendly environment where editors cracked jokes with interns often too shellshocked to respond. I remember the youngish editor whose impromptu local history lecture gave me a kick-ass anecdotal lead for my story about Georgetown coach John Thompson. I remember the veteran music editor who gave me tickets to movie screenings and a promo copy of the Roots' Things Fall Apart just because I saw it sitting there on his desk. (hey, for a starving grad student, that was a huge deal!) I remember the photo editor who kept me at the office late one night just so he could take a picture of my hand holding a pizza box, and the staffers who ate my one-of-a-kind orange and chocolate cheesecake and then clowned me for leaving it in the fridge in the first place. (okay, that was my fault, but they could have left me a piece!)

Despite my having to take two buses in often brutally cold weather to get the office, I loved every single minute I spent there. I learned a lot, and it really is a testament to the place that I came away from there knowing that I just didn't want to work in journalism, I wanted to be a journalist. So I couldn't help feeling more than a twinge of anger when I went to the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies website (aan.org), and found out that President Bush's new domestic policy adviser, Karl Zinsmeister, took a two-year old SNT profile of himself, doctored some of the text and quotes and posted the altered article on the site of the magazine he edits. Yeah, that's stupid. But then Zinsmeister goes from bonehead to asshole in about the time it took for him to tell the Washington Post that he did it partially to correct some inaccuracies while protecting the young journalist who wrote the piece. Um, next time you wanna "protect" someone, just use 'em as a human shield instead, why don't you? It's a good thing the writer keeps his e-mails, though, because apparently Zinsmeister wrote the guy to praise the article for its fairness and accuracy.

It's one thing to want to make yourself look good. It's another thing to misrepresent yourself in order to do so. But when you get caught, at least have the stones to confess! Not only did this ball-less prick get caught, he consciously tried to destroy someone's career to cover his own ass. And I can't think of a bigger career-killer for a journalist than a source accusing one of shoddy reporting in the pages of the fucking Washington Post. Zinsmeister should be ashamed because as a journalist himself, he must have known this. Fortunately, the SNT is considering legal action against Zinsmeister. While you're at it, pleasepleaseplease sue the pants off WaPo for being stupid enough to actually publish the accusations without contacting the writer or anyone from the paper. If we can't trust journalists enough to actually do their jobs, what's to stop people like this from continuing to sabotage journalists for their own benefit? Incidents like this only serve to hasten our own obsolescence, and it's a tragedy to think that the agents of our destruction might be getting help from the inside. It's scary to think that the only thing that stood between this writer and a potential trip to the unemployment line was the exemplary reporting of the New York Sun and the faith of his editor. Meanwhile, the endless parade of nitwits towards the White House continues apace. At least we can see them for the asses they are.

I know she's a bitch, but I think I'm falling in love with Karma right about now.