In a Commentary page column on Feb. 6,
Charles M. Madigan said he was inventing a word, "info-pimp"
to describe using rumors as news. The word has been used
before and was not invented by Mr. Madigan. His Feb. 27 column
on the Commentary page explains.
I have always been terrible
at the "journalists stick together" thing.
In my era, independence was assumed, along
with competitive drive that made socializing a little
uncomfortable. I once dismantled a guy's phone so he couldn't
call in his story first.
No one at United Press
International told me to do that. No one had to.
It's a
felony, I think, but I really hated losing.
My friends,
non-journalists, do not sit around and ponder the business, an
ailment these days because its future now involves the
question: Does it have one?
Still, the people I have
admired the most have always been journalists. I love my
colleagues.
I am bringing this up for two
reasons.
I am angry at the sneering use of the phrase
"mainstream media," by bloggers. I am also upset by the
obvious decline in standards that would allow a ridiculous
slander about Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) to become news for a
little while until reality intervened.
People do a lot
of things backward these days.
I once counseled a buddy
who had blasted his disastrous way through a string of
wonderful girlfriends that he might have more luck if they
actually got to know one another before they became intimate.
(Note: This is a euphemism for having sex!)
He thought
this was brilliantly novel, tried it out and ended up married
for some decades until that, too, blew up because some people
just can't take advice.
I feel the same way about
stories.
Before you become intimate (Note: This is not
a euphemism for sex!), you really have to know them. You don't
go into the tawdry world of information and fall into a swoon
over some wacky Internet-fueled tidbit.
Your mother,
who says she loves you, wants you to check it out, or
something like that.
People who pick up questionable
things and present them as real are info-pimps.
I just
invented that word. I like the sound of it.
It conjures
images of parasites, laptops in place, typing up a storm and
then putting it out on the street, where the gullible,
thinking it's the real deal, just gobble it up.
The
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth with their sneaky attack on Sen.
John Kerry (D-Mass.) in the last presidential contest were
info-pimps.
It would have been a lot easier if they had
just said, "We hate his guts because he was anti-war and let
his comrades down," and let it go. Betrayal is really bad
enough. You don't have to pretend there is "news"
involved.
