Tuesday, April 1, 2014

A short lesson on old media

Theory: Old media tends to craft institutional morality tales out of individual failings. They draw broad lessons from silly scandalous stories to distinguish themselves from tabloids. 

For a serious journalist, an indiscrection can’t be wholly personal. It has to be publicly meaningful, or else why report? They have to turn soft news to hard news.

Example: Ford and Lohan compulsively lie, so a Globe columnist concludes that truth has disappeared and twitter has ushered in a Dark Age of accuracy. 

Please, columnists, leave these stories to Ben Mulroney.