Rules Of Journalism

I am, in many ways, a frustrated anthropology major.  The study of human tribes is absolutely fascinating - you sit there and try to figure out their folkways, mores, rules, regulations, and mating habits (if any).  Journalists are one of the better groups to examine, as they actually put a lot of their rules into writing, and you don't have to spend so much time squatting amidst the mud and wattle hoping to catch the glimpse of a clue.  If you missed it, you can just go back and re-read!

For instance, one of the rules journalists have, a subset of the standard "if it bleeds, it leads," is that any nutcase whackjob criminal murderer must always, if using a firearm, be referred to as a "gunman."  You can search high and low but will never see words like "knifeman," "clubman," "gasoline and matchman" or "strangleman."  Along those lines, pretty much any shooting, whenever possible, must be referred to as a "semiautomatic assault weapon," even though an assault rifle, by definition, must be capable of fully automatic (multiple shots per 
single pull of the trigger)  fire.  A "semiautomatic assault rifle" is functionally equivalent to talking 
about a car with a "standard automatic transmission."

Another rule, fairly recent in development, is that Iraqi cleric Muqtada al Sadr must always have his name prefaced with "fiery" or "firebrand," presumably for his "fiery" sermons.   

Yet no journalist seemed to feel such a label was necessary for, say, Pat Robertson when he called 
for the assassination of foreign leaders.  I note that Sadr is also never referred to as "Reverend," simply as "a cleric."

I'm also interested, in the political arena, by the constant drumbeat for the two-party system.  Between references to "major" and "minor" parties (a distinction I cannot find anywhere in the Constitution) or even out and out exclusion of any suggestion that anyone besides an R or a D is a candidate, journalists do an outstanding job of limiting, rather than expanding, the information that they are supposedly providing to their audience - and limiting information is yet another of those rules of journalism.

A personal favorite, though, is the almost complete inability of journalists to ever ask "how do you know that?" to anyone.  This grows out of my own day-to-day work with courts and evidence, but that's a standard that most journalists simply aren't up to.  They don't have to present actual facts, they can continue their jobs - in fact, their jobs are easier - relying on insinuation and innuendo instead.

Speaking of insinuation and innuendo, I've long suspected that what most journalists these days have for brains is nothing more than the aforementioned mud and wattle.  Any journalist who'd like to disprove my theory by opening up his head and showing me the contents to be anything other than mud and wattle will receive an immediate and sincere apology.  But until then, I stand by my "fact," which is about the same quality as you find in most mainstream media these days.