Bunker Mulligan "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." ~Mark Twain

I have an altruistic heart. Staying in Downtown San Antonio has about stretched it to the limit.

Every time I’ve stood out in front of the hotel, someone has come up to me with a sad story. Just now, a man asked if I had any change to spare. I didn’t. He then told me he just got in town today from Austin, and was supposed to start a job. But they insisted he have steel toed boots, which he didn’t have. I said most companies give employess some kind of help in getting them, and he responded that they had some worn out ones with duct tape on them.

“Whatever it takes until you get a paycheck,” I said.

“The left one didn’t fit anyway. I just need to get a couple of bucks to get a burger at McDonalds.” I told him I didn’t even know where a McDonalds was and he pointed out the corner about two blocks away.

I know downtown San Antonio pretty well, and couldn’t point out McDonalds but someone who arrived just today knew right where it is? Gimme a break.

Los Angeles Times Editor John S. Carroll gave a speech at the University of Oregon where he bemoaned the lack of professionalism in journalism.

“All over the country there are offices that look like newsrooms and there are people in those offices that look for all the world just like journalists, but they are not practicing journalism,” he said. “They regard the audience with a cold cynicism. They are practicing something I call a pseudo-journalism, and they view their audience as something to be manipulated.”

I agree. As I read further, however, I see he wasn’t talking about the same people I was thinking about–like himself:

Carroll cited a study released last year that showed Americans had three main misconceptions about Iraq: That weapons of mass destruction had been found, a connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq had been demonstrated and that the world approved of U.S intervention in Iraq. He said 80 percent of people who primarily got their news from Fox believed at least one of the misconceptions. He said the figure was more than 57 percentage points higher than people who get their news from public news broadcasting.

“How in the world could Fox have left its listeners so deeply in the dark?” Carroll asked.

So…Fox News are the pseudo-journalists! People like Brit Hume? No, just Bill O’Reilly and his ilk are propaganists. Of course, print journalists, like himself and Jayson Blair high much higher standards:

However, Carroll said a great depth of feeling remains on the importance of ethics that is centered around newspapers’ sense of responsibilities to their readers.

Carroll was preaching to the choir in Oregon. I’m sure he sincerely believes everything he said. And that’s what concerns me most.