"Bail Me Out, Mr. Paulson"
O'ROURKE, P.J.
Bail Me Out, Mr. Paulson Print journalists aren’t feeling the love these days. BY P. J. O’ROURKE Hello? Bailout people? Mr. Secretary of the Treasury Paulson? Aren’t you...
...It’s expensive to swat fl ies with a podcasting iPod...
...And I’ll think of some while the waiter brings me another drink...
...You could smell Frank Rich all the way to Nome when Sarah Palin was nominated...
...How’s tricks, Mike...
...Aren’t you forgetting somebody...
...Not that print journalism actually emits much in the way of greenhouse gases...
...Not only will America’s principal source of Sudoku puzzles and Doonesbury be preserved but so will an endangered species—the hard-bitten, cynical, heavy-drinking news hound with a press card in his hatband, a cigarette stub dangling from his lip, and free ringside prize fi ght tickets tucked into his vest pocket...
...We have an itty-bitty carbon footprint...
...But print journalism brings you Paul Krugman and Anna Quindlen...
...They want fi rst call on those twerps themselves...
...Network television has been attempting to lure viewers for years with its low-interest programming only to have those viewers discover later that their brains are bankrupt...
...Just Mike Barnicle, as usual...
...But lose your newspaper and what are you going to do for covers on a cold night while you’re sleeping on a park bench...
...And if you think home foreclosures are disruptive to American society, imagine what would happen if USA Today stopped publishing...
...Memo to pols from an old hack, strictly on the q.t.—The J-school twerps don’t smoke, don’t drink, do yoga, and will tell DailyKos if you fool around...
...Try blanketing yourself with Matt Drudge to keep warm...
...The print journalism industry is taking a beating, circling the drain, running on fumes...
...Time to pour lunch...
...O’Rourke is a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...Also, in 1898 Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World and William Randolph Hearst of the New York Journal started the Spanish-American War...
...Compare that to the global warming hot air produced by talk radio, cable TV, and Andrew Sullivan...
...In the fi rst place one out of three American households is dependent on print journalism1...
...There are many compelling reasons to save America’s print journalism...
...We had no idea that real news and clear-eyed analysis were being “bundled” with subprime celebrity gossip, US Weekly derivatives, and Jennifer Aniston/Angelina Jolie swaps...
...Like me...
...We were as surprised as everyone else was by the sudden collapse of the reliable reporting market...
...We need a swift infusion of federal aid...
...We’re earth-friendly...
...The government is bailing out Wall Street for being evil and the car companies for being stupid...
...Twerps make excellent Hill staffers and can help elected offi cials angle for a cabinet post, such as Secretary of Hope and Change and Stuff, in the Obama administration...
...We print journalists are victims of economic forces beyond our control...
...Lose your home and you become homeless — a member of an important interest group with many respected advocates and a powerful political lobbying arm...
...And there are hardly any of them left in the wild...
...I’m a print journalist...
...The current press run of an average big city daily newspaper can be made from one tree...
...But I think we can ask America’s legislators to make this sacrifi ce...
...I checked the bar...
...Saving print journalism will be a bargain for the U.S...
...True, there is the danger that network television, with its much higher potential losses, will demand equal treatment...
...Obviously more twerps will be available if print journalism doesn’t exist anymore...
...Especially running on fumes...
...We’ll settle for having the Treasury Department pay our tab at the Capital Grille...
...Senators and congressmen may have their objections as well...
...Talk about fi nancial meltdown...
...P.J...
...govern ment...
...Newsboys tossing flat screen monitors onto your porch will damage the wicker furniture...
...Sun’s over the yardarm...
...And a dog that’s trained to piddle on your high-speed Internet connection can cause a dangerous electrical short-circuit and burn down your house...
...Nothing approaching $700 billion is required in our case...
...BY P. J. O’ROURKE Hello...
...All of the Lehman Brothers put together couldn’t cause as much evil stupidity as that...
...Where’d everybody go...
...But this cannot be justifi ed...
...And I think we can ask taxpayers whether they would prefer to pay journalists to harmlessly tickle keyboards at the New Republic or whether they would prefer to pay journalists to be in positions of infl uence on political policies that will wreck the taxpayers’ lives...
...Print journalists may soon have to send their kids to public schools, feed dry food to their cats, and give up their leases on Prius automobiles and get the Hummers that are being offered at such deep discounts these days...
...Some taxpayers may object to a print journalism bailout on the grounds that it mostly benefi ts the liberal elite...
...Moreover, rescuing print journalism is a “two-fer...
...Otherwise all the information in America will be about Lindsay Lohan’s sex life...
...Remember, America, you can’t wrap a fi sh in satellite radio or line the bottom of your birdcage with MSNBC (however appropriate that would be...
...And we can’t blame taxpayers for being reluctant to subsidize the reportorial careers of J-school twerps who should have joined the Peace Corps and gone to Africa to “speak truth to power” to Robert Mugabe...
...These guys don’t reproduce in captivity...
Vol. 14 • December 2008 • No. 11
