In honor of idiocy in the media, I hereby designate the Eve Ensler Award.
Today loser is a moron, from Daily Beast, Tunku Varadarajan, has claimed to have published a list of the top twenty-five right wing journalists, from Noel Sheppard, Newsbusters:
The Daily Beast Thursday published its list of the Right’s most influential media figures, and the winner will likely surprise many on both sides of the aisle.
In the top position according to author Tunku Varadarajan (please see update at end of post!) is Paul Gigot, the editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal.
First let us review the definition of journalist, from Merriam-Webster:
Main Entry: jour·nal·istPronunciation: \-n?-list\Function: nounDate: 16931 a : a person engaged in journalism; especially : a writer or editor for a news medium b : a writer who aims at a mass audience
2 : a person who keeps a journal
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February 12th, 2010 at 10:46
Did you read those definitions from your Merriam-Webster or just copy and paste? Isn’t Gigot an editor for the Wall St. Journal? Isn’t editing for a newspaper journalism? Isn’t journalism what a journalist does? I think your offering Tunka some pretty stiff competition for that Ensler Award.
February 12th, 2010 at 10:55
Paul Gigot and the Wall Street Journal are damn good. However a journalist assembles facts into news. Gigot is in the opinion business. That is to say he is a pundit.
February 13th, 2010 at 12:01
Maybe I put too fine a point on it. Gigot is by definition a journalist ( see Merriam-Webster: “journalist”, “journalism”). As an editor for the Wall Street Journal he is influential. People who assemble facts into news are commonly known as ‘reporters’, a subset of ‘journalists’.When you want to get snarky about someone’s use of words it’s vital to have a basic understanding of semantics.