h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The Journalist: I like the observation of the small ears, but I think they are not so much as ears but just a locking device to keep the tube from falling out of their heads. This tube is designed to stop reality entering their minds by just flushing out all what goes in which is why we see some fantastic non-fiction in th papers.

*Non*-fiction?

I am in the unfortunate position of having to interact with journalists on a daily basis. The worst thing they do, apart from drinking, being arrogant and not usually smelling very nice, is persuade you to pay for them to fly to California (from the UK) to attend your client's conference, then delay their return flight by two weeks so they can go on holiday, and then when they get back miraculously forget everything they heard at your client's conference and never write a word about it.

Grrr.

I'm sure lots of journalists are actually really lovely people. It's just I haven't yet met any that are.

The first paraghaph sounds very much like a mole, hmm I wonder if that means anything. Anyway as a student I'm supposed to pretend I'm intelligent so here goes.
As a resercher for the guide that kind of makes us journalists. The alchohol content is already there in me (being a student and all that) but when do all the other features start to emerge? And can we stop them?
Please help me I don't want to go that way AAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!!!

There are no such things as journalists. It is a collective noun used by posers who are really reporters, photographers, sub editors, proof readers, copy takers and other mindless over rated, over paid, job designations. They invariably are thick and oh so faithfully report something as fact one day and something totally different the next day without a word of explanation as to why the change.
But what really gets up my nose is the way they are not content with posing under their collective job title they have the guile to call themselves professionals. Don't get me started on broadcasters.
As for the drunkenness, only if someone else is paying.

Ok then. So-called broadcasters have all the faults of so-called journalists but worse. Invariably they have been told they are useless by some one in the print media at a young age and left the print job
in a huff, female. Have left a small town print job because it was stifling them, male. Female while drinking water in a bar meets male who gets her a job in the broadcast media. Male after not being able to get a job on large print organ starts in broadcasting at lower rate of pay than he was getting in small town

There is at least one use for journalists : if you mix a journalist with an editor you get one mother of an explosion. Very useful in a small war so I suggest that all reporters and editors can go to whatever war-zone they may want to visit on the condition that they cross the border before actually meeting...

Hopefully with a posse of photographers within shrapnel range

I am one of they that you so idiotically malign, I'm a member of MENSA with an IQ of 167. I've worked on newspapers, magazines, the radio and I've written two screenplays and a thesis on Egyptian archaeology. I'm also a terrible alcoholic, an utter bastard and one who, in complete contempt of you and all other bitter, non-descript, non-creatives, revels in doing exactly the kind of things you can only talk about in safe cyber-havens such as this where you don't have to deal and interact with real people on a face to face basis.
I have, even though I'm only a handful of years into my career, been a reporter on a regional newspaper, a sub-editor on a national magazine, a freelancer features writer for several different national magazines, a travel writer, an editor, a features editor, a political correspondant, a sports reporter and, well, everything else under the sun.
I have no idea exactly what your problems are but, the more you write, the clearer they are becoming. Thank you for your comments anyway, I'll be sure to think long and hard about them, the next time I find myself at a mentally stimulating deadend without drying paint to watch.

Ha! QED!

Don't worry Monkey Butler, I shall shortly be exiting the world of PR and then I shall have no gripe about your kind whatsoever.

As someone who for 30 years, has worked variously as a printer, graphic artist and graphic designer on newspapers in Britain, Australia and New Zealand my posted comments can be best described as the voice of bitter experience. The deep pockets, short arms syndrome upsets me the most.

Whenever the second thing out of someones mouth is "I'm member of mensa with N IQ of 160..." the best thing to do is just walk the hell away because nothing that could follow is going to be productive to any sort of real conversation, its all gonna be "I did this, I did that, I'm so much better than you that I dont even know why I'm even talking to you."
As far as me, I'm a confused 21 year old teenager that cant figure out what to do with my life and yes, I'm considering journalism. But if the field Is filled with your kin forget it, maby I'll just keep smoking alot of weed and working in fast food

Yes, but you have to learn to pick up on when someone's telling the truth or not, sometimes people just say a lot of things to come over in a certain light for reasons which may not be immediately apparent to a bystander. Plus, I don't think journalism is something you just decide to go into, it's somewhere you go when you've got no other options.
Don't take everything on face-value, if you do you'll be a bobbins journalist anyway. And don't be afraid to bullshit to get your point across, bullshit can get you everywhere and anywhere.

"Somewhere you go when you've got no other options"? A startling admission from one so intelligent, creative and well-educated!

Well, if you're a journalist, you're a journalist. It's a cul-de-sac you go hurtling down and then decide that you rather like it. Plus, for me, to do something else, or even consider doing something else would be akin to giving in. Never!

I'm a very nice broadcast journalist. And I don't drink - well, hardly.

Why do reporters, sub editors, insist on calling themselves journalists?

I don't think that I would want to go anywhere where the road was knee-deep in bullshit. Journalism can be good or bad, like most things, and if it has a bad name who should we blame?