Newspapers Are Just Like Motherfucking Universities
February 10, 2009
Some wackaloon nutter has proposed that newspapers and universities have sufficient similarities that they should entertain the possibility of merging (h/t Coturnix):
Consider these parallels:
What is the purpose of a newspaper?
To establish a network of fact-seekers (correspondents) who pass information to a group of quality control processors (editors) who repackage the information for consumption as articles (and books) for a group of people (readers and other learners) eager to find out what is going on in the world.
What is the purpose of a university?
To establish a network of fact-seekers (researchers and students) who pass on information to a group of quality control processors (faculty members) who repackage the information as articles (and books) for a group of people (students and other learners) eager to find out what is going on in the world.
Then some other wackaloon nutter in the comments complained that this is TEH SUXX0RS because, get this, newspapers are much freer and unbiased discoverers of the truth operating as they do in “the free market”:
We want our biggest newspapers in the free market and miles away from a cosy endowment because we want the fear of God in each and every editor. It’s the only way you will get smart people to cut the pontification and dig up interesting material in whatever beat they are covering.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! What a bunch of fucking maroons! Nice fantasy world these two jokers are living in.
Today’s “journalists” are lazy suck-ups to corporate and government power, who refuse to apply even the slightest critical analysis to corporate and government propaganda that they dutifully transcribe and disseminate. Why do you think Tim Russert’s–favorite “journalist” of Dick Motherfucking Cheney, for fuck’s sake!–death was treated like a state funeral?
These fuckups are not “journalists”; they are courtiers! They have as much interest in “dig[ging] up interesting material” or serving as “fact-seekers” as they do in getting stabbed in the eye with a red hot poker.
Comradde RisottoProffe 
February 10, 2009 at 1:53 pm
The newspapers would be better off merging with the manufacturers of fibre supplements. The purpose of both is to sell products largely consisting of cellulose. And the result is a whole load of shit.
February 10, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Newspapers = free and unbiased? On what planet? Those who think we live in an unbiased world are idiots. You can’t escape it, it’s built into our very existence.
February 10, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Um, yeah. Today’s Exhibit A: http://spinynorman.tumblr.com/post/77216349/personal-health-americas-diet-too-sweet-by-the
February 10, 2009 at 7:22 pm
God how I love when people (mostly lobertarians) try peddling their free-market panacea. All it ever does is show how detached they are from reality.
February 10, 2009 at 9:40 pm
I usually laugh out loud when Comrade PP writes something – anything. But this time, MissPrism FTW!
February 11, 2009 at 8:23 am
Ha! Bingo. I’m moving to Canada.
February 11, 2009 at 11:37 am
Newspaper=University. Wow. Just fucking wow. I…..fuck it. I don’t have the words, or the time or the energy even if I could come up with the words.
February 11, 2009 at 1:20 pm
They missed this important distinction:
A university is where you go to learn how to think.
A newspaper is where you go if you want to be told what to think.
February 13, 2009 at 12:12 am
Fucking newspapers?!?!? I fucking hate the fucking papers. With few exceptions, my high school journalism teacher would be passing out Cs and Ds for most of the crap that goes into them.
Excepting alt-weeklies.