I did read your whole post, rev.paperboy.

Since I’ve basically moved on from the “who’s a journalist” debate, I found myself underwhelmed by your fevered attack on Blatchford.

Shooting fish in a barrel while ignoring tougher targets.

And actually, have you read some of my columns critical of Margaret Wente’s nonsensical writings on climate?

I write under my own name. If that means never working in this town again, so be it.

Employed cowards don’t impress me much.

Bill D.

“But let us not pretend that these folks are working journalists or that they are the equivalent. They aren’t, for the most part.

Their work isn’t subject to editing or lawyering or the ethical code which binds, for example, the writers at The Globe. The websites on which they appear don’t belong, as do most reputable newspapers in this province, to the Ontario Press Council, a body which hears complaints against traditional journalists and publications.”

By pointing out that the four people she was disparaging were very much working journalists who were, for the most part (three out of four of them) subject to editing and legal oversight. I wouldn’t expect they would be bound by the same ethics as Globe reporters like Blatchford, since they were out actually cover the story and getting the facts while she sat on her ass in the office and apparently invented her information or just retyped police press releases.
The mention of the Press Council is a nice bit of misdirection too – since none of them worked for Ontario-based newspapers why would they belong to the Press Council. Broadcast outlets don’t and neither do magazines.

And if you had bothered to read my entire post you’d have realized that I am an experienced newspaper guy, and therefore know better than to publicly bitch about a prominent celebrity columnist at the Globe if I ever hope to work in the Toronto media. I’m hardly the first to use a pen name in the blogosphere.

There, some demon is showing her some options for how she can spend eternity.

She looks behind door 1, and it’s some poor editor pounding in sports agate on a burning keyboard, and every time he makes a mistake, the flames boil higher.

Behind door 2, an editor is editing some high-strung arts columnists’s latest effort. Every time he makes even the tiniest change, the columnist goes ballistic and screams in his ear about how stupid and incompetent he is.

Door 3 wasn’t so bad. An editor is lying on a chaisse lounge. Reporters are feeding her grapes, fanning her with a palm leaf and telling her she’s a genius.

The editor asked if she could have Door 3.

“No,” said the demon. “That’s reporter hell.”