Having been a newspaper reader for five decades, the declining standard of news in print has one upside: the ever-diminishing disappointment of not accepting a cadetship more than thirty years ago. Today’s gripe was triggered by a cruciverbalist who seems to think that ‘tidbit’ is actually ‘titbit’. At best this is yet another Americanism slipping greasily into our battered lexicon; at worst, sloppy attention to detail and auditory incompetence.
Call me a pedant – it’s a badge I wear with honour. While I’m at it, printing inane tweets does not an article make; particularly when they have already been lazily quoted in the body of the story. Ultimately they are badly structured, filled with spelling mistakes, and have the observation and expression of an adolescent.
I imagine a photographer setting up a shot of work boot shod blokes pouting and twerking in order to entitle the study male electricians in touch with their feminine side. I know the end of quality journalism is nigh. Has been for a while. It’s been wrestling for recognition, when it shouldn’t have to at all, like female tradies still struggling for respect.
When popular idiocy demanded the death of the broadsheet because it’s apparently too difficult to manage, devolution must have begun. Opposable thumbs seem to not do their job anymore. I await them becoming a useless appendage. Maybe they’ll eventually be removed because we won’t quite know their function. Like an appendix. And I am very aware that newspaper format will soon be just more detritus of the purely digital. It too will join the list of the extinct. Just because it’s accepted, doesn’t mean it’s right. The virtual world indiscriminately treats tradition as lice-infested carrier pigeons impeding delivery drones. It doesn’t even make me angry anymore. Too much hope required for that.