[blhack]

>the Sun-Times might be more effective firing the writers, keeping the photographers, and teaching them actual journalism.

I think you joke, but you might have accidentally made an excellent point.

My girlfriend, to pay her bills, is a journalist. One of the things that she's talked about a lot (I'm paraphrasing here, these aren't her words) is that contemporary journalists don't have any balls anymore.

The joke is: a journalism professor, on the first day, stages a siren to play outside of the classroom. When it goes off, anybody who doesn't immediately run out with a pen and a pad in hand is dropped from the class.

Lately, a journalist can do their job without getting up from their desk. A photojournalist, however, can't. They're the ones running into "the action" necessarily. A words-journalist isn't anymore, so much.

[kfury]

I do joke, but with truth. As Al Franken popularized it, I was 'kidding on the square'.

[Tloewald]

Kidding on the square is a very useful (and insightful) phrase.

[SilasX]

>My girlfriend, to pay her bills, is a journalist.

I'm glad she can make that work!