| I don't think you're clear on how journalism works. News pieces report relatively factual material. That's the first part of what you identify. But then there are other kinds of writing that also appear in newspapers. [1] This in particular is from their blog The Intersect [2], which is cultural commentary focused on the Internet. It is written by their "digital culture critic". [3] So cultural commentary is exactly this person's job. And I don't think it's a giant stretch extrapolating research about men harassing women online to... men harassing women online. Of course, you could be right: some online harassers may also be high-status winners sending out semi-literate email screeds from their mansions and yachts and whatnot. So no, this isn't shitty journalism. It would be a shitty news piece if it were a news piece. But since it's not, I'd call it a decent commentary piece. [1] Hopefully this isn't too big a surprise; this is literally what they tell fifth graders about journalism. E.g.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english/creativewr... or http://www.dispatchnie.com/content/pages/types-of-articles/t... [2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/ [3] I learned all this by a) clicking on the big title at the topic of the column, and b) clicking on the writer info at the bottom. Next time if you're wondering what sort of article you're reading, those are good places to start. |