What is it that makes anybody want to send Joe the Plumber to play journalist? His opinions on foreign conflicts, to be fair, are probably more informed than those of Britney Spears. But can even a right wing media organization think promoting ill-informed non-writers to go out and find stories is smart? Would they send Brit Hume to fix the plumbing?
Joe needs discussing, yet I don't want to feed anything that offers the guy more press. Not because he's necessarily a bad guy, but because the sideshow nature of hiring him to go to Israel makes my profession seem do-able by anybody. And if you think it is, you haven't taught Freshman English lately–the skill of putting words and thoughts together, basic though it may seem, is in mortal danger. That Sarah Palin was a major party candidate should alone prove that.
I guess you could look at it another way–with an enormous army of such correspondents, at least you could find one to match your intellectual level and preferred brand of bias. We could send a bunch of people out and about and let them give their opinions on major conflicts, rather than finding out what's true and trying to report that. We're halfway there anyway.
It would at least be entertaining to have such fantasy reporting. I've given it some thought, and I believe right here in the Valley we have an opportunity to put an end to such stuff as Joe the Plumber's reporting. We could field someone who would end the trend overnight, because nobody could sit through a full report. Just imagine this byline:
Bob from Bob's Discount Furniture, reporting from Sudan
I think it needs doing.
