Saving the Gerbil
By Crispin Sartwell
This beloved publication the
Daily Gerbil has fallen inadvertently into a few minor apparent ethical
lapses in recent months. We strongly reject the widespread characterization of
our attempts to fix the last presidential election and send the Middle East
into a chaos of bloody rioting as "sociopathic." Nevertheless, in
order to retain the naïve trust of you, our last few readers, and to try to
stop people blogging about us, we have yet again issued an entirely new set of
ethical guidelines.
(1) Pretend not to be a liberal. I
cannot emphasize this enough. Pretend not to be a liberal.
(2) It's very hard to say what the
notion of "truth" really amounts to.
(3) Keep in mind that the
reporters and editors here at the Daily Gerbil all went to like Columbia and
Harvard and stuff. Condescend.
(4) There will henceforth be no
unsourced stories. All groundless innuendo and vicious slander must be
attributed to unnamed officials.
(5) Increase basic factual errors.
This will help conceal basic interpretive errors.
(6) Stories are much more coherent
and interesting when you don't try actually to do any reporting but simply sit
in your condo, drinking and typing. The crusty reporters of yesteryear favored
cheap scotch. Today's j-school grad understands that a couple of fifths of
decent white wine are the key to responsible yarn-spinning.
(7) Information technology makes
plagiarism impossible, yet easy and fun. Cut and paste. If you replace a couple
of words in each sentence with synonyms, it won't be googlable.
(8) All articles will now achieve
balance by getting a comment on their subject matter (interest rates, for
example) from one anarchist and one fascist only. Non-anarchists and
non-fascists - such as Democrats and (moderate) Republicans - will henceforth
be ignored. Addendum: communists, unbeknownst to themselves, are fascists.
(9) Scrupulously maintain the
authoritative, magisterial, and neutral tone associated with the Old Grey
Gerbil. Imply that only an idiot would question your assertions or even
actually notice that they were being made at all. No one wrote this; it grew
here overnight from a spore, with the bland spontaneity of a huge poisonous
mushroom.
(10) Increase coverage of people
who believe in idiotic things (e.g. Christianity) or live in places only idiots
would live (e.g. the American south).
(11) Take a tip from Congress:
avoid at all costs the appearance of conflict of interest, while paddling
contentedly in the rejuvenating waters of its reality.
(12) Desperately placate anyone
who uses the term "lawsuit."
We trust that, until the next
meltdown, these steps will re-establish the reputation for the highest apparent
standards of apparent journalism that the Daily Gerbil has apparently upheld
for all these decades. Keep in mind that I have an absolute open-door policy
for any employee or member of the public: just leave me a voice-mail at my
unlisted number or try emailing me. Oh, and don't screw up.
