Today, we've got to call a huge foul on our chosen profession, that of media and communication. There are certain times of the year when the conduct of some of our professional colleagues is almost enough to make us cry. Not like the fake blubbering of Rep. John Boehner - although we think his attempt to earn an Emmy for weeping on 60 Minutes Sunday was far more disgusting than moving.
No, the reason we're so embarrassed today is that we know what goes on behind the scenes in the media and political world at this time of year - which may be a lot like where you work.
In our corner of the work world, large numbers of people are already on vacation until January - and have been for at least a week. From sales to programming, and production to management, if a media or political organization didn't already look like an employment graveyard, they certainly do this week.
Unfortunately, that includes the cubicles of those who actually create news content. Let's just say that at this time of year, the reporting and delivering of news and information often gets a bit sloppy (and we're being extremely kind by phrasing it that way).
Thankfully, at The Daily Felltoon, anything worth doing is still worth doing well - even if it only takes twenty seconds and we are able to do it (figuratively speaking) with a bag on our heads.
In case you missed it on Monday, a Federal judge in Virginia decided that one provision of the Health Care Insurance Reform law was unconstitutional. As soon as his ruling hit the wires, it seemed like nearly every news, infotainment, and other media source was jumping up and down, chanting that the health care reform law may be dead. Which, of course, we knew full well was complete bunk.
It took us less than half a minute to bring up the December 1st edition of The Daily Felltoon, where we linked to a story from the Washington, DC daily, The Hill. That story, and several others that were just a Google search away, proved that our fellows in the media were either completely incompetent - or they've allowed the interns to take over operations a bit early this year.
In fact, there have already been lawsuits in both Michigan and California, as well as an earlier lawsuit in Virginia where Federal judges have ruled IN FAVOR of the reform law. Two of those decisions even disagreed with the exact same provision Monday's ruling tackled.
In light of that kind of massive failure by multiple "news" sources, we'd hate to think if any REAL news stories came along during the holidays, what those interns left behind might do.
So here's our holiday employment hint to the intern brigades: If someone tells you there's a rumor on Twitter that Santa is dead, you might want to do a little fact-checking first before you click "Publish" - just in case you'd like to get that part-time PAID position in the newsroom next year.
