Bad Practice

Did you ever notice that people are always decrying the lack of ethics in the media or the slipshod reporting? Part of that might be due to the incredibly low wages that journalists are paid (see my previous post "A Lesson To Be Learned") .
But, what annoys me the most is the fact that most often it is other members of the media complaining about how the media has done a bad job. Yes, I think the media has screwed up in many ways--not questioning President Bush enough, devoting too much time to infotainment, etc. These are legitimate concerns. And as a journalist I do my best to not fall into that trap.
But what annoys me is that the people who complain loudest about this are talking heads who do nothing about it, and who actually contribute to the problem. Last time I checked Bill O'Reilly and the other commentators weren't doing anything to promote ethical reporting (in fact, they don't do any reporting at all--they're just reactionaries and its the purview of their assistants to sift through real news to find things for them to rail about). And the world of soundbites in which they live actually hurts the media and journalists' ability to do their job.