on the function of journalists (and bloggers)

I'm posting this here so I shall be able to consult it every time I find myself taking things too seriously.

My various solutions to the problems which beset the nation are intended as suggestions to be thrown around in pubs, clubs and dining rooms. If the Government adopted even a tenth of them, catastrophe would surely result ... The essence of journalism is that it should stimulate its readers for a moment, possibly open their minds to some alternative perception of events, and then be thrown away, with all its clever conundrums, its prophecies and comminations, in the great wastepaper basket of history. (Auberon Waugh quoted by his son, Alexander, in his book Fathers and Sons: Autobiography of a Family)

Alexander Waugh expands on this in the next paragraph:

If journalism was not 'important' to him he nevertheless held it, as a profession, in high regard. It was only when journalists took their jobs too seriously, when they tried to play an active part in shaping events, that he began to lose his enthusiasm for the press. The sole purpose of political journalism, he always insisted, was to deflate politicians, the self-important and the power mad: 'We should never, never suggest new ways for them to spend money or taxes they could increase, or new laws they could pass. There is nothing so ridiculous as the posture of journalists who see themselves as part of the sane and pragmatic decision-taking process.'

I was tempted to write a long jeremiad on the state of argument today, but I think I'll just sit back and consider Waugh's view of the function of journalists, and try to notice if anyone is doing that anymore.

The market is silent on this one

"Finding a way to keep diethylene glycol out of medicine, particularly in developing countries, has confounded health officials for decades. “It is preventable and we have to figure out some way of stopping this from happening again,” said Carol Rubin, a senior C.D.C. official." (NYTimes article "F.D.A. Tracked Tainted Drugs, but Trail Went Cold in China," June 17, 2007)

I keep hearing ambient conversation in the very conservative state where I live about how terrible government regulation of anything is. People forget why so many things are heavily regulated until the regulation goes away and greedy criminals swarm out from under rocks and start killing people in their quest for money.