WTF Happened to Real Journalists?

I enjoy watching the YouTube train wrecks of the week as much as the next guy -- you know, those forwarded clips of botched American Idol auditions, Philippine prisoners performing "Thriller" in their orange jumpsuits, anything Lohan. I laugh, I cry, I giggle with glee at these harmless guilty pleasures. But when dozens of my media colleagues and friends forwarded me the "Worst Interview Ever" in which a non-journalist botches the basics of television journalism during an interview with Holly Hunter, my laughter turned to rage. This isn't some clip from a po-dunk program in Nowhere, Nebraska, but a segment on AB-freakin'-C network television.

Host Merry Miller (real name, seriously?) didn't just botch the interview, she downright slaughtered it. She couldn't read prompter, didn't listen to Hunter's responses, and read through her short list of questions as if reciting a grocery list. She made all the mistakes you learn not to make your first day in any Media 101 class. I'm not mad at Merry, actually, because maybe, just maybe, her nerves got the best of her. Instead I blame the producers. Since when is it OK to allow inexperienced nobodies to represent a network show? Are the halls of Northwestern, Syracuse, USC, Berkeley, Columbia and countless other respectable institutions no longer producing quality, trained journalists these days? Are there no internship programs that weed out the idiots from the ideal candidates? Or are producers and editors so lazy and ratings-hungry that they look not for the best resume (which should include a laundry list of internships before making it to network air, thankyouverymuch) but for the prettiest face?

Yes, I know, you need a healthy dose of "attractive" to make it on the air, but in the good old days you also needed a journalism degree.

The standard practice for entering the once-respectable field of journalism was as follows: First, obtain a college degree, ideally in a field of media studies. Even a political science, English, philosophy or theater degree would do. But no respectable media outlet -- from local newspapers to broadcast cable networks -- would hire you without that all-important piece of paper. The idea being that if you are going to be a conveyor of news and information, it might help if you weren't a complete dumbass.

Once you'd educated yourself, you needed an internship, or three (I had five). And this internship wouldn't be at CNN or Vogue or Access Hollywood, but at a small-town newspaper or TV station, a place where you made huge mistakes and learned from them. Then, if sufficient hard work and expertise were achieved, you might land a job at a major media company, or, more likely, you'd get a full-time job at the small-town outlet where you interned. It was called "paying your dues." Apparently this process no longer applies to today's journalist. In fact, today's journalist likely isn't even a trained journalist, but rather a talking head chosen for its appearance or a busybody who's willing to report gossip as if it were "news."

Our media today are in a sad, sad state. Our Meredith Vieras (trained reporter, years logged in the field) are being replaced by Elizabeth Hasselbeck (Survivor finalist) at an alarming rate. News programs that reported issues (is 60 Minutes even on anymore?) have been taken over by opinionated loud-mouths who want nothing to do with fair reporting, but rather to express their own righteous opinions (I am talking to you, Nancy Grace). Newspapers are downsizing, magazines are folding and the Web is taking over print journalism outright. Considering I run an online magazine, I find this prospect hopeful, except, yea, the site leading the way is TMZ.com, a screw-the-facts gossip blog created and edited by a lawyer.

If this is the future of media, all those wide-eyed, ethical reporter hopefuls out there might as well save their college tuition dollars and hire a talent agent instead. Or maybe ABC is hiring.

Follow Heather Wood Rudúlph on Twitter: www.twitter.com/SirensMag