Respect Is Earned, But Most Modern “Journalists” Wouldn’t Know It

Previously, I’d written about, and provided one example of, what I considered to be an exemplary model of poor journalistic practice — which is the failure to properly identify individuals quoted in stories by their academic/professional achievements, proper title, capitalization, organizational affiliation, and location, to which I added the practice of abbreviated (or not) states’ names.

There are at least TWO fundamental issues underlying the first matter, both of which can be boiled down to one, that one being respect:

1.) Respect for the individual whom is quoted and referenced in the story, most often only obliquely recognized as an authority or expert, and;

2.) Respect for the reader, the party whom is being informed by reading the story, and for whom the authors write.

Folks who earn PhD’s didn’t just have that terminal degree handed to them on a silver platter. They worked their hineys off for years to earn it. As a matter of fact, folks who earn ANY academic achievement didn’t have it handed to them on a silver platter. They had to WORK to EARN it.

And this is a corollary, though obliquely related matter, which is that

At that rate, you’ll be through in…

The Associated Press is reporting that China’s health minister stated recently that 1.5 million Chinese citizens are being inoculated daily with H1N1 (swine flu) vaccine. They hope to have vaccinated nearly 7% of that nation’s population by this year’s end. Thus far, more than 50 Million Chinese people have been immunized, according to Chen Zhu, whom spoke from the Global Forum for Health Research being held in Havana, Cuba.

China is the world’s most populous nation, which CIA estimates in July 2008 placed at 1,330,044,544.

To give you an idea of the enormity of that task, if Chinese officials continue at that present rate – 1.5 million daily – it’d take 2.4293051 years (or, 2 years, 5ive months,  4 days, 13 hours) to completely inoculate the entire Chinese population.

And you wonder why they can get things done? (They ARE, after all, building the world’s largest hydroelectric dam. And we Americans have trouble figuring out if everybody in this nation needs healthcare, and how to get it done?)

Please!