I believe we are still in a transition in this that we call an evolving journalism.

Sometime in the mid 80s the cameramen (they were only men) for a local TV station called BCTV were asked to interview those they filmed. Most protested but in the end they were forced to be TV journalists even though they had not trained for that.

In today’s atmosphere, in which many of us watch US cable news (in our case MSNBC and CNN) we listen to many guests who are also writers. Some are from the NY Times (Krugman is one of them) others from the Washington Post, Vanity Fair or the Atlantic. In years past I trusted and liked Ezra Klein. Having seen him in person I would follow him in social media (I don’t).

Eventually all these writers like Maureen Dowd will retire and a new crop of these journalists who have to not only write but talk on TV will have arrived. At that point like my now dead friend the Vancouver architect Abraham Rogatnick used to say, “I am not long for this world and I am glad for it.”

The importance of checking facts and research in that former journalism of then was paramount for the respect one would give to those journalists. Now with news being past that former 24 hour cycle we are forced to read and to listen to horrible “breaking news”.

I was shocked to see that latest New Yorker cover featuring Trump. In my century we would have winced. Even if some might think that the President of the United States does not deserves respect, I think the cover is well over the top. In past journalism all men in NY Times articles would be “Mr. Smith said…” or “Miss Taylor talked about her former husband…” In those days the good papers and magazines had rule books. These are now gone out the window. Anything goes. That terrible four letter word is not used everwhere although Rachel Maddow prefers to say “fricking” and uses the word “bullpucky” for that other one.

Good writing is gone. But for me folks like Ezra Klein can still speak in a way that I am willing to listen.