Killer writers

Recently the NYT ran a piece about returned soldiers involved in crimes, a story with an underlying feeling that we need to keep an eye on these vets. You can take a set of incidents, not necessarily related, and cobble together an apparent pattern. Editors love trends; we used to joke that three occurrences constitute a trend and would try to suppress the news of the third occurrence, hoping to avoid writing a trend story. At Newspaper Death Watch,, I happened on a link to Iowahawk, a blogger with a new take on the trend story, a story about criminal journalists. The post is titled 'Bylines of Brutality,' with a subhead reading ‘As Casualties Mount, Some Question The Emotional Stability of Media Vets.’ Then a recitation of a long list of arrests of journalists for various ugly crimes:

Unrelated incidents, or mounting evidence of that America's newsrooms have become a breeding ground for murderous, drunk, gun-wielding child molesters? Answers are elusive, but the ever-increasing toll of violent crimes committed by journalists has led some experts to warn that without programs for intensive mental health care, the nation faces a potential bloodbath at the hands of psychopathic media vets.

The whole thing is here. It's a hoot, and this site has some ripping good satire among the other posts. Glad I discovered it and put it on my regular trapline of blogs.