Jounalists: Our Moral and Intellectual Superiors

A reader writes:

I don’t know, this just strikes me as odd. This site at CNN is headlined, “Pope Challenges Capitalism Ahead of G-8“. The thing is that I have the encyclical on a Word Doc and when I do a word search of the entire thing, “Capitalism” never comes up.

My reader fails to appreciate the sport of encyclical reading. The goal is not to find out what the encyclical says or (Heaven forfend!) learn from it. The goal is to file a story as quickly as possible which stands the best chance of a) affirming your tribe in whatever it already thinks and b) stands the best chance of selling the most beer and shampoo for your news organization.