Journalists are the least well read people, says The Times columnist

 JournalismPakistan.com |  Published: 16 April 2014

Giles Coren from The Times has labeled journalists as the least well-read individuals, suggesting it diminishes their writing skills. His previous criticisms reflect ongoing concerns about the state of journalism today.

Summary

A British columnist and a restaurant critic for The Times has termed journalists as the least well read people.

In his Saturday column, Giles Coren said journalists spend all day “reading” newspapers, shorthand notes, filed copy, newswires, blogs, and when they come home they reckon they've done their “reading” for the day and now it's time to drink cheap wine and watch Game of Thrones.

This attitude, feels Giles, is making “the writing in news publications… worse and worse by the week: because the people who write the words only ever skim-read other, similar words, thus 'deactivating their deep-reading facility' and stunting their literary development.”

This is not the first time the columnist has expressed his disgust with journalists. In July 2008 he wrote an email containing profanities to sub-editors at The Times, telling them in no uncertain terms that he was “mightily pissed off” by their editing, adding he didn’t “really like people tinkering with my copy for the sake of tinkering”.

He says that since journalists are not interested in reading, “the university-educated journalists of my generation write like swotty teenagers, while the straight-from-school-to-the-newsroom guys and girls write like policemen.”