A colleague turned me on to AngryJournalist.com last weekend because there was a post and some responses touting the "fact" that copy editors were unnecessary -- reporters could just read each other's copy and that would be sufficient. This earned hearty guffaws from my colleague -- who was amused that the ace reporter had used "loosing" instead of "losing" in his rant.

So, as I was scanning the site again today, I came across this post from Angry Journalist #8521 (all submissions are anonymous and all names are removed from the site per site policy).

Before you go any further: No, I am not making this up.

I’m angry because I’m getting so much hate email today.

I have a buddy who’s a stringer in Africa. He hooks me up with some phone numbers of people in Somalia who know guys who know guys who know pirates. I make some calls, research the pirate community’s side of the situation.

Then I write an article. I mention that the pirates don’t really think of themselves as pirates, and that they try to be kind to their hostages. They’re just poor young guys in a bad situation trying to make a living.

I was as evenhanded and unbiased as I could be. Just because I happen to be a US citizen, I shouldn’t be biased toward my own country, I strive to be a citizen of the world who just happens to have been born in the US. I tried to respect the pirates’ perspective as much as possible, give them equal dignity as fellow human beings. The story was as objective as I could make it. No favoritism for either side, no opinions, just straight reporting.

So my story goes out, and now I’m getting hate email from right-wing lunatics who call me a “traitor,” and worse, just because I gave equal consideration to the plight of the pirates as I did to the people they inconvenience, and the military people who hunt them down.

So now I’m angry. I’m angry at the stupid, backwoods, cousin-marrying, tooth-missing, gun-toting, SUV-driving neanderthals I’m stuck with as fellow US citizens, who don’t even want to consider the poor pirates’ point of view in these recent events, and just want to slam and threaten honest journalists, who are merely trying to bring enlightenment to their dim, backwards, pathetic lives.

I blame the public schools, frankly. They are not doing enough to teach about the UN, NGOs, and other international forums. They are not training the kids to become citizens of the world first and of the country they were randomly born in second. They are doing a disservice to the world community by over-emphasis on “American” things, Americentrism. It makes me sick. It makes me angry.

I can't make the case against elite journalism and how out of touch it is with reality any better than this post.

Seriously. The "pirates don't think of themselves as pirates?" No? What do they think of themselves as? Hedge fund managers? They take people hostage and threaten their lives in return for money!

"They try to be kind to their hostages." Is that before or after they fire the rocket-propelled grenades at the ship they're trying to take over? Is that before or after they point the AK-47 at the back of some poor sailor's head? Oh? They let them go to the restroom. That's nice. Really considerate of their captives' dignity -- or maybe they just don't want to have to smell the soiled trousers that would result if they didn't let them go to the head.

Notice how this journalist strives so hard to be unbiased that his moral compass ceases to function. What if we weren't talking about pirates and we were talking about rapists? "No favoritism for either side"? Yes, the woman who was violated is no better than the man who raped her. The journalist tries to give the rapist's perspective, without putting a value judgment on what he's done.

This journalist comes to AngryJournalist.com to whine that "right-wing lunatics" are hurting his feelings because he "gave equal consideration to the plight of the pirates" -- as though the pirates are victims! And Capt. Richard Phillips was just "inconvenienced" by being taken hostage by armed men.

And then come the stereotypes. We're not as enlightened as the journalist who can't tell the difference between a perpetrator and a victim -- except of course when the victim is the journalist being inconvenienced by tart e-mails from meanies.

And then comes the absolute best, A-No. 1 endorsement of American public education -- that the schools aren't training kids to be "citizens of the world first."

I'm sure that this individual has a bright future at their newspaper -- and that's what's wrong with journalism.