Stuff Journalists Like

Thanks to another Citizen writer for passing this on.

A few samples:

On using jargon:
Since journalists are increasingly covering a little bit of everything, they can usually hold a casual cocktail party conversation on almost any topic for about 10 minutes. Go past 10 minutes, though, and they'll most likely try to change the subject.

On drinking:
Nothing takes the edge off after a day of reporting on the scene of drug bust, shifting through six years of financial papers at city hall and stressing over deadlines like a nice shot of low-shelf whiskey or a pint. Interns and journalists just out of school have all heard the stories of the days when journalists kept flasks in their back pockets and handles of Jim Bean in their filing cabinets. But today, newspapers and their corporate owners shun such habits. But go to any veteran journalist and he'll show you were he keeps his bourbon. And if journalists don’t like to drink because of having to interview a widow who just lost her husband in Iraq, then there is always job security. As one journalist after another exits the newsroom with their severance check in hand, journalists flee to their safe haven – dive bars.

And finally...on dating other journos:
Journalists like dating each other because only fellow journalists understand the phrase: “Not tonight dear, I’m on deadline.”
Attempts to date people outside of the newsroom who cannot name gubernatorial candidates, have a limited vocabulary and who don’t know who Hunter S. Thompson is will only lead to a return to dating journalists.

Good stuff.