Sunday, January 6, 2019

Happy 2019, You Loser Journalists Still Fighting "Good" Fight

I thought we were past this.

It's 2019.  The "scam" - which is totally apocryphal with no basis in reality- definitively existed from the legal profession's fashionably delayed recognition of a recession in 2009 to around Esquire Larry Mitchell's resignation in the spring of 2014.  Since then, we've had a rebound of applicants, slow acceptance of Michael Simkovic's ground-breaking research as unassailable truth, and law deans singin' and dancin' like R. Kelly.

Yet, when I scroll the ho-hum news of legal gallantry - nothing makes a morning like a scroll of Above the Law on the toilet with a White Russian in hand and a rail of coke near the sink - I still see incomprehensible, retrogressive piffle like this.
Boston law schools are fighting to climb their way out of an enrollment and employment crisis despite a “Trump bump” of activist legal eagles that some say is modestly boosting application rates.

“Graduating law school is no longer the ticket to a very comfortable upper-middle-class living,” said civil liberties and constitutional law crusader Harvey Silverglate. He said there is an “oversupply” of lawyers in the state, making it difficult for graduates to find a job.

“You can’t blame people for not going to law school when they can go out directly from college and get a fairly well-paying job,” said Silverglate, “The value of the degree has gone down, but the price of attending law school has gone up.”
Harvey Silverglate?  C'mon, journos.  You can't use rejected Willy Wonka villains for sources.

It's truly curious that law schools and legal journalists would see (encourage!) a "Trump bump" - that our President is so respectful of our legal system and the benefits/protections it can confer on good people that it makes people want to study law - as many of the problems of journalism appear in criticism of the President as appear in skeptical articles about law school.

For example, look at the amount of "fake news" in this one mule-headed article.  Here's the fourth paragraph:
According to data from the American Bar Association, enrollment rates at top Boston law schools have plummeted since 2012 — with Suffolk University seeing a 29 percent reduction; Boston College, nearly 14 percent; and Northeastern University at 7 percent.
Boston College, Northeastern, and Suffolk are not "top" law schools.  They're middle-of-the-road, versatile law schools, representative of the firm greatness of legal education from across the country.  How's enrollment rates at Harvard, hmmmm?  And here's more with the ender:
“Bar pass rates are often a lagging indicator of what law schools are doing and what kind of students they are bringing in,” Perlman said.
My hairy beanbag is a lagging indicator.  Bar pass rates are a sign that Millennial students are spending too much time on their xPhones and iBoxes, nothing more, nothing less.

Journalism can be better than this.  In the dawn of this New Year, let's resolve to make it so.  No more negativity.  Only intelligent positivity.  And in-depth content.  And sales, as appropriate, of course.

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