...at the New York Times.

It's been said many times that the college students who rank at the bottom academically are usually found in the Education departments. It would appear that the Journalism departments are giving the education departments a run for the bottom.

Maybe it's college itself, these days. When you're 18, at a good high school, maybe working after school waiting tables, you've got to know how to take derivatives correctly every time, be able to identify the Crimea on a map, and add and subtract 3 or 4 digit numbers rapidly and accurately in your head (to make change).

All very useful stuff. Keeps you close to reality.

But when you go to college and major in some humanistic but modern thing, like journalism, you're encouraged to "rise above" all that grubby robotic practically manual-labor-skill kind of stuff, and refocus your mind on The Big Picture, big immortal concepts, gauzy philosophical mind-clouds concerning Justice and Peace, the compelling narrative that is truer than mere facts.

With the promise that if you're the best at this kind of post-modernist thinkin' you get a prestigious job at a nationally-known institution (like The New York Times) when you're done.

Promise kept, apparently!