In the course of human events, there occasionally comes a time when suckitude is so ubiquitous that one must invent a unit to quantify it. With respect to the traditional media (newspapers, broadcast news, radio, and cable), that time is now. The media climate has become so constant in its Fail, and hostile to the slightest hint of journalistic value, that it behooves us to begin measuring the phenomenon as we would volcanic gases, solar flare activity, locust breeding, or other potentially damaging non-human processes. To facilitate this measure, I propose a unit of news coverage Fail - the "bastard" (bd) - and describe its scaling and conversion factors below the fold.
Note: This unit only applies to professional journalism, as we can reasonably demand that people who get paid for their output actually have some language and critical thinking skills. Bloggers, however, can legitimately get away with "noble savagery" - honest and intelligent, but technically and stylistically lazy.
Unit definition
One bastard (1 bd) corresponds to the marginal level of incompetence and/or negligence displayed by 1 spelling, syntax, or grammatical error in a published piece. As most news articles or TV news segments are relatively short, and often involve verbatim copying of wire service reports, this is not as forgivable as it sounds.
All outlets and journalists, including relatively impeccable ones, have a nonzero bastard count, but I strongly suspect the count rises sharply as one moves from credible media into more prolific sources.
Basic errors
1 bd = 1 spelling, syntax, or grammatical error
10 bd = 1 apparently innocent, non-typo minor fact error (corrected)
100 bd = 1 apparently innocent, non-typo major fact error (corrected)
Unprofessional
1000 bd (1 kilobastard [kbd]) = Failure to correct minor fact error.
10,000 bd (10 kbd) = Failure to correct major fact error.
100 kbd = False equivalency.
1000 kbd (1 megabastard [Mbd]) = Uncritical regurgitation.
10 Mbd = Reliance on non-credible sources.
Malignant
100 Mbd = Manufacturing controversy.
1000 Mbd (1 gigabastard [Gbd]) = Burying stories for political reasons.
10 Gbd = Lie or omission, minor fact.
100 Gbd = Lie or omission, major fact.
1000 Gbd (1 terabastard [Tbd]) = Fabricating most or all of a story.
10 Tbd = Retention of reporter caught fabricating.
100 Tbd = Media source exists to fabricate.
Farcical
1000 Tbd (1 petabastard [1 Pbd]) = Lie no one could possibly believe.
10 Pbd = Entire story no one could believe.
100 Pbd = Entire source no one could believe.
Perfect Insanity
1000 Pbd (1 exabastard [1 Ebd]) =
Most or all statements by most or all reporters in a publication are lies not only completely unbelievable and non-credible, but so extreme, so preposterous, and so emotionally delivered as to be a reliable source of hilarity to normal human beings. Example of a 1 Ebd "reporter": Glenn Beck.
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I would also include a couple of "non-standard" units of journalistic Fail calibrated to a few idiosyncrasies:
Good-for-John-McCain (GJM) = interpreting a neutral or positive event as negative, or a negative as positive or neutral out of political bias.
1 GJM = 276.13 kbd.
Ubiquitous Boehner Syndrome (UBS) = Overwhelmingly filling interview slots with members of one party substantially beyond their proportions in office, among the electorate, or among the source's regional population. For print publications, it would be an equivalent fixation on the statements of that party's leaders.
1 UBS = 72.89 Mbd