Crime reporter makes good. →[More:]We were discussing how obnoxious the media can be 'round these parts a few days ago. So this seemed like mentioning, from a recipient of one of the Polk Awards. (Which are "kind of like the Golden Globes of American journalism. Not as well known as those Oscars of the news business, the Pulitzer Prize, the Polk Awards are nevertheless probably a close second in terms of prestige"):

"I don't think anything prepares you for Iraq," says Fadel, who visited Lebanon every summer as a child, and recalls her father pointing to bombed-out buildings and describing what they had once been. "I have the same goals, though, as with police reporting: to humanize the victims."

At their best, that's what crime reporters are supposed to do.

Of course, just like rock musicians and rappers, at their best they're supposed to be awesome, but lots of them are crappy anyway.