This crock of shite by CNET blogger Steve Tobak must take the award for 2007's most self-righteous, sanctimonious bollocks. Read on:

I don't know how many times I've read a post or an article by some small-minded, self-important journalist advising a public company's board of directors on how to "fix" the company. The most common advice is "sell the company," "fire the CEO," or better still, "fire all the executives."

Even if a company is screwing up, how is a journalist - whose entire management experience consists of looking at his watch to be sure he files a story by 3 pm - qualified to delve out management advice? Is mastery of a keyboard sufficient experience to know how to run a company?

Do these poor excuses for reporters have any idea how a company works? For example, does it really benefit shareholders to sell a troubled company when its stock is at its lowest and has no bargaining power? Did the reporter take a few months to analyze the company's situation and determine that an acquisition makes sense or is even plausible?

Sure, lots of executives are incompetent or dysfunctional. But is a journalist qualified to make that determination? In what universe does it make sense for somebody who writes about a company once or twice a year to make a critical determination that a CEO with 30-years experience should be fired?

Tobak continues: "On the other hand, I'm aware that this cuts both ways. I'm an ex-industry executive writing a blog. What qualifies me to be a writer? I didn't study journalism or literature. Journalists probably laugh at my crude grammar and composition, scoff at the way I structure my posts."

That'd be the least of it, mate. Tobak defends: "Well, the difference is that I don't presume to tell anyone how to write."

Oh do piss off. This hack didn't study journalism either, although I have been known to read a few books. That aside, the problem is this: wtf is this self-confessed amateur bloggery doing passing itself off as journalism?

This is Web 2.0 in all its glory - everyone an expert, everyone indignant, every two-bit hustler a pundit ready to expound and proselytize.

Oh yeah, and let's cut this one short: I'm the bloke who writes about Paris Hilton and people having sex with hedgehogs, so feel free to question my credentials - but not here.

That's right - we've disabled comments on this story because, contrary to popular belief, the internet is not, at El Reg at least, a platform via which the unwashed masses can vent their half-baked frustrations.

Back in Tobakville, meanwhile, our master analyst concludes: "Every time I read this kind of narcissistic journalism it makes me cringe like nails on a chalkboard. It's like Brittney [sic] Spears giving advice on parenting or O.J. Simpson teaching anger management. It's like Bernie Ebbers, Dennis Kozlowski, and Jeff Skilling teaching a class on business ethics."

Yeah, that's like, so like... ®

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