Death of the Journalist - Scroobius Pip

People used to burn pages, show their inner outrages

These days the gage for rage is who gets flamed on comment pages

No claim is too outrageous for these constant news updaters

Lines refined to save time, less complicated to sedate us

We ingest five lines or less stories through our sub-consciousness

As times go by the Internet will kill the printed press

Where’s the scroll bar on these ink drenched pages?

I ain’t turning this

Don’t believe the hype machine, death of the Journalist

Don’t believe the hype machine, death of the Journalist

Good Friday, April 18th, 1930

BBC radio news showed a rare maturity

The news reporter said something that these days they wouldn’t say

‘Good evening, There is no news today'

They didn’t feel the need to fill with leads on non-news stories

All picked apart and ripped painting fake failures or glories

Making mole hills into mountains being exaggeratory

Financial backers in their ears feeding different allegories

So let’s beguile this sickly horse whispered media

Less reliable sources than Wikipedia

Journalism is dead… rest in pieces of trivia

The blogger is king, the gossip column is leading ya

As the blogger becomes the journalist the art form dies

They don’t have the sources anymore they just have Google finds

Referencing other websites as if they’re well sourced scriptures

Focused on getting their hits up not winning Pulitzers

Their journalism is lazy in the need to be first

I do more research than some of them when penning a verse

And you know how you are, we just believe it’s the truth

We just accept it as news instead of asking for proof

But in a way the Internet makes journalism redundant

Freedom of information despite the attempts of some governments

Man tweets while WikiLeaks, spilling the truth of the troublesome

But truths become perspectives as soon as man discovers ‘em

And it ain’t just the news reporters it’s the muso’s too

If you got a music blog, then son, I’m probably talking to you

Don’t skim intros, listen to each track through

And maybe running a spell check before you post a review

They drop a million band names to get the Google hits

Remember, «You heard it here first» and it was in bold italics

Throw enough shit at the wall and some of it will stick

But make no mistake, you’re walls still covered in shit

There’s obtrusive new remits on the promotion slog

We need exclusive new remixes to service the blogs

And half of these online networks are flattery operated

Hand feed them but let them think it was internally propagated

Your lines are recycled, you have no identity

Your words ain’t gifted when they’re lifted from my fucking press release

Your opinions next to nothing and that’s all you’ll amount to

You’re so vain you probably DON’T know this song is about you

The problem here is I have a new album to sell

And I’ve probably burnt some bridges in the web wide world

Can I rebuild them;

it’s too far a distance to tell

And I ain’t Isambard Kingdom Brunel