ABSTRACT

The moniker “ink-stained wretch” dates from the era when news scribes were first and foremost printers. Yet even today it remains in the U.S. vernacular as a mildly affectionate term of derision directed at journalists. And even among journalists themselves, as they hunker over computer terminals in newsrooms that look indistinguishable from insurance offices, the term can evoke nostalgia for a noisier and presumably more colorful era (Hamill 1998).