PressEthic

Seattle Weekly's Brian Miller found the salvation of our profession: Journalists are hot.

Miller's trying being cute of course, and there's no denying that Micah Garen and Marie-Hélène Carleton are an attractive couple. The crack about his co-workers "wailing" about shrinking circulation and newsroom staffs was pretty good. Actually, I was laughing right along with Miller until the end.

Having a great jacket photo is often the key to getting a book reviewed. Obviously, we're glad that Garen and Carleton's story didn't conclude like that of Daniel Pearl. But it sure didn't hurt with their publisher that their happy ending had two great faces to sell it.

Daniel Pearl? This Daniel Pearl? Quite a horrific tale to be tossed into a column on aesthetically pleasing journalists.

Joking about pretty journalists and their pretty book jackets is fine, but perhaps Miller should have considered the book Daniel Pearl's wife wrote - because he couldn't - and her reading her dead husband's name in a punchline.

Unethical, unprofessional - it's both these things. But the word I'd use first is indecent.