This Just In

So I'm the car last Thursday, listening to Channel 6's coverage of Jim McGreevey's resignation. I hear a reporter -- Cathy Gandolfo or Nora Muchanic, I think -- mention that there have been rumors of the governor's switch-hitting for a while now, but that Action News tries not to report rumors.

And I hear anchor Jim Gardner, his immaculately trimmed mustache bristling, cut off the reporter and say with barely contained righteous fury, "Not only do we try not to report rumors, we don't report them."

Had I been drinking something at the time, I would have executed a world-class spit-take onto the interior of my windshield.

Only among the good folks in WPVI's marketing department is Gardner considered some sort of scrupulous, ethically upstanding paragon of journalistic integrity. How many times in his career do you think he's begun a sentence "Sources tell Action News ... "? In fact, the missus reported that not long after Gardner's snippy correction, he passed along an unconfirmed report about a potential sexual-harassment lawsuit against McGreevey. That the report was later confirmed doesn't change its status as, yes, a rumor at the time Gardner delivered it.

Broadcast journalism traffics in rumor-mongering. Without it, those pretty men and women on camera might have to attempt something they're professionally incapable of doing -- actual reporting.