Samuel J. “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher is a sitcom waiting to happen since being dispatched to Israel by the website pjtv.com for in-depth reporting on Israel vs. Hamas. Here's my vision of how prime time’s “Journalist Joe” might progress.

Israeli military officer briefing Joe: “Our troops are in the Gaza Strip.”
Joe (perplexed): “Gaza Strip? Is that an Arab girlie club?

Laugh track.

That would coincide with prime time’s generally banal view of journalists.

However flawed, a muscular press is essential for democracy, its free flow of information and ideas shaping what we think about ourselves and others. Can the platitudes, though. As if they matter to entertainment TV’s merry moguls, who rarely get journalists right, most notably we who slog away in print.

Exceptions: Credit the old...