"Hey! What's that thing over there?"

This photo has a pro-independence feeling to it, but (with a little stretching and squint-eyed head cocking) I can make the case that it represents journalism.

In general, we are all aimed in the same direction, mostly concerned with what’s in front of us. It’s a reporter’s job to look around, go collect the news, and come back to tell the other geese that “The noise was a frog,” to which the other geese respond “Thanks, I didn’t want to go over there and look myself. Also, my friend said it was a toad, so you are stupid.”

Sometimes it’s the goose reporter’s job to look around at the faces of his fellow geese, find one that’s excited, then go and get that goose's story. Sometimes that story is filled with goose crap, or it bores the goose reporter to death.

However, it is the goose reporter’s job to sift out the truth, and tell the story in an interesting way that implies the stupid goose dance class or whatever is interesting and not, you know, mind numbing.

Sometimes it’s the goose reporter’s job to come back and tell everyone “Hey, that thing over there has teeth! IT HAS TEETH! WEAREALLGOINGTODIEOHMYGODWEAREALLGOINGTODIE!”

The thing with teeth is usually a dead rat, but that doesn't stop the goose reporter from getting his kicks.

Real dangers, like hunters or venomous beavers, are met with slack-billed ignorance and/or total acceptance.