Warning: blog post ahead!

A blogger at The Economist's Johnson blog -- R.L.G. are his initials -- quotes Tom Scott on the need for warning labels in journalism:

"The media carefully warn about and label any content that involves sex, violence or strong language — but there's no similar labeling system for, say, sloppy journalism and other questionable content." He supplies some rather useful cautionary flags, like "Warning: to ensure future interviews with the subject, important questions were not asked."

R.L.G. then tries his hand:

WARNING: The journalist writing this article, though adept with language, does not know nearly as much as he thinks he does about language, and does not know that he does not know this. He will pass on and over-interpret, with no critical faculties brought to bear whatsoever, the findings simplified in a press release about some recent linguistic research, simply because the press release has a university's name at the top. For best results, skip the article and the press release and go to the original research.

And then a warning on blog posts:

WARNING:  Written in minutes and fact-checked in seconds via Google. May contain unsafe levels of self-righteousness. Past cleverness is no guarantee of future results.

I would add: stolen shamelessly from someone else.