It's a particular problem with national security journalism, where the vast bulk of writing is left to stenographers of the bloated intelligence and military apparatus.
Today reporters who play stenographers of the news are being replaced by writers who analyze the news, he argues.
That is why the professional journalistic organizations caution against the reflexive and casual identification by race of suspects and warn the media against being mere stenographers of police bulletins.
But that's not to say everyone turns to stenographers out of desperation.
The panel discussion, led by WNYC's Andrea Bernstein, was also a really interesting discussion with Atiba Edwards of Fokus and Visual Stenographers, Faye Penn of Brokelyn, Heather Johnston of sogood.tv, Petra Symister of Bed-Stuy Blog and Jake Dobkin of Gothamist.
"For the sake of the air we breathe, the water we drink and the planet we will leave our children, the head of the EPA cannot be a stenographer for the lobbyists of polluters and Big Oil," said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco.
With light-brown hair and glasses and a neat bargain-basement suit, she's as prim and unthreatening as the wholesome stenographer heroines of the 1920's.
"How many good potential servants have become poor stenographers because of the odium of the name 'Bridget'?" she asked rhetorically.
