With the year coming to a close, it is time to haul the news from the media to the curb, but we first need to dig through the pile and sort the refuse. We need to separate the worst from getting into the recycling bins, because the last thing we need to see is some of this behavior circulating once again. So, in the futile effort of improving the journalism landscape, we need to highlight the lowlights of 2025.
Here at “Riffed From the Headlines,” it has been another year of compiling the worst and misbegotten in the media landscape. We began the year with the hope that improvements would be experienced. Our hopes were, not surprisingly, dashed. Thus, we are left with the task of delivering notice of the worst from the journalism industry, and for that, we have developed The Heckler Awards.
This will be a four-part series in which we will (dis)honor the events reported in the press this year, based on the evidence compiled in our daily column. We begin with technical awards, and that will then give way to specific honors in the various categories we use to organize the lapses in journalism ethics. Part One will honor industry-wide activity, while Part Two will recognize achievements by individuals and specific outlets, and then Parts Three and Four will entail the category “winners.”
Now, with that pageantry aside, let us delve into the recognition and begin handing out the recognition of the news industry foibles for 2025, in this, the first round of The Hecklers!
Hellbound and Down 