They call it "drive-by editing." To the naked ear it sounds like the tiresome whingeing of journalists upset about the way their stories have been mistreated. But in their more irreverent moments reporters at the Washington Post like to compare it to its gangland equivalent: a rare act of gratuitous callousness which claims unsuspecting victims just trying to go about their daily business.

They are tired of the old cliche formulas, tired of racial frictions, tired of hired guns who engage in drive-by editing, tired of the fascination with, tired of the fascination with shorter-is-better, tired of producing pale imitations of what readers have already seen on television.