One day you’re listening to media pundits exchange pointed pleasantries, the next thing you know there’s Michael Woolf saying Jonathan Alter killed journalism and calling him “a condescending prick.” This after an email spat (leaked to Gawker) in which the Newsweek scribe said the Newser hound had a “barren and ugly mind” which was why no one read his site.

Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! this is the war room!

Whatever you think of Alter who is also one of the usual suspects on MSNBC (which was one of Wolff’s points) or Wolff  (who shoots from the hip but is sometimes on target) it’s depressing that two people who went to better schools than me are reduced to such mud-slinging. Rappers, at least, have the common decency to shoot at each other. The biggest insult Wolff could muster was comparing Alter (who has a new book on Obama) to Theodore “Teddy” White. If you prick them do they not bleed?

The real context here is this thing called journalism and who is responsible for its ailing health. MW is trying to make the rather over-simplified case that talking heads like Alter (who, to his credit, seems far less windy to me than some of Keith Olbermann’s other regular guests) brought down the beast. While I suspect behind Alter’s snide-as-a-sixteen-year-old sign off — “You, Michael Wolff, will be the savior of journalism, redefining the form for the new age. Good luck with that” — is a belief that people like Wolff who profit off of other’s content are the real cancer on the news.

The question is, though, would you pay to see them go at it? Cage Fighting journalists — synergy at last for the WEC and C-Span!