SpongeBob SquarePants is actually an educational show.

I had a test to be studying for, so I was watching TV. Since I am in my second decade of life I watch really high-end, intellectual shows like SpongeBob SquarePants. This really great episode was on, called The Krabby Kronicle. It basically summed up everything I learned in my semester long Principles of American Journalism class (comparable to my History of American Journalism class) in an 11 minute, 49 second entertaining cartoon.

Mr. Krabs bought an ad in a newspaper to try to bring in more customers, but he soon realizes that the paper he's advertising in isn't selling because "it's all full of boring charts and facts." But the other newspaper, with headlines like 'Fishboy Strikes Again' is selling like crazy. Mr. Krabs asks, "aren't these stories a little less than truthful?" and the answer from the guy reading it is, "I don't know, but they're selling!" This whole scene reflects the fact that sensationalized tabloids, while unethical, are where the money is at.

And where the money is at is all Mr. Krabs cares about, so he creates his own newspaper and hires SpongeBob as the reporter and proceeds to ruin reputations (apparently Bikini Bottom does not have libel and slander laws).

Mr. Krabs hires SpongeBob as the one and only reporter for this entire newspaper, along with his duties as a fry cook. Typical over-worked reporter, nothing new there. SpongeBob's first story is about his best friend watching a pole, and while it's truthful it's totally conflict of interest. Everyone knows you can't interview your friends for stories. I learned that before I even came to college.

SpongeBob gets in trouble for this story (not for the conflict of interest thing, but because it's boring) and Mr. Krabs tells him, "when you write these stories, you've gotta use a little imagination." Mr. Krabs also suggests SpongeBob can alter to the photos. Worst idea ever. Kudos to SpongeBob for recognizing the terrible wrongness in all this as he asks, "isn't that lying?" Mr. Krabs tells him to think of it more as a practical joke, and SpongeBob just believes him. Clearly SpongeBob is a terrible journalist because he is not skeptical at all.

The reputation ruining begins as SpongeBob takes Mr. Krabs advice and takes everything out of context. This newspaper was not set up for transparency (another journalism fail) because one of the characters says, "these lies someone wrote about me," indicating there is no byline on these stories.

SpongeBob tries to put a stop to it, but Mr. Krabs, the true business man, says, "We're not hurting anyone. We're just making their lives interesting, for everybody else." What really makes this funny is how easily everyone just believes the things written in this paper, even though most of the characters are close friends and should probably know better.

The episode comes to an end when SpongeBob has had enough and writes a story exposing Mr. Krabs (muckraking, and it's actually true and totally ethical!) The people (sea creatures?) rally against Mr. Krabs and take all his money and he learns his lesson: "Trying to make an easy buck doesn't pay." He proceeds to use his printing press to print out more money, but that's a whole different set of broken laws right there.

I think instead of sitting in my boring class for a full semester, we should have just watched this SpongeBob episode and we would know everything about journalism and ethical reporting!