Bad math: 3 grads better than 1 veteran journalist

Here's a tit-for-tat on Twitter that put a smile on my face:

The exchange, as best I could tell, came about because @loisbeckett, a freelance writer on the West Coast, had blogged about newsrooms being understaffed and tweeted her findings. The perky @JessicaKRoy, it seems, had her own theory on the reason for the staffing woes: "older" reporters who command the salary equivalent of three recent college graduates.

The math is nearly on the mark (my back-of-the-envelope calculation was 2.5 new grads for one reporter with 10 years' experience), so I can't quibble with her about that. But I sure would disagree with the insinuation that three recent college grads could offer sufficient quality or quantity to equal one newsroom veteran -- even if the three did excel at social media.

Which is why I loved, loved, loved the @loisbeckett comeback tweet.

Someone has to defend the honor of us "older" journalists.