If it were up to me, I would introduce legislation that would require all journalists to be licensed. And a requirement of that licensing process would include at least two years of collegiate study and at least one year of full-time work as a reporter. Further, I would ask that the law require all prospective journalists to provide letters of reference from no fewer than three editors who would vouch for said reporter’s judgment and skill.
That’s not going to happen. Not in an era that sees businesses flocking to the most widely viewed media with story pitches. Not in a time when news organizations (ironically) are the first to lose sight of how important story telling and rich, informative articles are to an informed public. And certainly not in a time when some of the smartest people I know can’t make a distinction between the practice of journalism and the classification of journalist.
Maybe the solution is a simple realignment of naming conventions. We can change ‘journalist’ into ‘media delivery person’ and leave the process of journalism alone. Because in my understanding – developed from 20+ years in the news industry and advanced study in communications and journalism – the process of journalism requires that you have an editor assigning, critiquing and hopefully refining your reporting so that it delivers the most unbiased and informative information to a publication’s readership.
The media delivery people of today – journalists, bloggers, videographers, pundits and even PR flacks – are increasingly creating content for consumers without that layer of refinement. I’ve included journalists here too because newsrooms are being decimated by budget cuts and a lot more content is flying onto newsprint and into the ether without editors touching a red pen to it.
You might ask if we need editors. Can’t people decide what content is good or bad by themselves? Wouldn’t things be much better if there was a shakeout and more competition in the news industry? Maybe both are true.
Perhaps we’d be better off without the reporters who broke the story about the major auto manufacturers flying private jets to Washington. Oh, you read that on a blog. Yeah, you read it there because it was reported first by the D.C. press.
First to the public doesn’t indicate who did the hard work behind the scenes.
Maybe we’d be better off without knowing that Illinois government is for sale. Oh, that was a Federal investigation? Yes it was, but the story was shared by trained journalists who had the respect and the skill to follow that story down and then share it with the world.
Well, if the papers weren’t around, there would be bloggers and new media folks to fill the void. Maybe so. But the reality is that on election night, the majority of the country got its news from four outlets and then re-reported the news of the election. When the major outlets are dead, is Billy the blogger going to have the resources and the reach to inform the entire country about election results?
A friend recently shared with me an article written by Boston University journalism professor Chris Daly. This article – Are Bloggers Journalists? – made me consider my stance and refine my argument re: blogging isn’t journalism.
After taking us from 1760 to present-day America, Daly’s penultamate point is:
Nowadays, when we ask whether someone is a journalist, we may need to refine the question. We should ask: Is this the kind of journalist who presents analysis, commentary, or political rants? Or, is this the kind of journalist who offers the fruits of reporting? Or some of both? The issue is not the job title but the activity.
I agree, sort of. On more than one occasion I’ve been confused by my social-media brethren (including Steve Garfield, Christopher Penn and even Ari Herzog) as to what they feel constitutes journalism. My feeling was that journalism came from a reporter who submitted work to an editor at a newsroom – physical or virtual – and from that came content for a reading/viewing/consuming public.
The stance I received from these, and other people, was that content creators of all kinds should get the same treatment, benefits and access as ‘traditional’ media. And in fact, that in most cases there shouldn’t be a line drawn between the two. That’s the crux of my frustration.
How can anyone, and these people are very smart, assign the title of journalist to someone with access to a piece of technology?
If I hand my iPhone to my nephew and he figures out how to send video to iReport, is he a journalist?
If my cat wanders across my keyboard and creates a blog entry by pure happenstance, is she a journalist?
The trap people sometimes fall into is being too inclusionary and accepting of everyone. Like the paintings made with excrement a few decades back, there are certainly differing opinions as to what constitutes art. The same can be said of what makes an attractive house or a pleasant sound.
The interpretation is less acceptable when evaluating plumbing, driving, reporting and a host of other practices. If you don’t seal the gas main, you’ve done a bad job of plumbing. If you break traffic laws, you’ve done a bad job of driving. If you don’t present a balanced report of events from which an audience can make an informed opinion, you’ve done a poor job of reporting.
Sure, I’m open to the edges of journalism including opinion pieces, commentary, features and even some longer creative non-fiction approaches. But the vetting of an editor, the training of a J-School (or similar field experience) and an understanding of libel, slander and ethics should all be part of a journalist’s background.
Until that occurs, bloggers don’t get my nod as journalists.
I welcome your comments.
Keep reading!
I’ve freelanced for print newspapers and group blogs, where the content was vetted by editors and/or verbiage changed by someone other than me.
I understand libel, slander, and ethics from the perspective of working experience and/or assorted classwork in programs such as law and logic, but other than journalism.
In recent months, I’ve written stories on my blog that involved telephone research with marketing directors and public affairs officers. Is my content any different than yours merely because I never attended J-school? Hardly.
Cats aside, if your nephew knows how to take a picture with your iPhone and captures an image worthy of uploading to Flickr and sharing with the world, who are you to say he’s not a photojournalist? Who is anyone to say?
I think it becomes semantics and a naming game. I don’t say that you’re not a REPORTER but I do say you’re not a journalist if your reports aren’t routed through an editorial body.
That’s not to say that my cat or nephew couldn’t create content that’s worthy of eyeballs, comments, clicks and newsprint. And therefore they could be reporters.
It is to say that until they have a news organization supporting them and protecting readers from wanton bias, they are not journalists.
Completely agree with you Jeff.
The two mediums (while they can offer similar news) are different in one key respect (at least IMHO): journalists report facts, blogger offer personal opinions on these facts.
While they can both enhance each other’s industry, I think it’s important to keep the two separate for the reason I mentioned.
On another of your points, I’d hate to see the day when editors are no longer needed – a solid editor makes a good story great. A great editor and a great journalist can create history – let’s keep this happening.
Well let me see. I worked at a newspaper for three years and for a global PR firm for four, then in corporate communications for a large company and former client for another year. I’ve been blogging for three years now.
I advocate bloggers – business bloggers, bloggers who don’t have specialty blogs (knitting blogs, photo blogs, etc.) follow journalistic standards.
The news media picked up on the Motrin Moms situation after bloggers started writing about it. A Vancouver weekly just picked up on a blog post about use of social media by the two candidates for mayor in the recent municipal election. I know I should have a third example for you, but I’m hoping you get my point.
There are a lot of bloggers and a lot of journalists out there. Some writers desperately need editors – personally I’ve never understood why some of those who need them most continue to be employed by newspapers. Both John Irving (Son of the Circus) and Stephen King (The Stand, I think) wrote books with no editing clauses in their contracts and they were the worst books either one of them either published. I don’t think either one of them managed to get that clause into another contract (and thank Dog for that).
And – um – this is a blog, isn’t it?
It’s also interesting to me that you use the term journalists rather than media. Are you including broadcast journalists in your definition of journalists? All those hard hitting news anchors on Fox who read from a teleprompter?
Take a look at my most recent blog post, where I clap for GOP Twitter users and criticize CNN for their layout of online content.
Note in the comments that someone corrected me on omitting information, to which I went back to the content and added strike-through marks.
I argue my readers (and commenters, if applicable) are my editorial body.
the readers are the editors digg is exemplary
Hi, Jeff.
Is journalism always a collaborative act? Or can you be a journalist if you wear multiple hats (as in a small town newspaper) and are publisher, assignment editor, reporter, photographer, fact checker, copy editor, layout, et al?
Publishers have style guides that define the news’ writerly voice. Need your writing conform to AP/NYT style to be considered journalism work product? Can non-newspapers like Rolling Stone or the New Yorker produce journalism?
Would you consider someone a journalist who adhered to codes of the profession, demonstrated skills of a journalist, turned out quality work, yet had never enrolled in a j-school or worked in a large newsroom? I’m thinking of all the great reporters who came before journalism programs and those learned on their own. I think you can read for the law exam without attending law school; why is attending a university program the only way to become a journalist?
People with blogger credentials and niche expertise have been covering major events like presidential conventions, congressional hearings, and local civil events for years. Don’t the news stories they break count as acts of journalism even without a corporate newsroom hierarchy to vet the account?
You’re familiar with news organizations that perpetuate wanton bias and truthiness. Others that recycle press releases. Do you hold that any news organization confers ‘journalism’ on reporters just by going through the motions?
Why is the role of an assignment editor mandatory in this 24-hour news cycle era?
I’m of the opinion that journalism is a verb, it’s what you do. You may commit acts of journalism well or poorly, full time or occasionally, alone or with others, in formal or conversational voices, in any medium.
Education helps you perform those acts better. Affiliation and collaboration offer some advantages over free agency and solitary effort. I don’t see any one formalism as required for journalism to exist or prosper or for people to enter the profession.
@ Ari. Interesting point, though with one key difference – your edits were made after publication. A journalist’s edits are made prior to publication – hence the reason journalism is still the more professional medium at the moment.
And I say this as someone who is extremely vocal in blogging becoming a more influential part of news and media reporting.
I’m a journalist who job @ The Orange County Register these days is primarily blogging about real estate. What’s that make me?
If “bloggers” mean non-traditionally trained content creators and “journalists” are those who are traditionally trained … all I can say is that there are good and bad bloggers and there are good and bad journalists.
And the competition between the two forces is good for any discerning member of the audience.
“Bloggers” will have to keep quality higher, and be a bit more reserved. “Journalists” must react quicker, take more chances.
In the end, the audience will eventually decide what kind/level of training — along with other factors such as independence and editing — they require for their critical news consumption.
Hi Jeff,
I have a song in my head now, sung to the tune of “Felix the Cat,” “Reporter the Cat, what a wonderful wonderful cat!”
Ha!
You write, “If you don’t present a balanced report of events from which an audience can make an informed opinion, you’ve done a poor job of reporting.”
Sorry Jeff. This is wrong.
You can present a biased report from an event and do a good job of reporting.
All reporting is biased.
When I go out to an event, turn my camera on, and share the results online, that’s reporting.
When 100′s of people join me and do the same, that’s reporting to.
It’s eye witness acounts without hte filter of media.
It’s then up to the viewer to take in all those reports, or just a few selected reports from trusted sources, to make an opinion.
The idea that reports have to be balanced is flawed.
Rocketboom and MobLogic do not follow that rule and do a fine job of reporting.
http://rocketboom.com
http://moblogic.com
–Steve
Oops.
Make that
http://moblogic.tv
Wow. Where did you people come from? I take a nap and suddenly have 11 comments. OK, here goes…
Phil – the very act of putting on those different hats means that your work goes through the steps of proper journalism. And I agree that if you learned on the job, you’re still qualified.
To all – there are certainly good bloggers and bad journalists, but a major difference is the editing process and when it occurs – if ever.
Jon – Exactly. The audience will (and already is starting to) decide about the vehicles that carry their information. And journalists are going to have to learn a whole new set of tools if they want to compete.
Steve – I mistyped when I wrote ‘reporting’ in that last paragraph. It should read ‘journalism’. Many things qualify as reporting but few and very specific things qualify as journalism. And balance is an ideal. My preference would at least be that any agenda be clear. Therefore a blogger who loves Mac products and submits tons of ‘news’ on the Macintosh is doing readers a disservice if he doesn’t reveal this bias. Not all bloggers understand this. Most journalists are trained to understand this, and the editing layer often either makes this bias clear or adjusts the story slant so the bias doesn’t affect the reporting.
Ruth – The majority of people misunderstand the role of the editor in the journalism process. He’s not there to serve the bad writer or reporter, he’s in place to serve the audience and provide them with the best information based on the story that lands on his desk. Going forward, I see more libel and slander suits against bloggers being successful and protections of these new-media practicioners being scrutinized.
Ultimately, the skilled reporter will move toward the realm of being a skilled journalist. This includes bloggers, videographers, nephews and cats.
Jeff:
I’m assuming you wrote this blog post without passing it through an editorial filter, so what role did you play when writing it? You’re a journalist by trade, but what you’re saying is without an editor holding your hand, you have not written a legitimate post. I don’t buy that.
I’m a journalist, period. If I work for someone and it goes through an editorial filter I’m a journalist. If I pick up the phone or write an email and get a comment and I write in my own blog without editorial filter, I’m still a journalist.
If I write an opinion as I often do in my blogs, I’m still a journalist. I’m thinking. I’m analyzing. I’m making connections. I’m writing. I’m a journalist.
I don’t need an editor to legitimize me in my eyes or that of my audience. The beauty of these tools is that they put the means of publishing in your hands. They don’t put you at the mercy of a corporation to publish your work. They give you the power to do it directly. I see this as a good thing.
I see a role for vetted content, but I do not see it as the only legitimate content, not by a long shot and I’m surprised by your narrow definition.
Ron Miller
By Ron Miller Blog
http://byronmiller.typepad.com
Thanks Ron. You were more clear than I was in my rant. A wider, and more accurate definition of journalist, should be training – and I made that point.
Clearly, your training allows you to put out journalism regardless of media.
The terminology makes it difficult to keep some of the points clear because a blogger can be a journalist. A blogger can produce content that is journalism. A journalist can produce content that is NOT journalism. A journalist is trained to provide journalism. A blogger is not, unless she has been.
See the conundrum?
I do see it, but remember that there are lots of mistakes from so-called legitimate publishing outlets too. Let’s not forget the NYT and and Valerie Plame or just about any publication in the build up the Iraq war. Newspapers printed blatant mis-information without doing their jobs as trained journalists to be sure what they were publishing was accurate and true.
I don’t think it’s as simple as you make it nor do I necessarily believe you have to be trained. I wrote an article last year on community journalism and one of my sources asked me this. If you want to know about the seventh grade science program are you going to ask your paper’s education reporter or are you going to ask parents?
Sometimes untrained people can supply this information but I get what you’re saying. I wrote another piece after the Steve Jobs heart attack rumor a couple of months ago about how citizen journalists (and others) who want to be involved have to learn there are basic rules like checking facts before publishing. (http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3298.html).
I realize it’s no simple matter but I don’t necessarily see it in as limited a fashion as you seem to.
Jeff – my role, during the three years I worked for a newspaper, was as a proofreader, working closely with the copy editors and the other editors to ensure the information was accurate. I totally understand the ‘gatekeeper’ role, as I once caught an error of fact that would have been humiliating if published (getting the ownership of the paper you write for is a bit of a faux pas for a business journalist).
The immediacy and the transparency of the corrections made by bloggers by using strikeover mode or by adding updates and edits to the original is far more stringent than the corrections published four days later, below the broadsheet fold, when journalists get the company – or the CEO of the company’s – name wrong. You should have realized, when I told you I had four years’ PR experience, that I’ve dealt with a LOT of media, at the local, regional, national and international level.
And you didn’t answer my question re those who read from teleprompters.
Ron,
It’s definitely not as simple as I make it out. But I’m glad to have started a discussion. Will check out your piece on the Steve Jobs faux heart attack. Thanks!
Ruth,
Didn’t doubt your experience. I like the strikethrough approach of blogging and the transparency standards many bloggers hold themselves to when making changes to their pieces. I also hate that papers don’t print retractions and corrections in the same prominence as errors. Lastly, like bloggers sometimes being trained well enough to be journalists, so are some talking heads and ‘talent’. Maybe I’ll approach that in a future column.
Thanks for writing.
Hey Jeff,
Great idea for a column. I was thinking just the same thing. To me, it all comes down to vetting. A journalist must answer to someone directly, namely his or her editor. Sure, bloggers get feedback from people who read their posts, but that’s a far cry from running copy by some sweaty curmudgeon on the news desk who sticks to old-school tenants like spelling, grammar, brevity and accuracy and excoriates, for the entire newsroom to hear, anyone who violates any of them. Ok, I’m dating myself; those guys probably retired or got fired by the PC crowd around the early ’90s. But regardless of their demeanor, editors, and the whole editing process, separates a blogger with an opinion from a journalist reporting or analyzing a story.
Consider a story that makes it onto the front page of any daily paper. It has to go through a copy editor or two, section editor, managing editor and, depending on the sensitivity of the issue, the executive editor. Far from stifling news, I believe this process ensures its integrity. The editors check the facts with the reporter, raise flags when the facts don’t add up and tweak or sometimes rewrite sections to make the copy more readable and cogent. The fact that mistakes happen even when stories undergo that level scrutiny testifies to the importance of editing to the integrity of the news reporting.
Finally, I think blogging’s a useful tool to summarize news, offer insights and engage readers (look what this post did), but I doubt it will ever replace real reporting and editing.
Hi, Jeff —
Steve Garfield was kind enough to help me tap into this discussion. I would just say that there is a really, really long tail to all these issues.
At the risk of self-promotion, let me add that most of that history can be found at my website, journalismprofessor.com, where I am posting the chapters of my forthcoming book on-line just as fast as I can write them. Now, the story goes from 1690 to 1975 or so.
Great discussion.
Chris
Quoting you on the back-end, Robert:
“I think blogging’s a useful tool to summarize news, offer insights and engage readers (look what this post did), but I doubt it will ever replace real reporting and editing.”
That’s where we disagree and I’ll leave it at that.
@ari I agree with you.
Robert’s quote confuses the issue by doubting that blogging will replace real reporting.
A blog is just a platform for publishing as is a newspaper.
Real reporting is being done on blogs. Blogs shold not be defined by their content, but by the technology.
Real reporting can happen on a blog, a cell phone, or a lamp post.
Wow, interesting discussion.
The discussion seems to be focused on the Process or Function of reporting, and the ‘purity’ of Journalism and journalistic training vs the adhocracy of Blogging.
One point that I didn’t see touched on is that in many western nations, (big J) Journalists are protected by various laws (1st amendment, etc).
Citizen journalists, or Bloggers, for the most part, aren’t) included in that group.
If blogging fulfills the same function, shouldn’t bloggers have the same rights as Journalists? Or not?
Once upon a time there was a technology barrier…not everyone could become a reporter or Journalist. Media outlets were expensive to run. Yet to do the job needed to sell papers, Journalists needed certain protections (revealing sources, etc). How else could you get sources to talk to you?
Now it’s not the case. Anyone can blog for free. And they are. And some actually are breaking stories.
While the barrier to entry has vanished, the function hasn’t really changed, so shouldn’t those same protections be extended?
‘Real’ reporting or not?
To Ari: Viva la differance… And I suppose time will tell…(I’ll still read your blog regardless…)
I think what you’re really talking about is power.. or at least that’s my first reaction.
The notion of what journalism is a construct, a human made thing.. we’ve given it all these values, all these ideals.. and I don’t see why they can only exist inside of your evolving deffiniton of journalism.
The distinctions seem fluid.. or.. like.. if a blogger blogs without an editor… does this then shift the burden of a certain media literacy and critical evaluation.. that’s somehow different in nature, from how we consume a traditional journalism or media? And then one of the evolution of other related things.
I whole heartedly agree that.. that there are qualitative differences here.. that.. journalism.. is about more then simply spewing out words.. and the all inclusive, anti hierarchy sorta zeitgeist.. that seems to go hand and hand with social media.. is perhaps not always deeply wise..
But the truth I find in this zeitgeist.. is sorta like.. anyone can come to the table.. that you too can be a journalist.. sure, you might be a piss poor one, but you can be one.. and I do think that it’s a problem that.. .just cause you can post a video to youtube doesn’t mean you know the first thing about film grammar…
But what I mean about it being about power is.. well, this is that french philosopher, Mr. Foucault… that really, what drives lexicographical evolution is power relationships.. in no small amount. Power is what frames the debate, defines the lines that articulate how we compartmentalize reality.. and its power that says I’m the bad driver when I break the traffic lights.
I think the next part of it is like Plato versus Buddha. In plato there are these ultimate ideals.. and the problem is how far removed from them we are.. with Buddha the problem is our psychological relationship to reality.. to the thing.. that all things are manifestations of ideals, but what are they ideals of?
So.. following that… I think its clear that blogging ideals are different from journalism ideals.. I think there’s something.. and I feel this talking to old time journalists… that there is something sorta spiritual about journalism.. in those ideals.. in what good journalism is..
So, i guess I’d make the distinction between spirit and matter.. I see no reason why.. just cause you’re a blogger, your not living up to those ideals.. and I don’t really feel like the creative destruction social media is presenting the journalism world in anyway threaten journalism.. I just think you have to follow the advice of Mr. Jesus.. which is to say to build up your treasure hoard.. no on earth, but in heaven.. which is to say on that spirit level.. as the creative destruction doesn’t effect that stuff.. and ultimately it’s that stuff from which the new forms will be born.
And I guess I see that as distinct from whatever our definitions might be.
Now, no doubt.. there is this problem of how do you cover international stories without the resources that traditional journalism / media provide.
When some sorta geopolitical flair up happens, I often find myself turning to the blogs of pentagon strategists… They tend to be more sophisticated then many of the journalists I encounter. But of course.. how I read them means.. well I ought to have some sense of the debates going on in foreign policy circles… and know where the person I’m reading is standing in relationship to those debates.. and maybe whatever I think in relationship to all that stuff. Then maybe I could go and mix that with stories on the ground.. coming from the region, and other places… and arguably.. I think I could form a picture, without any real resources.. as good as a traditional journalist covering the story.
And then… would it be possible to build some sorta of business model that would allow me to travel, one way or another.. to cover things in person, and whatever else?
On the art subject.. you know Andy Warhol’s piss paintings are actually quite beautiful. The debate of just what constitutes are is.. no small one.. This would be a not too un-central issue to aesthetics. Folks like Duchamp and John Cage did much to challenge traditional ideas on this subject.. and folks who don’t really get modern art…
I should add that traditionally painters look down there nose at the commercial artists.. for using the sorta technical stuff of the real artists.. but not having the spirit part, so to speak..
So I don’t know.. that’s sorta the position I take.. though not quite as strongly as I am perhaps trying to state it.
Journalism has a credibility problem in many domains. Those with scientific training grit their teeth when reading many science stories in major newspapers. The regional insert in my Boston newspaper carries stories from local towns which are laughably wrong at times. The editor doesn’t fact check these stories – he/she simply decides where to place them on the page, if at all. The automotive section in my paper is completely biased towards high-performance cars and pickup trucks. There is never a meaningful discussion of alternatives or the impact of the automobile on society.
To the extent that knowledegable bloggers provide better coverage of scientific stories, local news and alternatives to gas-guzzling cars, I say that the bloggers are doing a better job of journalism.
sort of liked this article
not all of it – there were a number of points which i found a bit off but altogether it was a pleasant read, thank you for the article! 
Best regards, resor till teneriffa
Simply killing some in between class time on Digg and I discovered your article . Not usually what I prefer to read about, however it was completely value my time. Thanks.
Amazing subject , I am trying how to make my weblog this interesting !
Good post!! interesting to view about this. This is definitely some good information!!