21 Comments

1. chuck:

In the Internet/web age these things are not nearly as easy to define as they once were.

And before the before they weren’t that easy to define either: people learned on the job. Even in academia that was true, there used to be a well botanist at USU who only had a Masters. He had farmed, participated in cattle drives up to Oregon, and walked over much of the state. I doubt anyone these days has the same range of knowledge and experience as he had. But he could no longer get hired with only a Masters. The current thirst for certifications seems to have grown upon America during the age of the “egalitarian” Boomers and seems emblematic of an age of declining standards and competence.

Aug 19, 2005 - 5:48 pm 2. Mike Lief:

Back when I was in the newspaper biz, the best reporter I had working for me was a high school grad who could turn in clean copy on deadline without any drama. He learned the craft of who-what-where-when-why-and-how when he was 18 and then became a reliable pro.

The J-School grad, on the other hand . . . oy vey!

Aug 19, 2005 - 8:25 pm 3. Ray:

Roger,

You are not playing fair. You have shown your wife and your daughter in a kimono. It is time that you show yourself in a kimono.

I feel confident that you will look very attractive in a kimono. I have even placed a bet with my friends that you are an attractive kimono person.

Well?

Aug 19, 2005 - 8:46 pm 4. neo-neocon:

Yes, “The original idea was that press, on behalf of the people, would be a check on arrogant power.” The press certainly does that sometimes, and it likes to think of itself as doing that all the time. But any institution needs some sort of check on its power, and the press would like itself to be the exception to the rule. “Trust us, we have your best interests at heart” is simply not enough.

I recently wrote this post entitled “Journalism: ‘it’s the good ones who need watching’”. It deals with the very question you raise: what qualifies a journalist?

When “reporters” became “journalists,” and the press decided its mission was “telling truth to power” during Vietnam and Watergate, the seeds of the current problems were sown. We need to question the background, training, and bias of today’s journalists, and blogs can be a big part of that (as for the question of who checks on the bloggers, I think the answer is “other bloggers, and the readers who jump in quite freely and quickly with comments, corrections, and criticisms”).

Aug 19, 2005 - 9:00 pm 5. Rick Ballard:

Mike,

I hope people take a moment to hit your blog and read your take on Lileks piece. Roger stumped me with his question because I see no reason to consider journalism a profession. In fact, in the piece immediately preceding the one linked on PressThink, Prof. Rosen makes the point that he now considers journalism a ‘practice’ rather than a profession. I’ll stick with craft or trade, thanks.

A good reporting craftsman in the future is going to cover the who-what-where-when-why-and-how that you mention – and hot link pertinent data points along the way. Stories will become anthologies giving a reader who becomes interested in a particular event or situation the opportunity to return to the beginning and read through to the present, if they so desire.

A Claudia Rosett anthology on OFF would be a good start. She owns that story like Dorothy Rabinowitz owned the phony day care sex scandals. In fact, a Rabinowitz anthology on that story would make an excellent read. Salem Witch Trials conducted “for the children” – and the scummy prosecutors with an eye for promoting themselves. Like, oh, Janet Reno, for example.

Aug 19, 2005 - 9:01 pm 6. Orson2:

All one needs to know is to examine the leading textbook on reporting

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0072300116/qid=1124512958/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-6940230-0400825?v=glance&s=books

“News Reporting and Writing” by Melvin Mencher.

The progressive agenda of MSM news has long been institutionalized (the above textgbook in its 8th edition in 1999). Only those similarly convinced of its moral mission need apply. Others, please go elsewhere.

Aug 19, 2005 - 9:47 pm 7. Mike Lief:

Rick,

Thanks for the thumbs up. The disconnect that journalists seem to have with the American public is in part due to the “professionalization” of their trade. The idea that graduate school is needed for professions like writing and acting is risible.

The greatest writers and the best actors of Western Civilization learned their crafts by getting off their asses and doing the job.

You’re on point when you describe the past-is-prologue paradigm for reportage, with a move back to basic information transmission, coupled with the ability to hotlink to primary sources.

Getting my news via the Web has freed me from the terrible writing and institutional biases of the local dead-tree-daily. I can sit on my couch and get a variety of viewpoints and fact-check until I think I’ve gotten a reasonably well-rounded take on a story.

Aug 19, 2005 - 10:07 pm 8. Barbara Skolaut:

The original idea was that press, on behalf of the people, would be a check on arrogant power.

That may have been the original idea, but now the press is the arrogant power.

So who keeps a check on them?

Guess that falls to you and other honest bloggers, Roger.

Aug 19, 2005 - 10:10 pm 9. Terrye:

I read some of this debate and I got the impression that the media [like North Korea] wants respect. Needless to say they are not getting a lot of that from Bush.

They are entirely too big for their britches. One thing I was struck by when I read John Adams by McCullough was the vicious nature of the early American press. And I wonder if it is inherent. It is what they used to call yellow journalism.

Like neo neocon I think the present day friction was born in the VietNam/Watergate era and these so called journalists are still chasing the power of gotcha.

I don’t think of journalism as a calling or something, in fact I sometimes wonder if I would call it a craft. There are good people like Rosett out there who still do take their time chasing important stories, but anymore it seems the stories are more about them.

After all they are the center of the universe.

Aug 20, 2005 - 4:12 am 10. David Thomson:

ìWhen “reporters” became “journalists,” and the press decided its mission was “telling truth to power” during Vietnam and Watergate..î

The journalistic community was already predominantly liberal before Watergate. Victor Laskyís 1977 book, ìIt Didnít Start With Watergateî clearly shows the bias that brought down Richard Nixon but left Democratic presidents untouched for similar offenses. But once Bob Woodward and red diaper baby Carl Bernstein brought down a Republican administration—all hell broke loose. ìTruth to powerî rapidly became interpreted as a mandate to slime Republicans. A journalistís career was often advanced on how well they effectively assisted Democrats.

I originally saw the movie ìAll the Presidentís Menî many years ago. At that time, I naively thought the young reporters might have pursued the story regardless of which administration was in the White House. Not anymore. I am now convinced that Ben Bradlee would have subtly put a stop to the investigation. He wouldnít have had to utter a single word. Everybody, on a gut level, would know what they had to do.

Aug 20, 2005 - 4:34 am 11. Patrick Tyson:

“other bloggers, and the readers who jump in quite freely and quickly with comments, corrections, and criticisms”

I have a hard-and-fast rule that I only comment on this blog. I read all of Rosen and Bay and all the associated comments on both blogs and here and for the most part my thoughts were of His Girl Friday (the most entertaining version of The Front Page) and the long-running “battle” (really attempted manipulation) that goes on between those in the political racket and those in the news racket which is, as it should be, a constant in a free society.

This held my eye:

Like the Hound of the Baskervilles that was strangely silent, how often does the watchdog not bark?

Still in there.

“Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”

“To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”

“The dog did nothing in the night time”

“That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.

—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, “Silver Blaze” from Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

I’ve cancelled subscriptions for less.

Aug 20, 2005 - 8:27 am 12. PSGInfinity:

Patrick,

I’m sorry. The morning caffeine hasn’t kicked in. Are making a point about bias showing up in what the press doesn’t write, as well as what it (scribbles)?

Aug 20, 2005 - 8:46 am 13. flenser:

What struck me in this exchange was how unintelligent and emotionally immature both Jay Rosen and Steve Lovelady came over as. As Terrye noted, their primary concern seems to be with having their egos stroked and being told how important they are.

Based on this evidence, the MSM attitude seems to be, “You think we’re not powerful and important? We’ll show you how powerful and important we are!”

It does not seem to have dawned on them yet that this behavior is self-destructive. Those who abuse power will have it taken away from them.

Aug 20, 2005 - 9:29 am 14. Captain Hate:

Rick,

“In fact, a Rabinowitz anthology on that story would make an excellent read. Salem Witch Trials conducted “for the children” – and the scummy prosecutors with an eye for promoting themselves. Like, oh, Janet Reno, for example.”

Reno did her evil in Florida; the mutt in the Amirault case was Scott Harshbarger, who unsuccessfully ran for governor in Massachusetts. Rarely has the MSM dropped the ball and revealed their biases and indifference as much as in this case, where innocent people got railroaded and destroyed. Thanks to Rabinowitz’s efforts individuals donated their time and efforts to right this wrong. All the quisling politicians in Massachusetts should’ve been sent packing because of their indifference/cowardice/complicity in this case.

I wish Harshbarger and Reno could reap some consequences of their horrible actions. As for the MSM: Keep talking up that “truth to power” garbage. Lazy idiots.

Aug 20, 2005 - 9:39 am 15. timmah!:

“At least outside the hard sciences, we may be reaching a time when the question of “What is a professional?” in many areas should be reevaluated and probably democratized.”

I think the hard sciences are no exception. I got pretty jaded as a grad student watching reputedly top journals let garbage slip in to papers by “big names” that they would never accept (and rightly so) from a less established researcher. I decided that if I was going to be in a field with lots of BS, I might as well be in a field where I get paid to shovel it.

Anyway, institutions like the LANL preprint server (with the delightful URL xxx.lanl.gov) are allowing people to bypass journals and their old boy gatekeepers. I saw one case where a paper was rejected by a top journal, sat on arXiv for a year racking up citations, only to have the journal back down and publish the paper. Nothing changed about the science. The editor just realized that the community was paying a lot of attention to this paper and skeedaddled to get back to the front of the parade.

Eventually, when some metric besides journal papers and citations is adopted for grant and tenure decisions, the journal system will collapse. Science will be better off, because part of your training as a scientist is sniffing the BS, and because public scrutiny will be much more fair and complete than secret decisions being made by direct competitors with a monetary interest in your failure. In other words, scientists don’t need anonymous, unaccountable reviewers deciding what they get to read. Sound familiar?

Aug 20, 2005 - 9:40 am 16. richard mcenroe:

“The original idea was that press, on behalf of the people, would be a check on arrogant power.”

And that notion died in what, 1785?

Aug 20, 2005 - 10:12 am 17. Patrick Tyson:

But the cry of pain from the hound had blown all our fears to the winds. If he was vulnerable he was mortal, and if we could wound him, we could kill him.

—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles

Aside from anything else—different fictional dog. It’s a fact.

Aug 20, 2005 - 10:35 am 18. Rick Ballard:

Captain Hate,

Lael Rubin – prosecutor in the McMartin case and progenitress of the publicity that led to the witch trials still draws a check from the county of Los Angeles. If investigative reporting actually existed within the national or regional press one might expect a story questioning why the person responsible for prosecuting the most expensive trial in California history to a series of hung juries still has a job with LA county.

I know that the Amirault case was the focus of Rabinowitz’s work. The impact of her work went far beyond that case, however. It brought a halt to a sordid practice exacerbated by the MSM – which could have brought the practice to a halt at any time by exercising a bit of common sense through an examination of lurid claims but instead printed tripe and fanned the flames to the point where as many as 1,000 people may have been unjustly convicted of crimes which they did not commit. (report)

Instead of lifting Rabinowitz and Rosett up as shining examples of what may be accomplished through actual investigative reporting, we are still seeing the lionization of FBI sock puppets Woodward and Bernstein, praised for their regurgitation of pap fed to them by an oath breaking Feeb with an ax to grind.

I’m not sure how the political/foreign affairs journos are going to remove the taint of the cesspool but I’m certain that they’re going to have to stop bathing in it daily as a first step.

Aug 20, 2005 - 10:46 am 19. Captain Hate:

Rick,

Thanks for that link; it’s amazing that the MSM don’t fixate on the people on that site that’ve been railroaded rather than the denizens of Club Gitmo. I hate to give those apparatchiks at PBS credit for anything but they broke with their Bill Moyers/Charlie Rose delusional snooze fests to give an excellent documentary of the Little Rascals case in North Carolina. Besides skewering those recovered-memory frauds, they featured a female prosecutor getting increasingly emotionally involved in the case until she reached the point of deranged inability to discern fact from dogma.

Of course the MSM can’t be bothered with such provincial fare; the likes of Ken Starr are the real threats to us regular citizens.

Aug 20, 2005 - 1:01 pm 20. Neuro-conservative:

Roger,

I wonder if you’ve had a chance to see how the debate progressed. To make a loooooooong story short, Rosen shut down the thread because he doesn’t like people complaining of liberal media bias. I have commented on it at length here; neo-neocon has a post here. Somehow I have a feeling that we will be hearing about this thread for a while to come.

Aug 22, 2005 - 11:32 pm 21. neo-neocon:

I second what Neuro-Con says. It’s been a loooong strange trip over there. Here’s my most recent update on the matter.

Aug 23, 2005 - 3:00 pm

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