Back when I first started this blog, I wrote about journalists in a general way. I’ve not changed my mind, even reevaluating the state of affairs post-CBS.
I really don’t grasp why anyone would need a college degree to be a journalist. Journalism is really a craft, or trade. An aircraft mechanic needs more formal training. Good journalism requires more on-the-job training than classroom work.
I notice many errors in stories regarding the military, aviation, or engineering. I see the errors because I understand those things far better than the reporter covering them. I’m sure everyone sees the same thing in their particular area of expertise. Yet journalists seem to feel the need to present an air of authority, so they end up looking foolish to someone who really understands the topic.
Maybe that’s why I get the impression journalists all feel smarter than the general public. On the other hand, perhaps they sincerely believe they are.
Such is the danger someone like Dan Rather feels in his current situation. For years he has assumed he was smarter than the rest of us, and we were all counting on him to deliver the words from on high. We weren’t, but he didn’t really know that. As he achieved stature within his own craft, everyone around him deferred to his opinion. And he expected we all would, too.
Millions of people have the writing skills necessary to be a good journalist. Millions. What makes a journalist stand out is his ability to separate fact from fiction, and present a compelling report which leaves people understanding what they just heard or read. Putting in the legwork to track down the truth is what separates the good from the mundane. It matters not whether it is in the streets of Baghdad or the alleys of New York or the halls of Congress, the work is in the search.
That’s what brought Dan and his crew to where they are today. They were too lazy or blinded by the desire to validate their assumptions that they failed to do what good journalists do–work.
Excellent post — it captures quite well my reasons for deciding not to pursue any sort of journalism around three and a half years into my communications degree. Most of my department colleagues (with journalistic aspirations) were lazy halfwits (myself included, but at least I recognized it in myself). I knew my friends in engineering, computer science, and biotechnology were the ones who were actually developing their brains in college, and I was just sort of late to the party.
That said, I’ve been meaning to point something out: the bloggers who led the assault on CBS/Rather were also a bit blinded by the desire to validate their assumptions: I saw on no less than four blogs statments to the effect of “the memos can be reproduced exactly in Microsoft Word by simply entering the text at its default settings for fonts and margins. The overlay fits perfectly.” I tried it myself, just to make sure, and it isn’t true. Several of the lines break in different places whether you use one, two, or three spaces between sentences. I use MS Word very infrequently at home and am certain that all the default settings are unchanged.
There is always the possibility that different versions of Word come with different default margins or letter spacing. None of the claims I saw specified which version of Word they used.
I’m not saying that I have any inclination to believe that the CBS memos are genuine, of course. It just serves as a warning that you can’t really expect all that much objectivity out of the blogging community either.
Comment by Bogey — September 19, 2004 @ 11:09 am
I think when someone sets up Word with basic options, these are the settings that default. I don’t know. They would have to verify. I didn’t bother to try.
Don’t sell yourself short.
Objectivity isn’t the issue in the blogs, as there are plenty of people to call you on that. I think the give and take that isn’t present in any newsroom is what drives us in the direction of truth rather than fantasy. I would guess, though, that there is far more objectivity in the blogosphere than in those newsrooms. Most people who take the time to sit down and write every day are actually interested in truth, in spite of their biases.
Comment by Bunker — September 19, 2004 @ 1:22 pm
A straight line
Bunker uses few words
Trackback by Wandering Mind — September 17, 2004 @ 8:04 pm