
How to Tell a Journalist from a Blogger - raganwald
http://jolieodell.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/how-to-tell-a-journalist-from-a-blogger/
======
jeremymims
_"9. A journalist isn’t a spy or a snitch. It’s true that some of the wildest,
most dramatic stories in the annals of this trade have revolved around the
divulging of secrets. Watergate, for example — that required some first-class
leaking and espionage. But the workaday journalist gets maybe a few of those
stories in his lifetime. Journalism is not an exciting merry-go-round of
overheard deals and eavesdropping in antechambers — or, to put a more modern
spin on it, hacked accounts and leaked documents. If it were, journalists
would be universally mistrusted and would never get invited to any parties,
which make up a significant portion of our food-and-drink budgets as
journalists’ salaries are generally low. This is where bloggers have fucked
over journalists more colossally than I can comfortably express. A couple
bloggers posing as journalists spied, snitched — and did so in a way that
benefited almost no one except the bloggers themselves — and now all producers
of media are painted as untrustworthy vultures. The true journalist relies on
deep knowledge of his beat, close relationships with industry experts, and
dedication to his craft. He has the kind of skill that makes for a 20-year
career in reporting, not the kind of childish sneakiness that makes for a one-
time pageview blockbuster."_

I couldn't disagree more. Journalists are supposed to be hated. The fact that
journalists want to be liked and invited to parties is how we get the
country's most prominent "journalists" playing with squirt guns at Biden's
house, buying into lies that lead to wars, and ignoring torture. What
objectivity can we expect to see when the press merely wants to be close to
the powerful. The press needs to be adversarial. If you aren't an
"untrustworthy vulture", then you're not all that interested in sharing the
truth. If you trade access for stories, you're a pretty poor excuse for a
journalist (no matter how much you need the free meal).

 _"1. A journalist is trained in journalism. Whether in the hallowed halls of
higher learning or in the less-hallowed halls of a professional newsroom, the
journalist has been trained as such. The journalist’s work has been pruned
mercilessly by the red pens of professors, peers, and editors. A bachelor’s
degree in journalism, media studies, mass communication, or some similarly
named program along with at least a few years under the tutelage of editors is
the best preparation for calling oneself a journalist. A blogger might have a
ton of general writing experience and even a degree in English or something
along those lines, but — and this is a critical distinction — a writer per se
is not a journalist. Not any more than a keyboardist is a concert pianist or a
mechanic is a nuclear submarine technician. A journalist belongs to a
specialized, technical subset of the writing professions that requires
specific training. As one who has edited many a writer who attempts
journalism, I can tell you the differences are vast — not simply niceties and
nuances."_

Again I have to disagree. I say that professional journalism training does
more harm than good. We have armies of people out there who know "how to write
a story" and almost no one who knows anything at all about what they're
supposed to be writing about. I'll take a historian writing about modern
politics over a person who knows how to write for a large audience. I'll take
a startup founder writing about business over someone who merely was assigned
a story. I just prefer a scientist writing about science (That's why we have
so many poorly researched "Cure for AIDS found" stories). Without knowledge
and the ability to deliver context, you're just a stenographer. And I think
that's why many journalists tend to be pretty poor at doing their jobs.

 _"4. A journalist attributes quotations and cites sources. One of the first
lessons you learn in J-school is that “common knowledge” doesn’t count as a
source, and everything must have a source. Did it rain 5 inches yesterday?
According to whom? Was the city budget cut? According to which documents? At
what meeting? By which persons? Is a certain chemical bad for the environment?
What experts say so, and what studies prove it? In keeping with the standards
of objectivity, no fact can make it into print without having a firm
attribution to some source outside the newsroom. Attribution along with
objectivity are almost inviolable commandments, and the professional
journalist is hard-pressed to cross them. Attribution in the digital age
amounts to linking back to the source when a digital source is available. The
blogger, on the other hand, can play fast and loose with “everybody knows”
logic and refer to the omniscient “They” as a source of statistics or other
knowledge. And linking back is seen as optional, since many bloggers would
prefer to claim information as their own and silo pageviews and PageRank on
their own domain."_

We have absolutely rampant anonymous citations from people we'd consider
journalists today. We have sources close to an administration, off-the-record
conversations, and lax citations. It's why even after prominent scientists
said the BP oil spill was leaking upwards of 50,000 barrels of oil every day,
prominent news outlets were still reporting company line of 5,000.

I could really go on all day but there's so much wrong with this.

There are real journalists out there. There are people that do really
thankless work bringing important stories to light. Then there are people that
get degrees in "Media Studies" and like going to parties with powerful people.

~~~
jolie
Dude, the "going to parties" part was, I thought quite clearly, a joke.

You can't write about information you can't get. You can't get information by
being a dick/informant all the time. It's a delicate ethical balance, but it's
a lot more nuanced than gadfly versus vulture.

~~~
jeremymims
We've seen several very high profile cases, specifically David Brooks of the
New York Times, who wrote an article after Michael Hastings broke the General
McChrystal story for Rolling Stone stating:

 _The most interesting part of my job is that I get to observe powerful people
at close quarters. Most people in government, I find, are there because they
sincerely want to do good. But they’re also exhausted and frustrated much of
the time. And at these moments they can’t help letting you know that things
would be much better if only there weren’t so many morons all around._

[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/opinion/25brooks.html?_r=1...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/opinion/25brooks.html?_r=1&ref=davidbrooks)

Then we have this example of the Biden Beach Party for journalists where
people like Wolf Blitzer, David Sanger, Marc Ambinder, and Ed Henry get to
play with waterguns with the White House Chief of Staff:

[http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid42950271001?...](http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid42950271001?bctid=90387058001)

I agree that you can't be a jerk all the time and break big stories. But
you've got to acknowledge that at the moment, journalism isn't suffering
because it's too adversarial. It's suffering because it's too deferential to
powerful interests. Journalists like David Brooks enjoy going to cocktail
parties. The most interesting part of his job is observing powerful people at
close quarters - not reporting interesting stories.

As for your work-a-day journalist covering flower shows and local sports
games, I think we can agree that bad might be good enough. But if you think
about it, you don't need a real "journalist" at all to cover these stories. A
lower standard "blogger" could probably do just fine.

As for covering a disaster, I would think that there's a huge world of
difference. Disaster relief can be covered like the local flower show or it
can be done right and it can be followed up on for weeks to make sure that it
is being handled correctly by those in power, that corruption isn't rampant,
and that those in need are getting the services they require (the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina comes to mind). No one has suggested that we move towards
screaming heads and sensationalism. Research and fact-checking are indeed
important.

------
steadicat
She lost me at

    
    
       1. A journalist is trained in journalism
    

I'm a designer and I'm trained in design, but I would never define a designer
as someone who is "trained in design".

There are many ways to learn, and various paths to success. Traditional
education is definitely not the only way. I know designers who aren't formally
trained who are better designers than I ever will be.

I'm pretty sure the same thing can be said about journalists. We've all seen
amateurs blow formally trained journalists out of the water, especially when
reporting on highly specialized topics.

Besides, her only motivation for that statement is "a journalist requires
specific training."

[edit: got gender of author wrong]

~~~
sanswork
If you had of kept reading you would have seen them say that it doesn't matter
if they were trained in higher education or in the newsroom as long as they
were trained.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
And then if you read a little more you'd see that this blogger hadn't
structured it very well and seemingly contradicts one para with the following
one:

 _A bachelor’s degree in journalism, media studies, mass communication, or
some similarly named program along with at least a few years under the
tutelage of editors is the best preparation for calling oneself a journalist._

Suggesting that one needs a BA along with years of tutelage.

In any case I'd like to retitle the piece "No true journalist". She sounds
like a cabinet maker bemoaning the Ikea-isation of furniture.

~~~
sanswork
Best case not only case. Having the formal education then adding a few years
experience. The alternative case she listed was just the experience in the
newsroom.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Best case to prepare to call oneself a journalist sounds like it would be
essential to actually doing it, rather than being preferential in preparing to
do it. But yeah.

------
mixmax
A lot of newsroom editors and journalists would be better off if they read
this article. It explains how journalism _should_ be, but unfortunately not
how it is. There are exceptions of course - the Economist springs to mind.

Unfortunately a lot of journalists don't live by the points set forth in te
article. _"A journalist is obsessed with the Truth."_ and _"A journalist is a
skeptic (and often a critic)."_ for instance are a joke to anyone who's seen
their press releases copied into an article more or less word by word.

I know a few journalists, and they do indeed strive towards high standards.
The problem is that since most news corporations, as we all know, aren't doing
very well they're under pressure to churn out articles at an ever higher rate.
And the journalism suffers. There is just no way they can churn out five well
researched, skeptic, truthful articles every day.

Unfortunately for news organisations this is a bad spiral: Worse reporting
leads to fewer readers which lead to cutbacks which lead to worse reporting.

~~~
dctoedt
I up-voted this because I didn't see why someone down-voted you (to zero).

------
gruseom
Is this article a troll or does it just have troll-like powers over me?
Journalists care more about the truth than bloggers? A journalist serves the
people? What planet is this person living on? The journalists whose work I
have occasion to observe, with a few and dwindling number of honorable
exceptions, serve _power_.

The reason journalism is dying is that most journalists -- by which I mean
most people making a living under that job title; who on earth is the author
referring to? -- long ago discarded these values. Luckily we have the internet
and a significant body of courageous bloggers (among, it must be said, a lot
of garbagey ones) who actually do care about them, producing real critique,
analysis, and even reporting, that for once does not insult the intelligence.

I must be missing something. Surely it's not possible for anyone to have their
head _that_ far up. Or maybe this is just what you get when the echo chamber
succumbs to denial.

Edit: after surfing around a bit, I think it may be that the author is simply
naive. I'd bet money that journalism "training" consists in good part of
repeating such self-flattering bromides about journalists, and it sounds to me
like the author is just repeating what she was taught. She probably doesn't
deserve my rant, but the "journalists" I'm thinking of certainly do, so I'm
leaving it.

------
ErrantX
I broadly disagree; plenty of casual bloggers are _excellent_ journalists (in
fact some of those people are easily amongst what I would consider the top
echelons of journalism). That said; such people are just natural talents, so I
also broadly agree with her critique of bloggers.

But, I think Jolie is muddling Journalists together as a whole, when in my
mind there are two very distinct types. One is the type she describes; the
meticulously neutral, fact checking, source citing reporter who deals in news
and events and "things that happen". This is a very hard job. Then you have
the opinion writers; and that is even tougher because you have to be critical
but fair, opinionated but balanced - and then you have to write really well to
pull it off. A really good blogger can easily fit into this crowd without the
training Jolie suggests :)

I can tell you how to tell Bloggers from Journalists; bloggers will write a
post in a couple of hours and post it. Journalists will spend a day (or more)
writing the same post. And though the subject/conclusion might be identical
you can always tell the difference.

~~~
jolie
I'm going to get into the more nuanced side of being a blogger AND a
journalist in the very near future, but you're partially correct.

When I first started news blogging, I was directly told by my editor (Richard
MacManus) that my writing was, while perfectly correct, too dry/boring to get
any kind of significant pageviews. He and Marshall Kirkpatrick taught me how
to _carefully_ interject analysis and heavily qualified opinion (which was
always identified as such) into a blog post to make a kind of news/opinion
hybrid.

It's a delicate art, indeed. And a topic for a different post. =)

~~~
MaysonL
Please: name some names. Your description of the ideal journalist is fairly
good, but doesn't really tell us anything about the real world.

~~~
jolie
Naming names amounts to either hero-worship or gossip/slander. I plan to go
into more real-world application of these principles for digital media
journalists soon, though. I've already started posting in that series, called
"Be a Better Journo."

Believe me, I would LOVE to call people out, and I can give a specific example
for a good journo/blogger and a bad one for each of these 10 points.

------
hexis
A problematic dual-loyalty is embedded in this list.

"5. A journalist is obsessed with the Truth."

and

"6. A journalist serves the people." which was expanded on with "In telling
all sides of a story _for the benefit of the proletariat alone_ "

Without getting too deeply into it, you can't serve the people _and_ the truth
any more than a democratic vote will always arrive at the best public policy.
A bias toward "the people with little or no power or influence in this world"
is still a bias and will be a diversion from the truth.

------
madair
Short version: You're a journalist if you've been to j-school and if you pass
all of Jolie O'Dell's subjective tests. Too bad there aren't hardly any
journalists at all who can pass that test, including most likely Jolie
herself.

For fun make the same list about who's a developer and who's not.

(I'm _not_ a blogger--at least not since maybe 4 years back)

------
brownie
_A bachelor’s degree in journalism, media studies, mass communication, or some
similarly named program along with at least a few years under the tutelage of
editors is the best preparation for calling oneself a journalist._

So much for all those journalists who got to where they are via
cadetships/traineeships - you're nothing according to Jolie O'Dell.

Honestly, this point strikes me as someone trying to justify their own actions
as the "correct" actions.

~~~
tkahn6
_... Whether in the hallowed halls of higher learning _or in the less-hallowed
halls of a professional newsroom_, the journalist has been trained as such._

------
Emore
I think the blog post should rather be named "How to tell _journalism_ from
_blogging_ ". Simply because you can be a journalist without devoting yourself
to journalism (just like you can be a programmer without really doing any good
programming).

As one that grew up knowing one of Sweden's most prominent journalists I can
vouch for some extremely impressive skills that are needed in order to be a
good journalist. It's very much about the amount of schooling and _continuous_
preparation you put into a column: a blogger may become successful merely
venting his/her thoughts while a "true" journalist reads a book per hundred
written words.

~~~
brianpan
I agree that might be a better title. I thought it was interesting that she
obviously considers herself a journalist but in that article, she was
"ranting" with her blogger hat on.

You have to say she is a journalist and a blogger. But you can also make the
distinction between when she is practicing journalism and when she is
blogging. As she says, without an "op-ed" section, it is sometimes difficult
to tell which is which!

------
nzmsv
In a way, the word "journalist" is similar to "hacker" - used with pride by
members of the profession, and mostly with negative connotations by outsiders.

------
oldgregg
By this arbitrary criteria I would say there are about 100 times as many
blogger-journalists than there are television-news-journalist. Those guys on
TV need to stop giving the bloggers a bad name.

~~~
ams6110
I think a similar piece could be written with the title "How to tell a
journalist from an anchor"

------
mahmud
Excellent rant! However, she sets the standard too high for some mainstream
"journalists" to qualify (no, not just MSNBC and FOX stooges.)

\--

Edit: s/he/she/g

~~~
jolie
My standards are set high on purpose; living up to them is a lifelong quest.

------
benologist
The part about sources and especially linking to them is something I wish
bloggers would take to heart. I'm so tired of shitty blogs that go out of
their way to link to more of their own garbage or search engine spam "tag
pages" instead of companies, products, wikipedia, news sites etc to provide
context.

------
bokonist
3) and 5) are often contradictory, which is the key problem of "objective"
journalism. If you don't use your own opinions/interpretations, whose do you
use? Not interjecting opinion in practice means accepting the conventional
wisdom, or accepting the framing of the subject of your article. Since both
the conventional wisdom and the subjects of an article have a bias away from
the truth, you cannot refrain from opinion and seek the truth.

------
adbge
The difference between a professional journalist and an amateur blogger?
Professional journalists have the benefit of being paid to lie to you.

------
tmsh
If you think about it:

    
    
      A journalist works for a news organization.
      A blogger writes via a blog.
    

Some are both. Most are not. Any good or bad connotations, evolving as they
might (not the least because the spheres of connotations do come into contact
with each other), can be understood as experiences relating to these two
simple facts.

------
danielrm26
Using this list of criteria, which I have no reason to disagree with, I am
forced to conclude that the world needs more writers and fewer journalists.

Congratulations on the strong argument.

------
d0m
How to tell a journalist from a blogger: A journalist is trained in
journalism.

(This is a really poor argument)

------
billybob
A great article. Bloggers who fancy themselves New Journalists would do well
to read it and learn.

~~~
fjh
While I would agree that most bloggers should not be called journalists, I
think that the author comes dangerously close to "no true Scotsman"-territory.
Many, if not most of the people commonly referred to as "journalists" (e.g.
people writing professionally for big newspapers) would not fit her definition
of a journalist. It is more a description of a romantic ideal than of the
people actually working in journalism.

~~~
gbhn
Definitely. I laughed out loud when reading about how "true" journalists
always provide attribution. "Real" journalism on anything of interest is
cluttered with anonymous quotes and reeks of the journalist's efforts to
protect his or her contacts and food budget. It's also true that journalists
often suppress actual news (i.e. the insubordination of military commanders,
to choose a recent example that one feels from sub-text Jolie actually may
have had in mind) in favor of gossip and party line "reporting."

It was equally funny to read about journalists' unflinching devotion to
questioning what they're told. A more uncritical type-what-you-hear crowd has
seldom been seen. "Real" journalists are rather devoted to he-said-she-said
kind of opinions-on-shape-of-earth-differ writing.

~~~
yxhuvud
Yes, attribution is a funny subject.

Ever seen an article about science that linked to the actual paper that was
the reason the article got written in the first place?

Ever seen a blog discussing science put that link in?

