The holy caste of Journalists

*****Warning: Looooong post*****

I am endlessly fascinated by the print and news media assumption of some holy mandate proclaiming their product to be sacrosanct because they’ve been anointed by the sweet balm of a journalism or communications degree. This divine diploma apparently sanctifies as holy writ all information imparted by such beings…and condemns news generated by lesser- or non-degreed pamphleteers to the dustbin of irrelevant history.

It fascinates…and embarrasses me…because I was once a member of that priesthood.

I graduated from a small liberal arts college with a degree in print communications, jumped into the Professional Journalist world with both feet, won many awards, had many stories on the national wires, and eventually worked my way to the news editor position of a couple of large suburban papers. I’ve questioned Presidents, Governors, sports stars, murderers and movie stars (though I never wore a trench coat or a fedora.) and I’ve been in contact with local and national media of all persuasions.

I took a step back from all that when my first child was born and my wife started her medical residency a couple months later. Fourteen years later, I’m still Mr. Mom (and Farmer Dad) and have had the luxury of watching a titanic sea change in my former professional world. The monopoly is gone, the gates have been broken and the internet hordes have been pillaging the halls of “the big story,” formerly the exclusive home of Professional Journalists.

In the words of the great sage Austin Powers, “It’s a brave new world, baby, and it’s very groovy.”

Oh yeah, and that Journalism degree? That and $4.50 will get you a mocha-frappa-cappa-gollychino at Starbucks (my, how times have changed.) Now anyone can write and publish anything in any media, 24 hours a day, with worldwide exposure…an internet post can go from the keyboard to the Kremlin in less time than it takes to brush your teeth.

The problem with a degree in journalism or communications is that the profession has always been more about affinity and ability than degree…the university time does little to train someone in the profession. You can either organize your thoughts and write or you can’t; you either have the wit and drive to recognize and follow stories or you don’t; you either have the fortitude to write the blunt truth or you don’t. That’s my perspective, and as someone who interviewed dozens of journalism school graduates for various positions I can say that the only way to truly gauge ability is to watch and read what they produce.

And as far as the “impartial servant of the truth” goes, journalists never have been and never will be impartial. Discrimination and slant comes into coverage in so many ways, the best that can be hoped for is that names, dates and numbers are accurate in whatever is forthcoming.

Core beliefs influence which stories are covered and the manner in which they are covered…it could range from something as simple as “it never occurred to me to ask that” to outright sympathetic coverage because the journalist believes in the cause. To pretend impartiality is laughable…at the risk of parroting Fox, it’s better to be accurate and balanced.

All of which brings us back to the new media…the internet…and its hordes of ardent, largely unpaid, pamphleteers. On the whole, I think much better coverage is provided about items of local and national interest by internet journalists and bloggers than by the major media outlets and Professional Journalists. Internet journalists, imbued by their interest in the story with more drive than the pros, dig deeper, provide more detail and follow up better than the mainstream can ever hope to do. Sometimes the writer is skilled in the area about which they’re writing…how much better to have the source for a story writing the story than some journalistic hack who doesn’t even know which questions to ask? You go from hearsay to a first person narrative, cutting out the annoying middle man! Instead of lazily printing some pols comments instead of digging into the facts (that’s too tiring), internet journalists are frequently focused on a single issue, devoting more attention, determination and passion to researching that issue than a Professional Journalist could ever match.

The coverage is better because it is more thorough and there is usually more than one writer digging into the subject.

The recent coverage of the immigration bill is a perfect example of internet journalists burying the professionals’ efforts on the story. The internet writers, no doubt clad in pajamas and merrily typing away on their basement computers, actually READ the bill instead of relying on the boilerplate commentary supplied by the politicians. - the commentary that was the mainstay of mainstream media coverage. Thanks to their superior knowledge (superior even to the pols supposedly crafting the bill), bloggers were able to define what the bill actually said and were able to point out huge problems that resulted in public outrage and the bills eventual demise.

Bloggers exposed the chinks in the armor of the media and showed that the mainstream media is not the only way to get information and, in this case, was certainly not the best way. Score one for the new media. But change comes slowly, and I’m sure our society will experience more growing pains as we shift from the old way of delivering information to the public to a new, more individually-tailored, way.

During “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” in January, I was talking to one of the other actors, a very bright and talented girl who graduated in May with plans to pursue Professional Journalism. She looked like I punched her in the stomach when I said “well, we’re all young and stupid once...(perhaps I could have come up with a better choice of words, but diplomacy has never been my strong suit).” I then explained how, for the most part, journalism has become the profession of everyman now and to jump into journalism is to board the Titanic about an hour before its rendezvous with the iceberg. We talked about it for quite a while and she said her plans were a little more focused on television than print, a venue in which there will still be some opportunity (though I told her I hated to see her intelligence and ability wasted on such a vapid enterprise.)

I hope she’ll eventually rethink her plans…

Gone are the mantles of indispensability and impartiality which once graced journalism – it’s been demonstrated that drive, knowledge and ability outweigh degree anytime. The mainstream media beast is ailing and may very well be dead…it just hasn’t gotten the news yet.