No One Owns Journalism

By “journalism” we ought to mean the practice of it, not the profession of it. Journalism can happen on any platform. It is independent of its many delivery devices. This also means that journalism is not the same thing at allas “the media.” The media, or Big Media as some call it, does not own journalism, and cannot dispose of it on a whim.

Nor does any professional group own journalism, any more than museums and galleries can “own” painting. Although the best journalists around today are professionals, this has not always been the case. During Benjamin Franklin’s time, printers were the people who served as journalists. They were stationed at the right point in the information flow, and they had the means to distribute news. Printers were often postmasters too.

Journalism is a demanding practice. It might surprise some of you that journalists do not always like to be called professionals. Many don’t buy it, and they will argue with you if you say journalism is a profession. You won’t find social workers, pharmacists, dentists or public school teachers grabbing your lapels to say: We’re not a profession, buddy. Got that? But in journalism you get this argument often.

Why? Well, it’s part of a larger argument – for freedom in the press. “Journalism is a profession” only makes sense if you officially qualify people as journalists. That’s what a profession does: restrict the practice to the qualified ones. The bid for public trust follows from that initial division between the qualified and the not. “I’m a licensed teacher; trust me with your child.”

So to argue that professionals don’t own journalism is no disrespect to professionals. It’s simply another way of calling for a free press, of preserving journalism as an open and democratic practice. The truth is that the people who do it for a living, because they are able to do it for a living, set a high standard for excellence, and – despite all kinds of problems – for basic accuracy in reporting.

Meanwhile, the capacity of the major news organizations to find out what’s happening, to package and deliver it to people, dwarfs any alternative capacity out there – including, of course, the weblogs.

A weblog is starting to become something else, more familiar to us. In the worst case, it’s PR or propaganda.

Journalism can be a commercial thing, done for money, or a noncommercial thing, done for love. It may be done as a public service, a way of entering into political debate, or for the simple and practical reasons people have always shared information or “talk.” It can be a purely human and expressive act. And, of course, it is sometimes done for reasons of power.

But what most identifies the practice of journalism is not power, profit, or free expression in itself. It’s the idea of addressing, engaging and freely informing a “public” about events in its world.

This brings us to the possibilities of the weblog, a technology available to journalism, which also makes journalism more “available” to non-journalists. The weblog together represents something new in journalism – new and potentially important. The question is – are weblogs journalism? Frankly, I don’t care about this question. I think it’s dumb.

Weblogs are currently the most established and effective form of interactive, participatory media today.

(http://savethemedia.com/2009/04/06/so-what-is-journalism)

II. Combine collocations using the following words and make up sentences with them:

to serve	flow
public	events
information	news
possibilities of	service
to share	as journalists
to distribute	reporting
accuracy in	weblogs

III. Complete the sentences with the right word:

1) Journalism can ….. on any platform.

a) take b) happen c) use

2) “Journalism is a …..” only makes sense if you officially qualify people as journalists.

a) trade b) education c) profession

3) Weblog can be a purely human and ….. act.

a) expressive b) talking c) speech

4) Professionals preserve journalism as an open and democratic …...

a) profession b) practice c) medium

5) It’s the idea of ….., engaging and freely informing a “public” about events in its world.

a) addressing b) taking c) sharing

IV. Discuss the following items:

1. Do you agree with the author of the article?

1. What are the criteria of a qualified article?
2. Have you got a weblog? Would you like to have? What for?
3. Why is journalism criticized?

Дата добавления: 2015-07-11