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Where do you draw the line on what constitutes journalism? Are politics bloggers journalists? Are bloggers who occasionally talk about politics journalists? Are
by jdietrich 10y ago
Where do you draw the line on what constitutes journalism? Are politics bloggers journalists? Are bloggers who occasionally talk about politics journalists? Are people who livetweet a news event that they're involved in acting as journalists?
How do you safeguard the political independence of the licensing of journalists? How do you ensure that a future government doesn't abuse the licensing regulations to suppress political criticism?
In the US, how do you reconcile this with the first amendment? How can you justify silencing people because they lack the 'correct' qualifications? If the only restriction is on the title 'journalist', what stops people from calling themselves a blogger while doing exactly the same things that a journalist does?
- GuiA 10y ago> Are politics bloggers journalists? Are bloggers who occasionally talk about politics journalists? Are people who livetweet a news event that they're involved in acting as journalists? No. They are respectively a blogger, a blogger, and a Twitter user.
- K_REY_C 10y agoAnd yet if they're at the same event I'm quite likely getting something that, in combination, is much closer to what I'd call journalism.
- nercht12 10y agoThen what's a "journalist"? Someone who gets paid to go do the research? "Journalist" is derived from "journal" (duh, but important) - bloggers are nothing more than online journalists. The fact that they are called "bloggers" is only because society has elected to stick with the term "blog" for an online journal.
- pyre 10y ago> If the only restriction is on the title 'journalist', what stops people from calling themselves a blogger while doing exactly the same things that a journalist does? I don't think that anyone would be proposing restricting speech in this way, but on the same note, papers such as Weekly World News maybe couldn't pump out more stories about Bat Boy while attempting to call themselves journalists...
- rhizome 10y agoDo WWN writers call themselves journalists? There's something to be said for what readers call journalism. It isn't the same for everybody. So, is it the journalist's responsibility to hold to a standard, or is it the audience's fault for thinking that a particular writer is a journalist? This raises the question: can the term "journalist" even be controlled?
- Esau 10y agoIt can't.
- betenoire 10y agogood questions. I think the methods applied are what needs accredited, not the results themselves. If an organization calls itself news or whatever nomenclature we agree to, they are claiming to follow accredited guidelines that we collectively trust. At the end of the day, it comes down to heuristics around trust. It's not the message I want to validate, it's the means of preparation that bother me more. I can draw my own conclusions if I can trust the method. Looking at it this way, would that resolve some of your concerns? Open auditing and accrediting do not need to involve censorship at all. You never lose the ability to say what you want, just to call yourself a "certified whatever". I dunno.
- rhizome 10y agoWhat is it about journalism that requires standards like plumbers, doctors, and accountants? More to the point, if you look at the reasons why plumbers, doctors, and locksmiths are held to standards, which ones apply to journalism? Note also that journalism is the only one of your mentioned professions that is specifically called out for protection in the Constitution.
- betenoire 10y ago> More to the point, if you look at the reasons why plumbers, doctors, and locksmiths are held to standards, which ones apply to journalism? Which ones don't? The freedom of the press is the same thing as free speech, it applies to all of us. Correct me if you are referring to something else and I'm misunderstanding. There are best practices in journalism, no? Disclosure, ethics, etc. How can I know if someone I rely on for information follows these rules. That's all I'm asking. Doesn't canada do this? Aren't there requirements for calling yourself a news agency?
- rhizome 10y agoWhich ones don't? I contend that none of them do.
- 10y ago