7 ms·

How to Tell a Journalist from a Blogger

51 points by raganwald 16y ago

billybob 16y ago
A great article. Bloggers who fancy themselves New Journalists would do well to read it and learn.
- fjh 16y ago
  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 16y ago
    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.
    - tkahn6 16y ago
      "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. I think you watch too many Dateline-esque shows. Whether or not the stock market went down and what that means for the economy according to economist X does not require 'anonymous quotes'.
    - yxhuvud 16y ago
      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?
oldgregg 16y ago
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 16y ago
  I think a similar piece could be written with the title "How to tell a journalist from an anchor"
- ams6110 16y ago
  I think a similar piece could be written with the title "How to tell a journalist from an anchor"
mahmud 16y ago
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
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- jolie 16y ago
  My standards are set high on purpose; living up to them is a lifelong quest.
benologist 16y ago
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.
nzmsv 16y ago
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.
steadicat 16y ago
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]
- phreanix 16y ago
  I would postulate that more than specific training, there are journalistic (sic?) conventions that you have to adhere to and that you learn during your course of study. I'm not saying that one cannot learn this on their own with some effort, but that most bloggers don't know or don't care to learn it. To compare it to design/designing/designer wouldn't be accurate. There are certain aspects of design that natural artistic ability and skill covers, while in journalism there are rules (investigation, disclosure, etc.) that must be learned, you're not born with them. I've seen bloggers ignore these (ignorance, refusal to adhere to them, and so on) and some of their end products make me cringe. Not to say that journalists themselves don't ignore this from time to time, take for example this recent Breitbart brouhaha, but I think it all boils down to the terminology: Bloggers would like to be known as journalists, and journalists would like to keep that distinction to themselves. Each have a case. But I think there is still a need to distinguish one from the other. (edited to clarify an opinion)
- holman 16y ago
  I don't have a huge argument either way, but to back her up a little- I think what she's getting at is a primary split between blogger and journalist. Or, put another way, old media vs. new media. Formal education is by far the easiest way to break them up. You can argue that bloggers are journalists and journalists can be bloggers, but I think for her purposes she's deliberately putting that arbitrary split in between the two to differentiate the two a little better. The rest of the points she makes are a lot of what's taught in traditional education- impartiality, attribution, things that aren't particularly stressed in the blogosphere. Again, they're not confined to journalism in particular, but if you're trying to argue journalism vs. blogging in particular (like she and everyone else seemingly wants to debate), they're definitely values held higher in journalism than blogging.
bokonist 16y ago
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.
jeremymims 16y ago
"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.
Emore 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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!
mixmax 16y ago
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 16y ago
  I up-voted this because I didn't see why someone down-voted you (to zero).
adbge 16y ago
The difference between a professional journalist and an amateur blogger? Professional journalists have the benefit of being paid to lie to you.
ErrantX 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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. =)
  - ErrantX 16y ago
    That's good to hear. I think journalism like your own is likely to become the saviour of the trade, as it were. Such rigorous writing is never given the time in print media. Hell; I wrote for a monthly that had ample time for fact checking but just didn't want to spend the money :(
  - MaysonL 16y ago
    Please: name some names. Your description of the ideal journalist is fairly good, but doesn't really tell us anything about the real world.
d0m 16y ago
How to tell a journalist from a blogger: A journalist is trained in journalism. (This is a really poor argument)
hexis 16y ago
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 16y ago
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)
danielrm26 16y ago
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.
brownie 16y ago
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 16y ago
  ... 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.
gruseom 16y ago
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.
tmsh 16y ago
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.

51 points by raganwald 16y ago

billybob 16y ago

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

fjh 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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.
  - tkahn6 16y ago
    "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. I think you watch too many Dateline-esque shows. Whether or not the stock market went down and what that means for the economy according to economist X does not require 'anonymous quotes'.
  - yxhuvud 16y ago
    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?

oldgregg 16y ago

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 16y ago
I think a similar piece could be written with the title "How to tell a journalist from an anchor"
ams6110 16y ago
I think a similar piece could be written with the title "How to tell a journalist from an anchor"

mahmud 16y ago

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

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
jolie 16y ago
My standards are set high on purpose; living up to them is a lifelong quest.

benologist 16y ago

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.

nzmsv 16y ago

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.

steadicat 16y ago

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]

phreanix 16y ago
I would postulate that more than specific training, there are journalistic (sic?) conventions that you have to adhere to and that you learn during your course of study. I'm not saying that one cannot learn this on their own with some effort, but that most bloggers don't know or don't care to learn it. To compare it to design/designing/designer wouldn't be accurate. There are certain aspects of design that natural artistic ability and skill covers, while in journalism there are rules (investigation, disclosure, etc.) that must be learned, you're not born with them. I've seen bloggers ignore these (ignorance, refusal to adhere to them, and so on) and some of their end products make me cringe. Not to say that journalists themselves don't ignore this from time to time, take for example this recent Breitbart brouhaha, but I think it all boils down to the terminology: Bloggers would like to be known as journalists, and journalists would like to keep that distinction to themselves. Each have a case. But I think there is still a need to distinguish one from the other. (edited to clarify an opinion)
holman 16y ago
I don't have a huge argument either way, but to back her up a little- I think what she's getting at is a primary split between blogger and journalist. Or, put another way, old media vs. new media. Formal education is by far the easiest way to break them up. You can argue that bloggers are journalists and journalists can be bloggers, but I think for her purposes she's deliberately putting that arbitrary split in between the two to differentiate the two a little better. The rest of the points she makes are a lot of what's taught in traditional education- impartiality, attribution, things that aren't particularly stressed in the blogosphere. Again, they're not confined to journalism in particular, but if you're trying to argue journalism vs. blogging in particular (like she and everyone else seemingly wants to debate), they're definitely values held higher in journalism than blogging.

bokonist 16y ago

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.

jeremymims 16y ago

"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.

Emore 16y ago

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 16y ago
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!

mixmax 16y ago

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 16y ago
I up-voted this because I didn't see why someone down-voted you (to zero).

adbge 16y ago

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

ErrantX 16y ago

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 16y ago
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. =)
- ErrantX 16y ago
  That's good to hear. I think journalism like your own is likely to become the saviour of the trade, as it were. Such rigorous writing is never given the time in print media. Hell; I wrote for a monthly that had ample time for fact checking but just didn't want to spend the money :(
- MaysonL 16y ago
  Please: name some names. Your description of the ideal journalist is fairly good, but doesn't really tell us anything about the real world.

d0m 16y ago

How to tell a journalist from a blogger: A journalist is trained in journalism. (This is a really poor argument)

hexis 16y ago

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 16y ago

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)

danielrm26 16y ago

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.

brownie 16y ago

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 16y ago
... 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.

gruseom 16y ago

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.

tmsh 16y ago

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.