3 ms·

And I suppose anyone with a journalism degree isn't a journalist because they were a student until they started working?

willis936 6y ago
If they haven’t investigated and written in search of the truth, they are not journalists. Just as I wasn’t an engineer until I started designing and making things.
- jcbrand 6y ago
  Interesting to see how programmers have turned into "engineers" the last decade or so. Do you have an engineering degree? Used to be that you'd have to be registered as a professional engineer before calling yourself one.
  - willis936 6y ago
    I have an MSEE, worked in a test house during school, and currently work on a very physically real machine with a title of “engineer”; not that any of that is relevant. Are you agreeing with my point? Not everyone who calls themself something is that thing. Assange is certainly not a journalist.
mhh__ 6y ago
Assange has done journalistic work, but he isn't a journalist, not because of some technicality but because Wikileaks have a very flexible relationship with basic principles of good journalism and are clearly prepared to play politics when it suits them. If Assange is a mere journalist, he and his organisations are hypocrites because of their use of NDAs and either malicious or deeply incompetent in their complete disregard for the privacy of people (bystanders) mentioned in their dumps. For example, dumping the credit card numbers and addresses of donors to the Democratic Party is unnecessary and clearly intended to do harm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Promotion_of_conspiracy_theories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Promotion_of_conspir... and downwards is a good place to start - the idea that Wikileaks are some kind of bastion of good journalism is pretty naff
- chmod775 6y ago
  > not because of some technicality but because Wikileaks have a very flexible relationship with basic principles of good journalism and are clearly prepared to play politics when it suits them. By that definition there's hardly anyone who could be called a journalist. It's also a textbook example of a "no true scotsman" fallacy. A journalist is someone who does journalistic work, so he's a journalist, even if he's a bad one.

willis936 6y ago

If they haven’t investigated and written in search of the truth, they are not journalists. Just as I wasn’t an engineer until I started designing and making things.

jcbrand 6y ago
Interesting to see how programmers have turned into "engineers" the last decade or so. Do you have an engineering degree? Used to be that you'd have to be registered as a professional engineer before calling yourself one.
- willis936 6y ago
  I have an MSEE, worked in a test house during school, and currently work on a very physically real machine with a title of “engineer”; not that any of that is relevant. Are you agreeing with my point? Not everyone who calls themself something is that thing. Assange is certainly not a journalist.

mhh__ 6y ago

Assange has done journalistic work, but he isn't a journalist, not because of some technicality but because Wikileaks have a very flexible relationship with basic principles of good journalism and are clearly prepared to play politics when it suits them. If Assange is a mere journalist, he and his organisations are hypocrites because of their use of NDAs and either malicious or deeply incompetent in their complete disregard for the privacy of people (bystanders) mentioned in their dumps. For example, dumping the credit card numbers and addresses of donors to the Democratic Party is unnecessary and clearly intended to do harm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Promotion_of_conspiracy_theories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Promotion_of_conspir... and downwards is a good place to start - the idea that Wikileaks are some kind of bastion of good journalism is pretty naff

chmod775 6y ago
> not because of some technicality but because Wikileaks have a very flexible relationship with basic principles of good journalism and are clearly prepared to play politics when it suits them. By that definition there's hardly anyone who could be called a journalist. It's also a textbook example of a "no true scotsman" fallacy. A journalist is someone who does journalistic work, so he's a journalist, even if he's a bad one.