Some mundane examples:

Teachers know enough about child development and psychology to manage a room full of children and keep them engaged long enough for them to absorb lessons. Teachers know how to reach students with very different backgrounds and learning styles– teaching 20 kids at once, some of whom learn best by seeing, some who learn best by hearing, some who learn best by doing, and some who have difficulty learning at all. This is what a problem-free classroom is like, 180 days a year.

Journalists know that more than one source is necessary in order to state something as a fact. Journalists know to track down and present both sides of a story. Journalislts know that an identified source closest to the heart of a story carries more weight that a source further removed from the action. Journalists know to watch out for their own biases and to try not to be driven by them. Journalists have learned techniques for delving deeper, reaching difficult-to-find people or data.

Do you need a special degree to have these skills? Maybe not. Are teachers and journalists the only ones who have these skills? Certainly not. But that doesn’t mean the people who practice them for a living “know nothing.”

Teachers know how to impart information in ways that make that information accessible to the minds of their students. The difference between a mathematician and an educator in the subject area of mathematics may be great when considered in terms of core competencies. A mathematician specializes to a specific mathematical discipline or set of disciplines and investigates the interaction of the math and the world described. Mathematicians, by and large, are horrible when it comes to meaningful interaction with the minds of an audience outside of their specialty areas. Educators, on the other hand, are trained to impart knowledge. Math teachers do not specialize as intensively in mathematical disciplines; they specialize in the learning styles and capacities of the adolescent and young adult mind, and the tools to meaningfully transmit core competencies to a classroom of students, most of whom do not learn best in identical ways.

Journalism, likewise, aims not to specialize in knowledge of content areas, but in accurate and meaningful transmission of information to an audience. Journalists, as do teachers, will develop certain specialties over time, areas where their reporting is best, subject matter which they have a knack for understanding and imparting. Their subject knowledge is not, however, as mission-critical as their ability to learn and teach.

The instincts to talent and integrity may not be fundamentally teachable beyond early adolescence, but those instincts can be honed and shaped into usable tools. They can, however, be blunted and dulled out of all usefulness much more easily. All you need to do to dull an edge is to cut with it. Sharpening is, inevitably, disproportionately more work.

JennyD, nothing. And the same question could be posed to teachers. What really is a degree in education? With that rather insipid and generalist designation are we to believe that teachers really have the core competency for math science, math, languages, etc?

Today both teachers and journalists are nothing more than guilds – groups that put up barriers to entry most of the time formalized by a union – regardless of how dismal their performance. Their failure to reform reflects this.”

From experience, I can tell you that gathering news can be a frightening experience. My bet is half of the bloggers would soil themselves having to ask the tough questions to famous/important people while being surrounded by other media members and bright lights.

The same goes for classroom teaching. Your ignorance of the subject is alarming. It is a grueling job, physically and mentally.

Here’s my problem: having been in the business in print, I have to say that the only standards were the ones I followed personally, or that my immediate supervisors told me about. I cannot say that there were larger standards that defined the craft.

I can say that the thrill of a good story and getting it out there first was the only standard that seemed to cross every place I worked. In that way, news was just a business, and the product was the good story, and we were like the guys on the assembly line at GM…cranking out new cars and sometimes looking the other way when a bolt was loose.

That was fine for GM and for the news business back in the old days when there were few producers and few products. But now news is everywhere, and so is commentary and just like GM, the news business is in trouble.

The tired banner of “standards and ethics” seems a little thin, just as “made in America” no longer cuts it at GM. So, what next for journalism?

I don’t think J-School is a necessity to be a journalist, btw. It’s a craft, not a profession. Standards are mostly a matter of setting a level that gives you pride in what you do. (I’m such an idealist, really). But today, as opposed to 20 years ago, you can go online and find out what some journalists or educators think should be standards at places like journalism.org or spj.org. You can check out the curricula from a variety of schools, and teach yourself some of the craft…. but most of it will be learned by doing, like most crafts. You’re right – there is nothing special about learning how to interview, or to fact check, or to do research, or to network. There’s nothing special in learning to write a simple declarative sentence or a coherent paragraph. But you need all those simple skills, and you need to use them together. I suspect that’s really what J-School is good for – giving you the opportunity to learn a few skills, and to apply them repeatedly until you can do it decently.

No wonder, we the “bloggers” will always be better than something the media, or even you guys are considering.

You put way to much thought into something true bloggers create for themselves.

Good luck guys…

Huh?

The same way I guess, that newsprint reached those without a quarter, or who couldn’t read.

Also, here’s an example of interviewing skill I once witnessed as a reporter: A chemical plant blew up in NJ. Two workers were killed. I was on the scene and so was someone from an NYC tabloid. The fire chief gave a press conference, noting the workers were killed violently. AFterward the tabloid reporter made a phone call, then came back and said asked this question: “Chief, can we say there were “Body Parts EVerywhere”? What do you suppose the next day’s headline was. Is that the technique taught in J-schools?

What are the normal standards of reportage? After 15 years in the business, I can only guess. Never saw a list or guideliness, not anywhere I ever worked. (I missed J-school.) I never was called to a meeting to talk about a newspaper’s standard of reportage. So where were these standardes made explicit in the profession?

Finally, we often didn’t present all the facts. We presented the facts that we thought were revelant. One rhetorician calls what we did “ordering the world so you can win.” For a story slotted for page one on hikes in gas taxes, we were told to find motorists and get their opinions. After interviewing a dozen, we phoned in. No one cared. We were instructed to keep interviewing until we found people who cared.

Then there’s “context” which is a journalistic practice that’s completely driven by bias. What context does this story need to be understood? The AP runs a story about Condi Rice’s speech at Princeton. The only MSM reporter to go is from the AP who writes about how Rice is in the middle of a controversy over Iraq, over US treatment of Palestinians, etc. But only Iraq was mentioned in her speech. People blogging at the speech saw a very different sitation, one in which she answered questions well, and in depth, and that the situation was remotely confrontational.

Which context is the correct one? If journalism is about direct presentation of the facts withlittle attempt at analysis or interpretation, then which report is more journalistic. (BTW

1. The collecting, writing, editing, and presenting of news or news articles in newspapers and magazines and in radio and television broadcasts.

2. Material written for publication in a newspaper or magazine or for broadcast.

3. The style of writing characteristic of material in newspapers and magazines, consisting of direct presentation of facts or occurrences with little attempt at analysis or interpretation.

If the piece has more focus on what I believe is meant by what happened than on what happened, I don’t regard it as journalism

Your mileage may vary, of course. I think blogs are good at commentary – in rare (but growing) circumstances, some of them are good at journalism.

Frankie
Long Beach, CA

All matters of style, my friend, further proving my point that journalism training is a waste.

Of course those bloggers don’t have reporters on the ground. But, the MSM does and look at the garbage it spews with first hand accounts at their advantage.

This is not to denigrate their writing abilities, but neither are doing what working journalists do.

“Working journalists”?

Carefully explain to me the qualitative difference with “working” journalists. Is it paycheck that makes the difference in your eyes? Commentary is journalism – yes or no?

This is not to denigrate their writing abilities, but neither are doing what working journalists do.

Nada. Talent and integrity aren’t teachable. After that, what is journalism school about except the standardization of style. And this is where talented honest bloggers have a real future.

It’s all about garnering eyeballs in the final analysis. Talent and honesty will win in the level playing field that the internet has opened to all finally.

An example, in my opinion: the NYT’s, boring and suspect. While this blogger and this blogger(only to name a few) are examples of raw talent that are better than the “trained” by many magnitudes. What makes it honest is that the audience participates/corrects facts directly. The MSM, like the Vatican and any closed system, can’t withstand that development.

Teachers actually know a lot about the specific practices that will make them succeed in their profession. (Not all teachers, but many. And Ed Schools can and will do a much better job teaching them these professional practices.) But what does journalism school teach? What specialized practices do journalists know that are not common knowledge?

JennyD, nothing. And the same question could be posed to teachers. What really is a degree in education? With that rather insipid and generalist designation are we to believe that teachers really have the core competency for math science, math, languages, etc?

Today both teachers and journalists are nothing more than guilds – groups that put up barriers to entry most of the time formalized by a union – regardless of how dismal their performance. Their failure to reform reflects this.

The best journalists had no formal training in “journalism school”(what hogwash!). The best teachers, you can bet, threw away the teacher’s manual.

Jim, you’ve said a mouthful.