My latest follower on Twitter (I’m up to 67) is ICFJ, the International Center for Journalists, which is dedicated to “advancing quality journalism worldwide.”
The trick these days, of course, is to figure out how to do that and make money at it. The woods are full of unemployed journalists such as myself, and we’re all for producing quality work (preferably “good-quality,” as opposed to those other kinds), long as somebody will in return provide us with the means to put groceries on the table.
While I’ve slowed down a bit on the blogging lately, I’m just Twittering and Facebooking to beat the band out here and it’s interesting and ground-breaking and all that, but where’s the paycheck. I see that the NYT can afford to pay someone to do this stuff, but beyond the Gray Lady I’m not seeing all that many opportunities.
Yet.
It’s challenging out here in the Fifth Estate (that’s what comes after a career in the Fourth Estate, right?).
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It’s going to take a whole new business model for it to really work, in my opinion. (Not including having a political consultant footing the bill, of course.)
Content with value.
The reason most journalists can’t make money with web sites is the same as the reason newspapers can’t make money on the Internet – most of their content is worthless pap.
They don’t do a good job of covering the story, leave out important facts, and write their opinions and to promote their political agenda.
Well, we do try…
Brad, as a voter who holds a vibrant Fourth Estate indispensible, I have long held this opinion:
Journalists should be certified to report only in their area(s) of specialization, or required to admit amateurism and include disclaimers of working knowledge in areas in which they are not specialists.
Not only would this reduce propagation of journalistic errors, it could improve content and value with applicable background and contrasting facts.
Was looking forward to Health and Happiness from you–hope all is well….
Dino, you will be happy with the Democrats’ plans to censor the news.
They plan to use licensing to control news content and commentary.
It is illegal, of course, but so is everything else they have passed in the last 2 years.
Brad,
No, modern media doesn’t even try to do a decent job of reporting the news. Big Media enjoys being the fourth branch of government, the Step-n-Fetchit for the big wheels.
Matt Drudge, working out of a cheap apartment, ran a bigger web site than most major newspapers, and broke the biggest coverup story of the 1990s: President Clinton playing with the interns (plural) and buying one of them off with a $90,000 State Department job.
Lee Muller, news censorship would certainly NOT make me happy, and it is neither part nor parcel of the certification I suggest. In fact, with individual certifications at risk of revocation by SC LL&R (not the federal govm’t) reporters would have personal stakes in professional reporting standards and the media would have vested stakes in professionalism.
Journalism schools producing biased reporters would also gain a stake … their reputations.
Editors might have a more difficult life, however. So what?
The only reason the State cares about who is a journalist, and about licensing who can be a journalist, is to subvert journalism into propaganda.
Politicians, both elected and bureaucratic, do enough of that now by elevating access and status of those who broadcast what they want, and degrading the credentials and access of those who are critical, making them worth less to their employers.
The so-called Fairness Doctrine is all about silencing what few sources there are for opposition to socialism on radio and television.
What sort of credentials do you foresee, Dino? Advanced degrees? Certificates?
Personally, I have always judged the work of a journalist by the work itself. Either it checks out and makes sense, or it doesn’t. Either the explanations are sound and understandable, or they aren’t. And if they aren’t, you have lots of sources for finding that out.
An important predictor of journalistic quality is experience. For instance, it’s hard to imagine what kind of credential Cindi Scoppe might obtain that would be as solid as her two decades of delving deeply into the doings of the Legislature. She understands what happens there better than the overwhelming majority of actual participants, and explains it better than anyone. So what kind of credential could she get that would add to that? I suppose you could print this out and I could sign it, but I don’t see what else.
I wouldn’t want to see her take a couple of years off from the job to get an advanced degree in statehouse-ology. I’d rather she spend the time keeping both eyes on those jokers. Her work speaks for itself, and is its own best recommendation.
That’s the way I see it, anyway.
And what, pray tell, would be MY area of specialization? I’ve spent a career avoiding getting pinned down that way. Sure, I know more about SC gummint and politics than most journalists in the world (maybe even in SC), but I’m not a specialist at it the way Cindi is. And I can’t touch Warren Bolton on knowing the players in metropolitan affairs.
I am a dedicated generalist. And either what I have to say checks out and makes sense or it doesn’t. Plenty of y’all think it does, plenty of others say it doesn’t. It is what it is.
Brad, my brother said that he’s probably kept his job because he is a specialist. It looks like it’s the GPs of journalism that are getting let off first. Of course, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have you guys, but you do pay a price, I’m thinking.
Brad,
Since you like World War II so much, why don’t you write something about the heroes from Columbia, or South Carolina? Some have already had their strories told in film, but there are others who have not, and some who are still alive.
Brad –
Just got back to find your question, “And what, pray tell, would be MY area of specialization?”
Journslists with significant experience, such as yours, would no doubt be “grandfathered” under a new certification process like practitioners of earlier certified professions. As to what particular specialization(s) you might wish to claim, formal and continuing education credit would no doubt help determine your ongoing status.
It is dreadful when journalists with scant education in economics, for instance, expound on political policies.
Lee Muller –
“The only reason the State cares about who is a journalist, and about licensing who can be a journalist, is to subvert journalism into propaganda.”
Recognized professions requiring state certifications operate under ethics practices assuring national scrutiny and, in many cases assuring competition in the form of reciprocity.
Licensing reforms are needed, in my opinion, beyond journalism. The greatest flaw I see in my own CPA profession, by the way, is the current failure of the S.E.C. to require rotation of audit firms at least every 5 years. Scandals we are all familiar with could have been prevented easily under such a requirement.
We can discuss teachers and lawyers another day.
You need to decide whether your family is more important than your ego.
If your family, get a job. If your ego, keep dicking around with your twittering, facebooking and blogging. You need to remember that a principal in Allendale County makes more than the Editorial Editor of The State and is worth more.
Worth more, quite likely. Makes more, highly unlikely. Not the way it should be, perhaps, but there it is.