TAKEAWAY; Try this for your Monday mental workout: attempt to define what journalism is. Go ahead and do it. Send me your definitions, please.
Journalism by any other name…
It is only 11 days into 2010, but I have already been presented with one of those questions that make you stop in the middle of the morning run, look up to the cloudy sky above you in Paris, and see if you can get help from up there.
The questioner is Mick O’Reilly, deputy managing editor at the Gulf News of Dubai, and here is how he phrased it:
I’m wondering if you can help me: I’m trying to set a benchmark for measuring journalism standards at Gulf News. Obviously, this is subjective, but I’m trying to be as objective as possible. Couple of questions: Do you have (or have you come across) a definition of what journalism is?
(Sounds very simple, but you need to define it so you can measure it!)
Well, Mick, this is a tough one for sure, and I am certainly glad we live in the days of blogs and digital serendipity, able to turn around and make corrections, additions or subtractions to what we have said the day before. In fact, I welcome our readers to offer their own definitions of journalism. But here is mine.
What is journalism?
Well, to call it factual storytelling would be too limiting, since what we understand as journalism is, indeed, also interpretation, analysis, clarification of the facts. To tie journalism to news would also leave out many other potential areas which I would place under the umbrella of journalism, such as commentary, essays, personal columns and interviews.
If we now tackle the definition of journalism as the larger umbrella that covers storytelling in a variety of platforms, then we could say that journalism is about gathering and processing a variety of information and adapting it for dissemination through a platform which best serves its communicating it to an audience. I like the term journalism, and I am sure you do, too, but I am certain that we will probably come up with another term to describe it in the years to come.
The word journalism starts with a “journal”——which we associate with paper. The word carries that root of the printed platform in many languages. In Spanish, it is “periodismo” based on the word “periodico” for newspaper. Obviously, journalism encompasses much more than one medium, as it has for a long time. We refer to broadcast journalism, for example, to differentiate it from print journalism. I don’t know if anyone uses digital journalism, but online journalist is a term I have heard repeatedly in the past two years. The writers who write for online programs, such as The Daily Beast, are journalists, based on the functions they perform, except nobody there will be heard shouting: Get Me Rewrite!
Should they, then, be called “digital journalists”, or “digital communicators” if we wish to eliminate the “journal” part of it. We all know that Tina Brown, its founder and editor, is a journalist in the fullest definition of the word, except that right now she does not write or edit for a “journal” as such.
If a new term is coined for “journalism” it should perhaps be more related to “storytelling”. However, it is probably not a bad idea to stick to “journalism”, a constant reminder of what we are all about. I doubt that a new word could communicate so much in a few seconds: the mission, the craft, the history, the feel good mood that comes when it is practiced well.
I am sure you agree that the basic premise of what we do has not changed at all : to tell stories. It is the processes and platforms that keep changing faster than we can report about them.
In a sense, the journalism we practice today is perhaps more attuned to people’s sensitivities. It is smarter (or it would not survive), and it definitely is more opinionated (which my journalism professors in the 1960s would have frowned upon, but which today’s audiences not only expect, but also respect).
Let me try the Tweeter test, which I often use to see if I can explain something quickly and briefly in 140 characters. My Tweeter attempt at defining journalism:
Journalism: the art of storytelling, explaining issues with clarity, presenting all sides, utilizing the right platform, keeping us engaged
Yes, I am out of breath and out of space, and yet I wanted to add this:
…..and making us want to pay for it.
In 2010 and beyond, few discussions or definitions of journalism will take place without someone asking about how good journalism will be supported.
Measuring standards in the newsroom
Mick’s second question was a little easier to address,
Have you ever come across a means of measuring daily journalism standards? (In other words is there a scientific grid for an ism?)
In this case, I channeled Mick’s question through David Shedden, Director of The Poynter Institute for Media Studies Library, who offered a source he considers to be perhaps one of the best available:
The best source I found is the following document from Northwestern’s Media Management Center:
“Managing for Excellence: Measurement Tools for Quality Journalism.”
http://www.slideshare.net/victori98pt/measurement-tools-for-quality-journalism
Let us hear from you
I am particularly interested in how younger journalists define their crafts. I also wonder how introductory courses in journalism schools address the definition of journalism.
TheMarioBlog post #448