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+--- Thread: "Accredited Clinical Journalist" (/showthread.php?tid=112874)
Re: "Accredited Clinical Journalist" - Gutenberg - 03-01-2011
Ted, you are trying to fit people into slots like cogs. People are not cogs. People do not behave in a predictable fashion. You cannot possibly make a list of criteria and then pronounce the product good if the criteria are observed. We are not talking about a machine; we are talking about human effort, and that makes "objectivity" a moving target. You simply cannot machine a human concept.
Re: "Accredited Clinical Journalist" - cbelt3 - 03-01-2011
Gute-
In reality, you CAN. that's what certification bodies are all a bout.
However, certification bodies are merely a product. They produce a 'certification' that then becomes a mark of 'trust'.
For example.. UL registered products and CCA registered products are supposedly 'safe'. But in the 1990's, UL's 'mark' lost 'value' because they got sloppy about audits and certifications. And the chinese photocopy fraudsters put the UL mark on everything, whether it was actually UL certified or not.
Ultimately certification bodies are merely a compilation of free market pressures. In terms of Journalism, I'd prefer to leave it to the individual product than some amorphous centralized function.
Re: "Accredited Clinical Journalist" - Ted King - 03-01-2011
Gutenberg wrote:
Ted, you are trying to fit people into slots like cogs. People are not cogs. People do not behave in a predictable fashion. You cannot possibly make a list of criteria and then pronounce the product good if the criteria are observed. We are not talking about a machine; we are talking about human effort, and that makes "objectivity" a moving target. You simply cannot machine a human concept.
Tell that to the board that certifies psychiatrists. :-)
Re: "Accredited Clinical Journalist" - Black Tea - 03-01-2011
swampy wrote:
It might make more sense to teach kids how to distinguish the
difference between objectivity in reporting and opinion.
Too bad journalism school isn't teaching journalists that.
Re: "Accredited Clinical Journalist" - mattkime - 03-01-2011
Black Tea wrote:
[quote=swampy]
It might make more sense to teach kids how to distinguish the
difference between objectivity in reporting and opinion.
Too bad journalism school isn't teaching journalists that.
How do you know whats taught in journalism school?
Re: "Accredited Clinical Journalist" - August West - 03-01-2011
How do you know whats taught in journalism school?
Beck and Limbaugh told him.
Re: "Accredited Clinical Journalist" - Ted King - 03-01-2011
Grace62 wrote:
I think what you suggest is an impediment to first amendment freedom of the press Ted. Here's why. Any such "accreditation," in order for it to have any meaning whatsoever, would have to carry some weight of authority. That means that the people who receive it would have more power in their profession, and those not receiving would risk being marginalized. This would impact how they report, and who they choose to investigate. That limits freedom of the press, something we rely upon for a free and open society.
Again, who would get to decide the standards, and choose which journalists pass muster? What about THEIR biases?
Here's an example. Think about the run up to the Iraq war. Well-respected journalists such as those at the NYT, NPR, and other well-regarded outlets were beating the war drums and accepting mostly without question that Iraq had WMD's. Those questioning this assumption were mostly on the outer edges of journalism.
If we were to develop some sort of accreditation, people like NYT reporters would likely get it, and some of the lesser known bloggers, who have been instrumental in uncovering governmental
wrong-doing, would have a tougher time. Do you see the problem?
I think your Iraq war example implies the opposite of what you think it does. If NYT and NPR journalists had been objective (as they would have to try very hard to be to retain a ACJ standing) then they would not have been "beating the war drums". If the vast majority of main stream media had been objective then it would have been the war drum beaters who would have been marginalized. I think if journalist accreditation had been in place during the lead up to the Iraq war, we would have been less likely to have been duped into the war. It was a classic case of the lines being blurred between objective reporting and advocacy of a particular point of view - the very thing that having accreditation should help ameliorate.
I don't think an optional journalism accreditation would lead to the marginalization of non-accredited people as sources of information about what is going on in the world. I think it would crisp up a line that has been getting more and more blurred. People would tend to look for ACJ when they want just the facts, ma'am. But most people would also look to other sources for information and interpretation that goes beyond just the facts, ma'am. The good thing is that they could be more confident about the base facts from which to try to understand the other information and interpretations.
You asked, "Again, who would get to decide the standards, and choose which journalists pass muster? What about THEIR biases?" The same concern could be asked about any accrediting agency, couldn't it?
I would like to clarify that there would be nothing from stopping a ACJ journalist from creating whatever report they wanted - regarding or disregarding accrediting criteria as they choose - as long as they did not put the "ACJ" on their byline. I can see them doing so in a great many longer "color" reports from an individual perspective can add value for a lot of consumers of the report. You mentioned something in an earlier post about liking depth and breadth in a report. There are times when I like that, too. But I think that depth and breadth can be thought of as informational context for the main feature of the report. It seems to me that a journalist could make a longer report where they stuck to the accreditation guidelines in presenting that greater informational context. If you mean depth and breadth to also include non-objective elements, then I can see the value in that as well, but, then it would be easy for the journalist to not sign the report "ACJ".
Re: "Accredited Clinical Journalist" - $tevie - 03-01-2011
mattkime wrote:
[quote=Black Tea]
[quote=swampy]
It might make more sense to teach kids how to distinguish the
difference between objectivity in reporting and opinion.
Too bad journalism school isn't teaching journalists that.
How do you know whats taught in journalism school?
Excellent question!
Re: "Accredited Clinical Journalist" - Grace62 - 03-02-2011
Ted King wrote:
[quote=Grace62]
I think what you suggest is an impediment to first amendment freedom of the press Ted. Here's why. Any such "accreditation," in order for it to have any meaning whatsoever, would have to carry some weight of authority. That means that the people who receive it would have more power in their profession, and those not receiving would risk being marginalized. This would impact how they report, and who they choose to investigate. That limits freedom of the press, something we rely upon for a free and open society.
Again, who would get to decide the standards, and choose which journalists pass muster? What about THEIR biases?
Here's an example. Think about the run up to the Iraq war. Well-respected journalists such as those at the NYT, NPR, and other well-regarded outlets were beating the war drums and accepting mostly without question that Iraq had WMD's. Those questioning this assumption were mostly on the outer edges of journalism...
I think your Iraq war example implies the opposite of what you think it does. If NYT and NPR journalists had been objective (as they would
Ted, the journalists who just reported the White House line pre-Iraq without much question WERE the journalists considered to be the most "objective" by the mainstream media at the time. They would've had those little letters after their names, giving even more credence to what they were saying. Also, they were duped by the White House, but that's another story.
The BBC was far less gullible than the American press, but that country still went to war with us.
I think you're trying to apply a concept that works really well in academia and in the realm of health sciences and some other professions and apply it to something that is more art than science, and that is journalism.
It just makes no sense to me to have some panel sitting around deciding who are the most worthy journalists, and giving them some seal of approval. That's like having some panel hang around the Met and decide who the really good singers are, and give them some special letters to put after their names. It's art. It just doesn't lend itself to that type of qualification. The person might sing well today, and then suck tomorrow.
We'll know if someone is consistently really good, because, well, we just know.
Re: "Accredited Clinical Journalist" - Seacrest - 03-02-2011
http://www.propublica.org/