03-02-2011, 08:14 PM
Grace62 wrote:
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.
I don't see where what I said has the implication in it that there would be some panel "deciding who the most worthy journalists" are. The boards that certify surgeons don't decide, "hey, these guys are the most worthy surgeons". What they do is verify that the person who has their accreditation has the skills to do particular kinds of surgery. That's all the journalism association would do - verify that the accredited person has the skills to do objective reports. And just like a surgeon can have his accreditation taken away for not actually performing by the standards of the board, the journalism association could do the same to journalists who didn't perform by the standards necessary to maintain the accreditation. Sure journalism is a big part art form, but so is surgery. Even though that is the case, there are plenty of aspects to both surgery and journalism that are identifiable skill sets that can be assessed as being present - that's all the certification means, not that the certified surgeons (or journalists) are most worthy.
There's something I don't get with this. I keep getting the impression that many people who've responded don't think that it is possible for a journalism association to identify what is or is not objective reporting, but, in spite of that, the alternative put forward is for consumers of news reports to use the critical thinking skills to ferret out that which is objective from a hodge-podge of journalistic sources. It sure seems like what is being said is that regular old news consumers using critical thinking skills can do something that an association made of journalism academics and practitioners can't.