Are We Really 'All Journalists Now,' Or, Can Anyone 'Do Journalism'?

Scott Rosenberg has an interesting take: don’t define and protect “journalists” — protect “journalism.”

I’ve been asked to defend the tenet “We are all journalists now.” But there are so many questions in those five words!

Who is we? What is a journalist? When is now? And, most importantly, for those of you whose memories extend back to the Clinton administration, what is the meaning of is — or in this case, “are”?

So I’m not happy with “we are all journalists now.” Let’s give it an edit. Let’s change it to “Now, anyone can do journalism.”

He’s right, of course. But then, he’s always been right. Anyone can do journalism, and always has. It’s not a science; it’s not even an art. It’s a craft, and one that be learned — and is best learned — by doing.

… we probably need to do one more tweak of the wording, maybe to “Now, anyone who’s online can do journalism” — or “Now, anyone on the network can do journalism.”

Now these are tenets I can get behind.

This new medium has opened the doors of “journalism” to just about anybody with a computer and a modem. No J-school credentials necessary: just see, type, make as sure as you can that you’ve got it right, and go:

Here’s my take: You’re doing journalism when you’re delivering an accurate and timely account of some event to some public.

Let’s break it down.

First part: journalism demands the pursuit of an accurate and timely account of some event.

If you don’t care about accuracy, then you’re doing fiction.

If you don’t care about timeliness, then you’re doing history.

But what about the line between “amateur” and “professional” journalists?

… journalism demands “publication”: a presentation of that accurate and timely account to some public.

Publication, of course, is what the Internet has put in everybody’s hands. But publication, the act of making something public, is a spectrum:

If you’re keeping the account to yourself, it’s obviously private.

If you’re posting it on an open web page, it’s obviously public.

Charging for it or not charging for it is mostly irrelevant.

And paying the salary of the person doing it is similarly irrelevant, I’d argue.

Please read this important essay, a version of a speech Rosenberg — the co-founder of Salon — gave recently at Stanford Law School, in which he invents what I think is a terrific concept: the notion of the “private practice” journalist. No government accreditation necessary (what a horror that would be, as well as anti-Consitutional), nor even any proof of employment by the dinosaur media:

So on this question — can the law still differentiate professional journalists — I come down strongly on the “no” side. The law should give up. The law should stop trying to protect journalists, and instead protect acts of journalism. Any time someone is pursuing an accurate and timely account of some event to present to some public, he or she should be protected by the law in whatever ways we now protect professional journalists.

… if you claim to be a journalist, your work can and should be judged by the standards of journalism. Are the facts right? Does the story you tell track a recognizable reality? Does it serve your public in some way? Does that public have access to channels of feedback that hold you accountable?

These standards are what matter. If you meet them, then I don’t care whether your business card says you are a journalist.

Sadly, there are plenty of people walking around with journalism business cards whose work doesn’t meet those standards. So every time we ask this question, “How do we maintain accuracy and accountability in reporting when anyone can claim to be a journalist?” we should also ask about how we can hold the existing population of professional journalists to the same standards.

No wonder the Old Media hates and fears the New Media.