Search For Truth More Important Than Title

Who is a journalist?

That is the question that Jeff Gannon, alias James Guckert, asked in his own defense during a National Press Club panel last week.

“One does wonder where the lines are these days that distinguish between legitimate reporters and anyone who has a laptop computer or a Web site. Where do the bloggers fit in,” long-time UPI correspondent Helen Thomas asked in her recent column devoted to the issue. “They may have something to say - and nobody is stopping them.”

“Still,” she said, “the description ‘journalist’ does not apply to what they do.”

Whoa! Ms. Thomas. Love your work over the years, but . . .

There’s more.

She quotes Edward Wasserman, a professor of journalism at Washington and Lee University, who defines a journalist as someone who “is professionally dedicated to truth seeking.” He conceded that although the whole job description “has gotten muddied,” Gannon shouldn’t be considered a journalist.

“Gannon was a propagandist, a flack for the White House,” she said. “Thus, he fails to meet the requirement - as Wasserman wrote in the Miami Herald last September - that ‘anybody who enters the (journalism) profession makes a core commitment to do his or her best to determine and tell the truth.’”

Oh, Ms. Thomas. If only that were true.

Just because someone published on a Weblog does not mean they are all fakes like Gannon and do not seek the truth. And just because someone writes for a print newspaper or magazine - forgetting radio and television for the moment - does not mean they truly spend their time and resources seeking the truth.

In fact, it is painfully obvious these days that most “newsworkers” spend most of their time re-writing press releases.

A common phrase in D.C. offices is, “Are you committing journalism over there?”

The answer?

“Yes, I’m rewriting press releases. If we get done in time we can catch nine holes at Haines Point.”

Not that there’s anything wrong with the golf part of that. We all need leisure time, especially when it is 72 degrees with few clouds in the sky and the cherry blossoms are blooming.

It’s just that the public relations industry does most of the work of what passes for mainstream journalism today, the stuff you see printed in most daily and weekly newspapers and magazines. The same is true for television news, although news directors tend to rely on the print media’s factual reporting on breaking news.

More interesting questions that came up at the National Press Association session were: What is a profession? And: Is journalism a profession?

Shortly after introducing myself to moderator Rick Durnham, president of the National Press Club and White House correspondent for Business Week, I sent this link along in an e-mail message. It answers both questions in an academic paper I researched and wrote a few year’s back.

IS JOURNALISM A BONA FIDE PROFESSION?
What the literature and the law reveal.
By Glynn R. Wilson
A paper presented at the AEJMC Southeast Colloquium, Newspaper Division March 9-11, 1995.

I haven’t heard back from Mr. Durnham, yet. He said he would consider asking me to serve on the next panel discussion about it, since I was about the only person in the room who happens to be a journalist, a blogger AND a scholar on the subject.

I argue in the paper that under the law, journalism should never attain bona fide professional status in the U.S. We will never be licensed like lawyers, doctors, jet pilots and psychiatrists.

The problem with bloggers to those who want to call journalism a profession is that they can’t control the vetting process of who breaks out and becomes known in today’s celebrity-driven media culture. Limiting the careers of rebels in the ranks is a hallmark of the print journalism hierarchy, the journalism equivalent of peer review in the sciences and academe.

The problem with that system is the result: A bland product results from advancing only those who are good at PR and do not rock the boat and occassionally piss somebody off, like maybe the president.

Most of the journalists going after bloggers for going after Gannon fall into the journalism as a profession camp, whether they know it or acknowledge it or not.

Most of the bloggers going after Gannon do so because they have a journalistic instinct that sends up a red flag signaling that Gannon is not telling the truth about how he got his access to the White House.

There is more to this story, and it has a lot to do with a key question President George W. Bush himself told the American Society of Newspaper Editor to ask presidential candidates in the future. Transcript

President Bush: Somebody said, well, how do you describe the presidency? I said, it is a decision-making job; I make a lot of decisions. At your next editorial board, when you’re dealing with a future President, you ought to say, how do you intend to make decisions; what is the process by which you will make large decisions and small decisions; how do you decide?

Indeed. How did this president go about making the decision to go to war in Iraq? How did he decide to take on Social Security at this time? What prompts him to screw poor folks at every legislative turn, from bankruptcy laws to tort reform? Could the answer lie in the corporate interest of Bush’s friends and supporters? Duh.

Back to the Gannon question.

How did this administration decide to allow a gay male prostitute access to the White House to pose as a journalist and ask sympathetic, softball questions?

That is a question we do not have an answer for, yet - from the “professional” press or the blogosphere.

Is it just me?

Or does it appear that bloggers are spending more time and resources trying to get at the truth of this question than the press corps?

On his own Web site, Gannon is certainly not providing any credible answers. The best I can tell Mr. Gannon is not much of a journalist, a blogger - or a propagandist.

But more power to him for trying. The First Amendment allows it.

And let’s face it, it’s great fun to make fun of him.

He should be a complete embarrassment to the White House, the Republican Party and certainly the Christian Right.

Where is the Rev. Jerry Falwell on the Gannon story? In the hospital with heart trouble I hear.

Any connection? You decide.

GW

Tags: Journalism v. Bloggers: A Profession?

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