April 18, 2005

WASHINGTON - Just what is a journalist?

That was the topic of a very interesting National Press Club panel discussion two Fridays ago on the 8th. Its panelists included a reporter from my paper, and three of the arguably most famous names in the world of political blogs- Ana Marie Cox, Garrett Graff, and Jeff Gannon.

Gannon could be argued to be the reason the NPC hosted the forum in the first place.  After being in the White House press room for two years, bloggers pointed out Gannon wrote for a fake news organization funded by a GOP operative, and had no prior experience before gaining access to the heavily-secured White House. This was just one of the many instances where bloggers had taken on stories that no one else would cover and eventually changed history.  One example is the 60 Minutes "Memogate" of last year.

The forum touched on what it took to be a "journalist" by definition.  Did a journalist have to belong to an accredited news organization with an office and a seat in the Senate Press Gallery, or could a journalist be anyone that relayed information from one source to another, more specifically the public?  Were blogs, without editorial oversight or a real market force (like newspaper subscriptions) to keep their reporting accountable, news reporters or just gossip?

To me, I think blogs are a very personal news service.  As one panelist pointed out, all stories on blogs are posted with an agenda in mind, and that's at the mercy of the person behind the blog.  But since they are on the Internet, blogs aren't really in need of a screening of that agenda.  Internet users choose to visit a blog, whereas the Washington Post, Times, and Examiner are really the only comprehensive news sources in the city, because of their credibility and manpower.  Because of that, they need to be fair, balanced, and much more accurate because of libel laws and because it costs money to disseminate the news, and people won't pay for lies and half-truths.

I could make a thesis out of the facets behind "What is a journalist?" so I'll stop here with that.  Come to think of it, I do need a topic for my Honors Thesis...

Anyway, off that topic, life here has been very busy.  The cherry blossoms are out, the Senate filibuster is in, and I've been scoring better and better stories and getting bylines to boot.  Since they're all under the subscription-only part of CongressDaily's magazine, you'll just have to LexisNexis me.  It's C-H-A-P-U-R-A, so spell it right.

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