News Without Reporters

[cwo_ghwebb]

One of journalists’ recurring put-downs of bloggers is that they are simply recycling someone else’s news — that there will always be a need for reporters to produce it. Yet, America had a reporterless past and will likely have a reporterless future. And, news will be better for it.

We have lost perspective on what a reporter actually is — a middleman. On one side are news events. On the other are audiences who want to know about them. A reporter’s job is to move “the truth” from Point A to Point B as accurately as possible.

For the first century of their existence, the public had a realistic view of what full-time reporters actually did and awarded them the appropriate, low level of status. Legendary editor Walter Lippmann wrote in 1919 that “reporting is not a dignified profession for which men will invest the time and cost of an education, but an underpaid, insecure, anonymous form of drudgery, conducted on catch-as-catch-can principles.”

Now we have journalists, whose intent is to be the news, with their inclusive bias, rather than report the news.

Interesting read, imho.

Pajamas Media » Blog Archive » News Without Reporters

All we need are camera men filming things broadcast into homes with out commentary .........

[cwo_ghwebb]

The who, what, when, where and why have left the lexicon of the graduates of Columbia School of Journalism. Now it's how the reporter empathizes with a victim and asks stupid questions while shoving a microphone up their nose asking, "How did you feel when you saw your child with their throat ear to ear?"

Followup questions are usually "How did Bush screw this up? Don't you blame the government?"

[Larry Gude (Premo)]

Originally Posted by cwo_ghwebb

[ . Yet, America had a reporterless past

...and if you think things are partisan now, you have some history to catch up on.

This is no defense of reporters. They play an access game, by and large, and, as someone said, are very much interested in being in the story. They do not report; they editorialize.

It would be kewl to have a national source that simply reports and has the resources to put things in context within the story. Of course, this would ruin the in depth pieces people do later and kill the tell all book business.

[Mateo]

Originally Posted by Larry Gude

...and if you think things are partisan now, you have some history to catch up on.

This is no defense of reporters. They play an access game, by and large, and, as someone said, are very much interested in being in the story. They do not report; they editorialize.

It would be kewl to have a national source that simply reports and has the resources to put things in context within the story. Of course, this would ruin the in depth pieces people do later and kill the tell all book business.

Well said.
The big problem now is that there is no longer the desire to tell the story as factually as possible, but to inject opinions, not to inform, but in a feckles attempt to pump up their own personal monetary value.
They want to be media stars. They don't realize what true buffoons they are when they are used as political hacks by those wanting to present themselves as "victims".
Case in point, Christine Anapour reporting in the midst of the Balkan wars, was used as a dupe to present the Balkan Moslems as victims. Hence our diplomatic effort was made to make the Serbs look like the only perpetrators of atrocities., and we accordingly bombed the Serbs into submission.
Little did we know, given the state of education and study into the history of that region , was that we weakened our hand and strengthened the drive towards a moslem reconquest of our allies that I know we shall rue in the future. We seem to have forgotten that the Moslem minorities sided with the nazis during WW2, and our recognition of their takeover of Kossovo is nothing more than the latest episode .
Goebbels was correct in saying that he who controls the news controls the nation.

[cwo_ghwebb]

Originally Posted by Larry Gude

...and if you think things are partisan now, you have some history to catch up on.

Not a question of partisanship. I think I liked it better in the past, when folks expressed their opinion in their papers, but didn't report it as fact. Something from the article intrigued me, the definition in the past of freedom of the press. Different than what is commonly accepted now.

I think news would be more fun to watch if we had the social norms of several hundred years ago. I'd like to see Obama and Clinton square off in a duel.