Dr. David Hazinski, former NBC correspondent turned associate professor of telecommunications and head of broadcast news at the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism, finds unfettered “citizen journalism” too risky and argues that the news industry should find some way to monitor and regulate this new trend.
As you might guess, the reaction in the blogosphere to Hazinski’s piece has been (as I write this) uniformly negative. Generally, the criticisms tend to fall along the lines of pointing out the MSM’s recent follies and noting that Hazinski has a startlingly stunted view of the First Amendment for someone of his ilk. The pieces at HotAir and Q&O (among others) make these points nicely, so I will not rehash them here.
Instead, let’s look at one part of those juicy quotes from a slightly different perspective.
Hazinsky writes:
Education, skill and standards are really what make people into trusted professionals.
Others have noted that J-school need not be a prerequisite for good journalism. However, just for the sake of argument, let us accept this point in its entirety.
If education, skill and standards are really what make people into trusted professionals, what should Dr. Hazinski infer from polling data showing that since 1985, a majority of adults have come to believe that news stories are often inaccurate and that the media is politically biased? What should he infer from the fact that favorable opinion of television news and newspapers has dropped across the board since 2001? What should he infer from consistent polling data over time ranking the trustworthiness of journalists just ahead of lawyers and just behind used-car salesmen?
Specifically, what should he infer about J-schools like the one he leads and the degree of skill they impart to their students?
The irony of a former NBC hack writing that article in the AJC is almost too rich to comprehend.
Here in the county where I live, nowhere near far enough from Atlanta for my taste, a sometime NBC correspondent has been among those griping about noise from an outdoor shooting range that’s part of a new upscale housing development. He’s helped stir up quite the campaign against the range.
Personally, I’d rather have that gun range as a neighbor than an NBC correspondent. At least the noise coming from the range is honest and sensible.
This professor glosses over the “problems” with the phrase “but unlike those other professions;” it should read “unlike professions.”
Journalism is NOT a profession. It can’t be. Professionals like doctors, teachers, and even ministers tend to have these things common: a specific degree is required, as is a license or membership in a guild, a code of conduct exists and your peers can throw you out of the profession for being bad at it. Try contacting a newspaper or TV newsroom and ask for their codes of conduct and see what reactions you get.
The first amendment means journalism can’t be a profession and I’m cool with that.
In the article he cites the retired general at the CNN YouTube debate as an example of the problem with citizen journalism instead of a problem with CNN.
What he should infer is that he and his colleagues have failed and the failure is crash and burn and explode level. With this level of failure, he should resign immdiately.
As I see it, the main problem with “professional” journalism is that it’s taught in a university setting, wherein the very idea of seeking and reporting objective Truth (rather than truth tainted with political bias) is made moot by a climate of moral relativism. The prevalent university climate which pervades all departments insists that there is no such thing as objective fact and that all writing is political.
I love the phrase “citizen journalist”? When the hell did journalists enlist?
…he he, I said “tainted.”
Is it any wonder someone can write crap like this when it is a known FACT that 90% of journalism students and journalist in general are card carrying members of the Democrat party. It seems to me the main problem these people have with any other form of media is that it strays from the party line, hence their propensity to cite “objective” sources such as Media Matters and Daily Kos while bashing Fox News and talk radio at every opportunity.
Here are some telling quotes from some of Journalism’s “best” and “brightest.”
Society of Professional Journalists, Sigma Delta Chi code of ethics: “Truth is our ultimate goal. Objectivity in reporting the news is another goal…â€Â
Robert Bazell, NBC News correspondent, “Objectivity is a fallacy…. There are different opinions, but you don’t have to give them equal weight.â€Â
Irving R. Levine, NBC News, “The reporter has got to determine, ultimately, what is valid and what is not.â€Â
Linda Ellerbee, reporter and commentator, “There is no such thing as objectivity. Any reporter who tells you he’s objective is lying to you.â€Â
Objectivity defined in the dictionary, “Existing independent of mind; emphasizing or expressing the nature of reality as it is apart from personal reflections or feelings.â€Â
Any questions?
Society of Professional Journalists, Sigma Delta Chi code of ethics: “Truth is our ultimate goal. Objectivity in reporting the news is another goal…â€Â
Too bad “truth” seems to be anything that advances their personal opinions on subjects, ie. Global warming is man’s fault, the war in Iraq is a failure, Republicans are corrupt and evil, the economy is bad as long as George Bush is in office, and my personal favorite Democrat candidates for president are “rock stars” and everyone loves them.
What is it with university professors having porridge for brains?
Prof. Numbskull 2 – When the “professionals” start acting like professionals, then those annoying little citizens will have much less reason to criticize you and those poorly trained lying buttplugs that operate under the name of journalists today.
Shouldn’t truth be more than a goal?
It’s more than just a goal, it’s a good idea.
Disclosure: I’m in one of my overly-earnest moods, and I do not trust these moods, nor should you.
But I have lately had some experience to shape my opinion of men and women who make their living as journalists, and I have to say they run the gamut, just like ‘citizen journalists” might be expected to.
Selling papers and/or being interesting to readers is not exactly a crime among journalists of any description. But some write the story before they get it, and look at information only in the light that can support that story. I”ve had my own quotes peeled from context until gruesomely distorted to fit preconceived narratives. Others have a more honest let the facts tell the story approach…and some, real craft.
The real danger to journalism, IMHO, would be shutting up challenge and competition to any particular narrative. Free flow of information is a check on dishonesty. Reckless and careless reporting is risky in the information rich world. Someone will fact check your ass. Someone will annouce your bias, should you try to conceal it. Reputation matters more.
I remember a paradigm shift in my thinking about news blogging, which I viewed as mere collection and summarizing, or all-op-ed, all the time, for the benefit of discussion clubs. Rathergate was unfolding, and there were Davids and slingshots all about taking aim at what certain typeface and spacing details might mean. And then (MUST CREDIT INDC JOURNAL) a blogger I enjoyed reading frequently, and respected a good deal, did something that amazed me. He picked up the phone , like a “real” journalist might, and called a typeface expert. What what what? You can do that?
A person can do that. And tell everybody all about it.
It doesn’t seem like much of a big deal in hindsight, but at the time the idea of a blogger going and getting a story, instead of just analyzing or comparing or talking about other people’s stories, was one of those Oprah-style light bulb moments, that changed my idea of what blogging made possible – it was in symbiosis with the MSM, but also…a genuine competitor for elements of any story. Sometimes, the whole story.
It’s not just any truth, guys, it’s “The Truth”, capital T’s.
A Platonic Ideal.
Yeah. Good luck with that…
Get thee behind me!
Um, I don’t think you want to turn your back on that dude, mojo. He looks horny.
Wait wait wait – so bloggers et al are considered “citizen journalists” as OPPOSED to the professionals – does that mean the MSM are not citizens?
Has anyone checked their immigration status? Have they overstayed their visas? Two birds and all that…
Or it could just be another insulated academic having no freaking idea what the impact of his poorly chosen words will be…
This line just kills, and it’s his best, and really only, argument for “fetters” on his lessers:
“It’s just a matter of time before something like a faked Rodney King beating video appears on the air somewhere.”
ONOES the MOB! Is he not aware of the already famous incidences of fakery and trumpery comitted by the MSM? And who catches it? Who questions it?
I’m beginning to think that Professor Hazinski really, truly believes that Eddie Murrow shows up at his house on Sunday afternoons earnest, dead serious skull sessions with Camels and bourbon. How else to explain his “lost in the fifties” view of modern news reporting?
Well. OK! Several years at NBC, maybe…
Sarah, actually the Rodey King video WAS faked, in a sense. It was faked in how the media showed it; that is, carefully edited.
My father is a retired police officer, who spent over 30 years on the street. He had seen the King tape countless times, just like everyone else had, and his initial opinion was that those L.A. cops were out of line and deserved what they got. “You don’t mistreat your prisoners”, he growled.
But then, the trial was over, the cops convicted, and the media made a little mistake. They showed the ENTIRE video, not just a carefully edited piece of it. My father was livid when he saw the whole thing, because if you watched the entire tape, you saw that the reason the cops were hitting King was because he would not get down on the ground and stay there.
He had just led those cops on a high-speed chase, and the cops do not like high-speed chases, not the least of which because it puts their lives in danger, as well as any nearby civilians, and yes, even the boneheads in the car they are chasing.
And when King finally does stop, and is pulled from the car, he refused to get down on the ground so the cops could secure him. Even after he had been forced to the ground, he kept trying to get up. Needless to say, my father the street cop was not pleased that he had been lied to; that what had actually happened that night with Rodney King and the L.A. cops was not what had been portrayed by the media, and that in his professional opinion, the cops were in fact justified in using the force they did.
There are numerous other examples of the media doctoring a story to “fit the Narrative”, as it were, but the bottom line is that this so-called “professional journalist” has his head so far up his proggie moonbat ass that he will never see daylight again.
“It’s just a matter of time before something like a faked Rodney King beating video appears on the air somewhere.â€Â
Yea like staged videos of GM vehicles exploding or a picture of a GI Joe being mistaken for a real captured soldier. Or fake Military Service documents being passed off as real…
oh wait….
This professor is an idealogue trying to play gatekeeper. He should be fired.
Who called this guy Dr Hazinksi first? Because his bio clearly indicates he’s topped out with a Master’s degree – better than I ever achieved, but not doctor status. The AJC article doesn’t list him as a doctor, did it used to? If so, does anyone have a screenshot of the original or a cache? That’s almost as embarrassing as when he misspelled “principals” in the article, given the context and message.
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