I received many requests for a hit on my query about journalists as
experts, so I'm posting to the list. Thanks again for all the great
responses!
Responses:
I have had my high school students doing website evaluations this week.
They had to find a site from a web portal like the IPL, Lii, or the one
I created on our own Library Web Page. Some of the sites they found led
them to newspaper articles. One of the ways they evaluated on
credibility of the author was the author's credentials, whether the
writer was a regular columnist, how many articles they found published
by that writer (from a Google search for the author's name), and the
sources the writer quoted within the actual article. Some of the
students found movie review sites, and when dealing with the issues of
credibility and bias, they looked at whether the film critic had a
degree in Film or Journalism and from what university. They also looked
at how fairly they reviewed the film, etc.
My first reaction is to say that all persons working as "journalists"
are NOT! But students need to know that reputable, trained journalists
are still out there. They work within media entities who have set
standards, not like the tabloids, rags, muckrakers that do also exist.
Journalists do not necessarily earn degrees in journalism. They may
select an entirely different field. Many journalists have degrees in
political science, for example.
However, it is the in the field work, research, now facilitated by the
internet, etc., that really counts. When journalists go out to the
scene of the subject matter, they can truly learn from first hand
experience.
There is a set of guidelines that most media group have in place to
govern their news guidelines, which has been severely blurred by all the
celeb influence that has come about through the influence of the Murdock
press ownership, etc.
There is a lot of opinion/bias out there and there should be guidelines
to govern it. Also, without a byline attached to a story, the story
becomes a product of the media/newspaper/TV/website from which it
originates. There are bylines/author credits given on many stories and
that holds that particular reporter responsible for the content.
Students need to understand the concept of a slow day, or slow day
"news", which usually gets publication/mention when there is nothing
else of a major breaking news aspect to supersede it. In fact, some of
the best good news stories originate from those slow days. A reporter
is always looking for features as well as being assigned stories that
are hard news. But the hard news, particularly that of disasters, etc.
will always top the soft.
Many small newspapers of small town origins are simply advertising
publications and some derogatory labeling such as "the weekly wipe" have
been given to them. However, there is a pulse in a small town
publication, too, as it tells of local news, weddings, obituaries,
social events, school events and sports.
A source like the New York Times has an international and national
reputation based on the paper's editorial board's standards, and
reflecting the bias of its publisher/owner. It is likely to take on
many viewpoints under the guise of syndicated columnists in all subject
areas. It has the feel of authority because of its long-running
leadership position in print.
All journalists are human, some more educated by college training than
others, and some more experienced in the field. Experienced journalists
have circles of contacts that they cultivate. They often assign the
trial-balloon stories to underlings who then feed the story bits and
pieces back to the main desk or writer.
As to attribution, in my mind, that is the key behind all journalism,
that lends credibility. It's sort of like doing any research. All
attribution is not perfect, as there is human bias involved. But
attribution is the key to vetting a story. Any media group will vet its
stories in order to gain or hold credibility.
This is more than you asked for. Just got rolling.
Oh, and a story in a different field from the same writer is often fed
by in-the-field sources that serve as the credible background to make
that writer credible almost no matter what the story.
One more thought, often a journalist has a range of experience, having
been assigned obits first, then moving on to the police beat, the city
hall, the statehouse, education, etc., and finally through applications
to change and actual shifts, they move into a more in-depth/exciting
position. Thus, they may not be complete experts, but they have varied
frames of reference from experience as well as research and contacts in
the field. Some of their in the field work is amazingly rich and leads
them into writing novels, etc.
As a former journalist and former journalism instructor, I would say the
reason we consider journalists "experts" is because they have developed
expertise in finding and processing information; essentially, they know
how to find answers to important questions in the "real world" (i.e.,
not just academic reports). Experienced journalists who cover regular
beats become extremely well informed about the subjects their beat
covers, whether it is crime, education, war, science, what have you.
They know who are the important people working in these areas and how to
contact them; equally important, they are expert at translating the
jargon of various groups into ordinary language that can be understood
by a high school student. (Even the NY Times is written at about a
ninth-grade reading level.)
The New York Times, the Washington Post, and a few other large
newspapers are generally seen as more credible than small papers because
they have the resources to commit to in-depth coverage.
Whereas a small newspaper might have one reporter responsible for all
news coming out of city hall, and must rely on wire service accounts for
coverage of national news, the "big" papers will have several reporters
at city hall, one perhaps covering the transit system, another the
department of public works, etc. They have greater expertise because
their reporters have the time and the motivation to learn much more
about the subjects they are covering. And these large papers have
bureaus covering news out of Washington, similarly staffed with a number
of reporters - maybe one to cover the congressional delegation for the
newspaper's location, one for the White House, one for the State
Department, etc. A few papers similarly maintain bureaus overseas, or
hire well qualified stringers to report on events in, say, Italy or
Poland. And the big papers will send experienced war correspondents to
Iraq - people who know how to report on an ongoing conflict, and/or
people with special expertise in the language and culture of the area.
I'll weigh in because my wife is a newspaper reporter and I've been
around journalism all of my adult life. Most of our friends are
reporters.
In some cases, reporters have some academic or professional background
in a particular area. But generally reporters become experts on things
by spending a lot of time researching them. Many reporters have
particular "beats" or specialties where they focus their attentions. At
the Post, Peter Baker follows the president, often traveling with him.
His expertise comes from spending a lot of time with the president and
from writing about politics for a long time. The real qualifications for
a great reporter are the same as for being a great trial lawyer or
researcher -- skepticism and a willingness to pursue relentless
questioning. You learn by asking questions and writing down the answers,
then comparing and contrasting with what you already know, revising your
opinion as necessary, never really getting to the bottom of your
questions. My wife, for instance, who covers local politics here in the
Virginia suburbs, reads a lot -- competing newspapers, books about
history and politics, local blogs, e-mail lists. And she spends a lot of
time on the phone with politicians and the people who work for them,
policy wonks, analysts, and government employees. She's been writing
about politics and government for 15 years (only the last 2 at the
Post).
To your question about reputation: The New York Times has a stronger
reputation than any other paper in the world because it's earned it
through extremely high-stakes reporting (more than once the White House
has questioned their reportage and they have stood by their work --
likewise the Post -- and they've been right; when you report that the
president is a liar and a crook, you'd better have your facts straight),
and also through building and maintaining an enormous readership, by
being generally fair and balanced, and being consistently (mostly)
right. The Times is read carefully every day by the people who make the
big decisions all over the world. The paper has made mistakes, some of
them spectacular. People are fallible and systems break down. But the
Times has responded comprehensively and professionally when they have
messed up. The Post returned a Pulitzer and endured a wicked public
relations beating in 1981 when it was revealed the reporter, Janet
Cooke, had made up the winning story. But the big league papers sell
very expensive ads based on their reputations. Reputation for a
newspaper is, quite literally, money in the bank. People snicker and
mock the Times because they don't like the politics of its editorial
page, but the Times is a major American institution and rightly so.
I disagree with your assumption that journalists are experts. They are
not experts on their topics--although they may specialize in certain
areas--they are reporters. Their real expertise is in writing and
communicating.
The value in what they write may be that they are creating primary
source documents--reporting news and conducting interviews--which are
essential in research. Their value may be in their currency or
up-to-dateness but not necessarily in accuracy or authority.
Scholarly sources like professional or scholarly journals are written by
"experts"--credentialed scientists and researchers in various fields--
but not by journalists who usually stick to popular or news sources.
The only reason the New York Times is considered to be more reliable
than other less known newspapers is their reputation, resources and
professional standards. They can afford to hire only the best and most
dedicated writers.
But even they screw it up. Do you remember the Jason Blair plagiarism
fiasco a few years ago?
As a former broadcast journalist in Tokyo, I don't have a degree in
journalism but I do have some practical experience in the field. IMHO,
The New York Times isn't necessarily a more reliable source than the
Mayberry News, but it might be if dealing with topics/locales about/at
which Mayberry does not have professional reporters with relevant
expertise.
Actually, the Times credibility has been weakened in the past by not
just less than credible reporters but by writers who lied through their
teeth but got their
work past less than careful editors.
As for the woman writer who dealt with domestic violence and the Iraq
war, I, and most journalists, I think, would not consider her an expert
but rather, depending upon the narrative content she writes, an
objective observer. I also worked as Japan correspondent for Colored
Stone, a trade journal for the jewelry industry. I got that job from
LM_NET but made it perfectly clear to Sr. Ed. Morgan Beard that I had no
expertise in emeralds, rubies, etc. In fact, I told her that I rarely
wear jewelry of any kind and am not particularly interested in colored
stones. She explained that she could help with information/knowledge
about the subject and that all was required of me initially was the
ability to write objective journalistic English prose and attend trade
shows in Japan. I learned a great deal from Morgan and fairly quickly
advanced to writing feature stories about the Japanese colored stone
industry as well. I still don't wear jewelry and am not especially
interested in it, but my writing work for Colored Stone was objective,
credible and imbued with
increasing expertise as time went by.
I wouldn't say that journalist are experts. They aren't. Journalist have
to be correct though. They check their facts with more than one source
(ideally) and leave no margin for error. What the print is supposed to
be purely fact. Whether the NY Times is more reliable than the "Mayberry
News"
is debatable. In fact, I believe it was the NY Times who had the
reporter who was printing completely made up stories. No newspaper is
perfect. You can always find a mistake. The NY Times is said to be very
biased. But the NY Times is held up to a higher standard than a small
town paper because the NY Times is read all over the world. So, they
have to try harder to be correct and bias free. I don't think I would
tell a student that one newspaper is more credible than another.
In my former life, I was in media relations, so I dealt with journalists
all the time. I would argue that journalists aren't experts. Their
expertise comes in finding the expert and distilling what he or she says
into a format that's accessible to the general public. While the
journalist may need to have some background knowledge in the subject, he
or she is not the credible source. It is his or her source that is
credible, and the journalist is the conduit.
For example, I worked extensively with technology companies, so I was
pitching stories to technology reporters. Most of these people were not
hard-core techies; they had some basic understanding of the subject, but
it was my clients who had the real knowledge. I've found that most
reporters are very quick to say that they don't understand a concept,
and to ask the same question in several different ways until they got
enough information to truly write accurately. It was also not uncommon
for the reporters to call back to clarify something or to check their
understanding, and reporters at most papers, especially big ones like
the NY Times, are compulsive fact-checkers. In one or two instances, I
actually had reporters email me a paragraph or two of their story to
make sure they'd gotten the point and that the facts were correct.
(This was fairly unusual, and I think the larger papers are least likely
to do this. In the cases in question I was dealing with publications
that were
This is just my private, personal opinion, but I think journalists are
considered credible experts because they are expected to report only
facts that they can back-up with two or more sources. That is also why
one media source is more credible than another--it demands good sources.
Anita Beaman, Librarian
University High School
Illinois State University
Normal, IL
albeam2@ilstu.edu
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