Toddlers are journalists, too! and other stupid beliefs I hold
Author: Suzanne Yada Date Posted: June 26th, 2008 (8:34 pm)
Forgive me if I sound a bit Socratic, but before I dig deep into this blog, we need to get a nagging question out of the way, because the answer isn’t as simple as it was before.
Ahem.
What is journalism?
My Mac OSX dictionary widget, which is totally modern and cool, gives this definition, which is totally not:
“\ˈjər-nə-ˌli-zəm\ The activity or profession of writing for newspapers or magazines or of broadcasting news on radio or television.”
This leaves bloggers and online media out entirely. So screw that definition. Merriam-Webster offers more sensible definitions here, and PressThink has an amazing in-depth discussion on the evolving meaning of the word here. But for the purpose of this blog, let me try and break it down into three steps:
- Take raw information.
- Interpret it.
- Share it.
Surprise, surprise, that’s the same three parts found in the basic definition for communication.
Which means that everyone who speaks or writes performs at least a basic, unintentional form of journalism.
Which is the point of this blog.
Journalism is not a profession, is not a medium, is not a prerequisite degree and is not dependent on the size of your audience. It is a way of thinking. It is an everyday human occurrence, intentional or not.
Now, not everyone is going to agree with me that 3-year-olds are, at a very basic level, journalists. (Some would say the 3-year-olds are already better journalists than the ones we got.) But there are several levels of journalism, and I’ll get into that for the next post. My goal with this blog is to explore the ways we all could step it up a notch or two when these everyday opportunities arise.
So stick with me; I’m setting this up as best as I can before we can get to the fun part. Once we get some basic explanations out of the way, this will be more like a blog and less like a book.
Category: Uncategorized
June 27th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
I can agree that toddlers are, in a sense, journalists… although technically it’s an example of low redefinition. Sorry to be a geek!
June 29th, 2008 at 1:55 am
Having been in the journalism world myself, I understand were you are coming from. I’m sure you will do with your blog. I’ll keep the look out for new posts =)
July 10th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
[...] last post took very wide liberties with the definition of journalism (and thanks, Eshu, for the link). Sure, this is a classic example of low redefinition, and sure, it was to prove a [...]
July 11th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Today’s unqualified young journos are terrible at interpreting information, though.
They can’t handle opposing or alternate viewpoints, likely because of their strong sense of entitlement and lack of maturity.
They’re good at running with raw information, even when it’s wrong, and they’re good at sharing what they think is information. But they can’t separate the good from the bad.
Today’s faulty young journos are getting opportunities they don’t deserve because newspapers have bad hiring standards. The future will suffer because of this.