What is a Journalist? What is Journalism?

"A journalist reports the news," and with that, journalism is defined.

News as a commodity is an interesting concept to define, for it can entail the most mind-numbing minutia ("I took out the trash today") or the most universally affecting phenomena ("747s hit World Trade Center"). A broad definition of news lends to a broad definition of a journalist, and perhaps such an inclusive idea of journalism isn't as new as we may be inclined to believe. How long have newsletters, pamphlets, and mass mailings been prepared and published for families, businesses, church groups, communities, and among friends. The essence of journalism as a trade is evolving as new media develop and evolve, but evolution in the press is nothing new. Though changes in technology have been occuring rapidly since Gutenberg, the breadth of the term "journalist" is only now widening to include all who comment or report on "the news." The advent of Web 2.0 makes the melting pot seem bigger, but it can't erase the multitude of smaller pots that preceded it, albeit on a less technological front.

The process for defining journalism should be approached as you would approach defining an artform. Take, for instance, the film industry. Few would argue that a 15-year-old kid who films his sister running around in a T-rex costume, enacting the gist of a vague plot would be considered good filmmaking, but it is filmmaking nonetheless. The difference between that kid and an award-winning director entails such things as training, judgement, instinct born of experience, and the extensive resources that are required for professional filmmaking. Maybe that kid was Peter Jackson, director of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Anyone can make a movie, but a good movie? The same is true of journalism. Anyone can report the news, but would you rather watch the journalistic equivalent of 15-year-old Peter Jackson's film or his later, more professional Rings movies? Anyone can rant, rave, or express opinion in a blog or on YouTube, but what value do such actions hold without the training, experience, and insight and resources needed to inspire trust in the public mind? Just as with films, sometimes lightning does strike, as in the case of Matt Drudge, but such examples are rare. It serves remembering that Drudge's story on the Lewinski scandal was one that Newsweek had already investigated but chosen not to report.

A journalist is anyone who reports on the news. Journalism is the art of reporting the news. The debate should not arise over what is journalism and what is not, rather over what good journalism means. Such a discussion is one that takes place internally inside every news consumer before he or she decides which news sources to trust. Corporate news outlets should see this Journalistic Revolution not as a threat, but as an opportunity to rise above the fray, reporting the news truthfully and professionally.