News-Record.com

Your evaluation of the pros and cons of journalist certification is spot-on and honest because it reflects the nuances of the different sides to the issue. But, for me, your last paragraph and sentence really sum it up: we could go ahead and say sure, let's do certification. But then? It could actually come to mean nothing and be more of an albatross around those who push it out there.

The problem with certification schemes is that they assume the problem with the news media today is amateurs coming from below. However, the amateurs are coming only because of the deep, deep rot at the professional heights. The New York Times helped get us into the war in Iraq by becoming an amplifier for administration lies; now their reporter Michael Gordon had to get publicly chided by the Times Public Editor for doing the same with anti-Iran propaganda.

Where were the editors in this? As a former reporter who does look at bylines, I now know to carefully parse anything under Michael Gordon's byline. I do the same with John Solomon of the Washington Post.

Meanwhile, I've been a regular reader of Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo site for a couple of years. An amateur? Inaccuracies? All I've found is that I've been weeks ahead of the news that the New York Times would print.

As you know, the certification for a byline is really the institutional wisdom embedded in the anonymous editors that allow it to appear in the paper. A good editor can take a rank amateur and turn him into a reporter -- I know that, because that's how I became one. The challenge papers have is not to create certifications -- a device to reassure them in their smugness -- but how to earn the trust of their readers by judging which "amateur" sources are reliable, and which are not? Jeff Jarvis likes to speak of "disintermediation," but face it, who has time to watch all the YouTube videos recommended to us by our friends? To the extant that the News-Record can apply editorial judgment to YouTube videos, with the same consistency they apply to movie reviews, readers can come to depend upon, and trust, the local paper just a little bit more.

You remain clueless.

I have a son who's a journalist (with a degree in J. and New Media). I'm a certified teacher (among other things). Hubby is a lawyer with required annual CLUs. Certification usually implies passing some sort of cert exam replete with CLEs or similar. Are journalists willing to be tested and take prescribed courses (and will the paper pay for those courses and give journalists time off to take them, which teachers and lawyers do NOT)? Are J schools going to adhere to a national standard of competencies? Are you willing to *refuse* to hire an uncertified journalist?

These are the problematic ripples of certification. Are those smoke-filled-room folks going to buy the whole package?

Certification in general sucks and is a money-making scheme for those who offer continuing courses. Of course, that's just my opinion.

Jill, Larry, I presume Fec Stench was referring to me rather than either of you. My apologies. Join me in paying no attention to him.

Sue, welcome back from the beach. All good questions except the one about whether newspapers are going to pay...what about those journalists who don't work for newspapers?

Smoke-filled rooms? I'm not sure, but I don't think a single journalist -- certified or not -- in our shop smokes...at least publicly.

Have a nice trip to DC.

Just food for thought...
Who "certifies" the certifiers? Who decides what the qualifications should be? Dan Rather? Walter Cronkite? Ed Cone?
If the left-wing "journalist cabal" winds up deciding who gets certified is the reading public better served? I don't think so...

JR -- John Newsom quit smoking?

jaycee -- I tend to agree with you in the sense that certification would make it seem as if there IS some sort of "journalist cabal" rather than the awkward collisions of petty egos that actually comprise a typical newsroom.

John - I just read this over on SPJ's blog and was wondering if you wanted to add to it or comment. It was written by Christie Tatum.

# re: Journalists and certification: An idea whose time has come?
Sunday, August 05, 2007 10:41 PM by Christine Tatum
For what it's worth: Professor Meyer delivered a compelling lecture Saturday that covered some of the biggest concepts tackled in his book.

And yes, he also made a case for certification.

I was struck by the reaction from those in the room (about 75 journalists from across North Carolina). Sure, there were skeptics, but they were just that. I didn't hear anyone say this was a terrible idea on its face. Just about everyone with whom I spoke said it's an idea worthy of more research. A couple of people piped right up to say that they think certification would be fabulous for many of the reasons Wendy Garofoli states. Four other journos nearly tackled me in the hallway to let me know that they loved -- and I do mean LOVED -- the idea.

And then there was an editor -- John Robinson, who leads the News & Record in Greensboro, N.C. -- who said that a certificate would matter to him about "25 percent."

"So, all things being equal (in job candidates), this would be a tie-breaker?" Professor Meyer asked.

"This would be a tie-breaker," Robinson said.

That's accurate as to that session and my comment. (I'd suggest it wasn't exactly the venue to argue with the speaker over certification, which was no the topic of his talk.)

I didn't endorse the idea then, and don't endorse it now. My answer was predicated on some certification system already in place and working. And even then my 25% was what I consider a half-hearted total. My thinking is that certification would be one more piece of experience to consider when hiring.

I appreciate that, John. Because frankly, that's how I would view it too: something interesting to know when looking at what you're reading and who wrote it, or when looking at applicants. But I can't believe it would ever be a make or break scenario.

Not to mention, with certification would come the need for a grievance committee so that people could seek to have someone stripped of the certification if they do...what exactly? Because shouldn't there be some kind of enforcement if someone doesn't follow the certification rules?

I don't know...

As a working journalist who graduated with a degree in mass communication, I think certifications would be an unnecessary expense to reporters and their employers (if the cost was passed along). What more certification does a hiring editor need than to look at a reporter's resume? And even then, there can be an over-reliance on credentials instead of real life and work experience. I attended a fellowship at The Poynter Institute before starting my journalism career and one mantra I constantly heard from the team leaders was go to work; this training is not for reporters who want to go straight to graduate school (I followed their advice). While I can't say the 6-week training replaced my college education, it supplemented it to such a degree that I wouldn't be where I am today without it.

Most journalists don't get paid enough to take on the additional responsibility and expenses of certification, unless it can be supplemented by an employer and done in lieu of all the other countless training we already receive (I have probably been to a half-dozen formal training programs since I graduated college in 2003). I see the call for certifications as panic mode and a possible deterrant to young reporters getting into the business. Not to downplay our profession, but journalists are not doctors or lawyers who must spend years in college and training to perfect objective skills and can have a lucrative career through self-employment. Some journalists eventually do the same but it's typically after years of experience and expertise-building and then they can write books. And who do we certify? Feature writers? General assignment reporters? Business or government writers?

Those in the journalism field can run into the same stumbling block as other "experts" do and that is to focus on what can be easily quantified instead of what can't. "Amateur" writers have their place in the dissemination of information and it's up to a public that takes responsibility for how it ingests that information to decide what passes muster and what does not.

Beau, by the way, Newsom quit smoking a couple years ago. Of course, there are days when I am tempted to take it up.

How long now has Prof. Meyer been beating that drum?

While I respect the man greatly -- and enjoyed his classes years ago -- I've long disagreed with the idea that certification is needed for journalists. Some of the best reporters I've worked with had no formal training. Some of the worst went to journalism school.

The problems with it are numerous, as has been covered above, but my issue is more fundamental. If you've got the talent and skills necessary to do a particular job, then certification or 'professional' affiliation is meanlingless. And as such it becomes an impediment to entry in that field.

Lord help the news industry if it ever reaches the point where we require journalists to attend an industry certified-journalism school much the same as lawyers do.

To follow up on this -- I could see independent bloggers getting some sort of certification to demonstrate their intention to take this seriously.

But a reporter working at a newspaper has already convinced someone of some responsibility (perhaps wrongly, but we're all human) that he or she has demonstrated sufficient promise to pluck him or her from the pool of 200 resumes for that open position. Certification seems a little redundant. If you work for the N&R, you've been "certified" by the N&R editors, and the public can make of that what it will.