News-Record.com

"they love the work and they want to change the world"

You know, they say the same thing about whey people become teachers. Of course, when they find that the pay is lousy, hours are long, and the pressure is intense, many of them decide that they will move along and do better for themselves and their families. What makes teaching different than reporting is that there will always be a need for good teachers and the pay is getting better.

"......they want to change the world"

Ah--- but that is exactly why I dislike journalists....I don't want them to change the world. I just want them to report what is happening.

Sorry, Amy, but merely by reporting what is happening they are changing the world. They are informing people of some event that will change the way people think or act; not everyone, but some.

Reminds me of the punchline of a joke having to do with another profession, and with regard to journalists I use the term profession very loosely,

...scientists are using journalists rather than rats for lab experiments now because there are some things you just can't get a rat to do.

They want to change the world? As a journalist? Are you kidding? At their very best, they are observers of the world not changers.

For good or ill people like Fidel Castro, Ronald Reagan, Bill Gates, John Paul II, Lenin, Watson and Crick, Einstein etc. These people change the world.

Not the supremely self important people of this world who call themselves jouralists.

No, John, it's not the reporting that changes the way people act or think. It's the editorial spin that the reporter puts on the story that changes how some people act or think. Yes, I know that you like to believe that doesn't happen, but it it does, indeed. Oftentimes, it is hard to distinguish in the News-Record which is reporting and which is editorializing. A prime example is Lorraine Ahern. No one seems to know whether she is a reporter, a columnist, or an editor, or possibly all three at one time.

The facts simply don't support you. Whether it is investigative journalism or simply informative journalism, what journalists do -- and, I agree with you that journalism is not a profession -- changes the world.

Reporting on Viet Nam, on Watergate, on the Pentagon Papers, on Walter Reed, on the mental health system...those all -- and many others -- changed things.

Not everything reported changes the world for everyone, but if you believe information can expand people's understanding, knowledge and thought, then you have to believe that it changes the world.

ORR, our posts got crossed. My response to you:

As I say to all of those commenters here who try to put words in my mouth, please don't. It weakens your argument. Yes, reporters come at stories from various angles. No one says they don't. I only protest when the argument is made that we take specific tacks on stories to make a political point.

To your point, it's not that hard to distinguish reporting and editorializing. Feel free to ask if you run into trouble.

It is more than that, though. A simple calendar listing about a speaker may cause someone to attend an inspiring speech and think and act differently. Stories about the drought and how people are changing their behavior to conserve water inspire others to do the same.

JR,

You are setting the bar low for "changing the world" , a calendar listing? On that standard a sanitation man who misses a collection on a street one day that inspires a citizen to take action is changing the world. Kind of like an application of chaos theory to journalism, the beating of a butterfly's wings in Australia causing a hurricane in Florida. If that's your point, I really can't argue with it, but I thought that journalists had something else, you know bigger in mind. What with putting up with the low pay and long hours and all.

My point is that jounalism is not the way to change the world. There are people who change the world and there are people who report on what happens. To the extent someone acquires information from journalist, they act on it, not the journalist. When the journalist acts, he ceases to be a journalist.

Somebody writes some articles about polio, Salk invents a vaccine. The guy that wrote the articles changed the world? Well by your very low standard I guess he did, probably Salk had no clue that there was a dread disease affecting the world at that time until he picked up a paper with his morning coffee.

Certainly it seems unlikely that Christianity, as an example, could have gotten off the ground without Mathew, Mark, Luke and John. But are they the ones who changed the world, or was it Jesus, who never wrote a single word? Perhaps some jounalists would take credit, but I rather think those four might be a bit more humble than most of the modern day journalists.

You'll always have Vietnam and Watergate, and the Spanish American War as well for that matter, but isn't it possible, perhaps likely, that a different set of political actors would have done different things with the information provided by the journalists. After all Clinton didn't resign after Monica, and Bush has not thrown in the towel in Iraq in two similar situations.

Wasn't the reporting just one more factor on the facts on the ground? Depending on the situation, reporting is more or less of a factor. But Lyndon Johnson said when I've lost Cronkite, I've lost America, another president may not have. Harry Truman sacrificed his presidency without losing Korea under reporting just as "world changing" as that of Vietnam. Richard Nixon mishandled the situation presented to him from the revelations of Woodward and Bernstein. A more adept politician could have saved his presidency given the exact same set of facts.

I believe that your romanticizing of the jouralistic craft is largely an outgrowth of your mythology of the Woodward Burnstein experience. Sure their story of not giving up and getting the facts out despite the obsatcles did change the world. The truth is most journalists don't change anything. More importantly, they should not try. Get the facts out, let the chips fall where they may. If at some point you don't think the facts you've presented are being acted upon appropriately, then join the real world and try to change it.

It's funny, Jerry. I wasn't setting a standard or a bar. I was talking about an emotion that drives people to get into journalism. Different things inspire different people. Some writers love the feeling they get when a reader calls and tells them they loved their story. Some writers love the feeling they get by writing about, say, gangs, followed shortly thereafter by city council action on the problem.

You might suggest those aren't world changers. I disagree. They aren't major; they may not even be important. I am not saying that journalism is the way to go if you want to cure polio. No journalist would say that unless they also worked in a scientific research lab. But bringing the message to the rest of the world -- whether it is simple information or investigative journalism -- does make a difference.

Remember, my original statement referred to journalists getting into the business to change the world. Where we seem to disagree is that I would say that getting the facts out and letting the chips fall where they may is changing the world.

Print journalists get into the business "to make a difference by telling people things that are important"? Translation: Leftists get into print journalism to advance leftism and convince complete fools to believe said journalists and their "things that are important".

As someone who has been in the journalism field for nearly two decades, I will state this: No one I have ever met (including people who have worked at your newspaper) has told me that he or she got into print journalism "to change the world." Most identified a skill and found a way to make money with it, or they just gravitated toward the field out of laziness.

Frankly, I would expect the "changing the world" cliche from a high school newspaper, not a professional newsroom.

Also, your elitist tone is unbecoming. (Your response to Oak Ridge Runner: "To your point, it's not that hard to distinguish reporting and editorializing. Feel free to ask if you run into trouble.")

No doubt you've gotten enough grief from people about the "change the world" comment, but... I disagree!! Here's some more!

When you say "change the world," it just reeks of agenda journalism. It suggests that you have some idea, a vision, a "plan" for how the world should be. Can't you see how uneasy that would make your readers? I look on the news as being "just the facts." Kind of like the manual to your car, or a history book. Do you see how wildly inappropriate it would be for a manual writer to aspire to "change the world" with his manuals?

If you want to influence people, change their minds, then write opinions! That's their legitimate purpose. If you attempt to change the world through straight news coverage, I fear that the temptation to persuade would inevitable seep into your news choices. How could it not?

The aspiration of a news journalist should be to "inform the world," not change it. These grander notions are a corruption of the fundamental purpose of the news. And, frankly, they are currently killing the news. People like me hate it(!) when we notice that opinions and slant are appearing in our news. It drives me nuts.

Oh, and it does cause "change." It causes me to change the channel, or change my subscription!

I'm a professional journalist and I didn't get into the business to change the world. God forbid. I just wanted to have a good time doing something I liked--talking to interesting people, learning interesting facts, and telling others about them, in print. Journalism is fun, and endlessly fascinating. And it serves a useful social purpose. It's just that that purpose isn't supposed to be "changing the world." It's supposed to be "telling people what's going on."

Personally, I think you can trace the steady decline in public respect for our profession to the fact that so many of us want to change our readers, to "enlighten" them, when all they want from us is to know what's happening in the world. If more people in our business would settle for that, I think we'd be in much better shape.

I appreciate all your comments and don't disagree with them much, except for Tom's. Go back and read my comments and I am not espousing agenda journalism or opinions, but rather change the world with a small c and small w.

Well, I don't agree with jesme on the point where you can trace the decline in public respect for journalism, but that's another topic.