RE: journalists' ethics

[Bob Flood <bflood@SLAC.Stanford.EDU>]

At 05:28 PM 1/13/2000 -0600, you wrote:

>I used to have journalists talk to my intro environmental studies classes,
>and I learned from them that they try to quote accurately but make no
>judgments about the accuracy of what they are quoting.

I'd like to make a comment about the use of the term "journalist."  What is
described above, accurate quoting without regard to the accuracy of the
information in the quote, is not (IMHO) journalism - it's reporting. A
reporter is essentially a human tape recorder, playing back the information
as received from the source with no evaulation of the information. A
journalist evaluates the validity of the data besides reporting it.

We have lots of reporters, more reporters than we have news, hence the
competition to make the most of a story. And we're almost competely out of
journalists. Perhaps because journalism is a lot more more work than
reporting, and probably doesn't pay any better.

===================================
Bob Flood
Dosimetry Group Leader
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
(650) 926-3793
bflood@slac.stanford.edu
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