Define "Journalist"

Or a sanitation engineer?

 

...but still sounds good when our mothers tell the ladies at bridge what we do for a living.

 

That's the PC vein I was going for with "information delivery technician." Sounds too much like a UPS driver though. Needs work.

 

Honest answer:

Without newspapers - yes.
Without magazines - yes.
Without wire services - no.

And I ask you - Would the newspaper be able to come out without the wire services, either?

I'll add that the other thing we rely heavily on is our video feed service.

It makes me very sad to say this, but because of the cutbacks at newspapers, and because of the internet.... These days, there's very little that comes out the in morning paper we don't already know about. The exception is the brilliant enterprise or investigative story.

 

Luggy,

I meant no incivility in the question, and hope none was taken. In the case of my little hometown paper, for whom I occasionally still write, yes, it would continue to hit neighborhood doorsteps even if the wires were down. It's an exception, though, as are a handful of other like-sized papers across the country.

Here's a fella who thinks we'd all be better off if it didn't.

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2006/06/16/publiceye/entry1722541.shtml

I hope this finds you well.

 

Well, newspapers sell their writers' style, their viewpoint, their attitude, so that even though the Super Bowl optional moves at 11 p.m. on the day of the game, the newspaper still has something to offer the next day that's different, hopefully a different take that doesn't suck.

 

I dunno. I have the impression that there are very few weeklies that have wire service. You work at one of those, you have to write every damn word of it yourself.

 

jgmacg,

You couldn't be uncivil if you tried! Interesting article. He makes some great points-- that's terrible about ABC news ripping off an 'unusual baby names' story, but he's right... it happens. And what's inexcusable is, the networks have the bodies and cash not to rip off.

In the article, the kid had me until he said that "the young will return"....with.... "a 10-minute story about, for instance, how life is changing in China."

I actually liked Don Hewitt's idea... what a kick-ass news operation that would be.

Dools, I was generalizing earlier... There are a still a few great newspapers that agenda-set, provide extraordinary depth and flair... and I think you know the ones I'm talking about.

 

I guess I call myself a journalist, although it sounds a bit pompous in the toy department. Seriously, though, I look into situations or cover events, elicit as much information as I kind and reflect my findings as accurately as possible. Now, the hard part is trying to make it interesting, maybe even entertaining _ and not to you clowns _ but to people who actually read it out there among the great unwashed. When I was writing about womanizing politicians (no not that one), horrific crimes against children, a little boy with no legs playng little league baseball, even a long-winded opus on the power of sports brands, those were at least attempts at journalism.
Covering an MBL, NBA or NFL game is more like entertainment writing, but what the hell, let's call that journalism too. Just as long as the verbs are active and I don't use too many adjectives.

But FOX Sports does not get my vote for journalism, and if Ann Coulter is a journalist, I hereby resign from the profession.

 

I don't think you have to resign.

 

Interesting discussion from a time before Patch existed.