Blue Crab Boulevard

Unfettered “Journalism” Professors Too Risky

A former NBC News correspondent turned college professor is asking, nay, demanding, that news organizations "regulate" citizen journalists. David Hazinski, who now teaches at the University of Georgia (God help his students) is telling the world that citizen journalists are a hazard. No, really, he is.

You're beginning to get a lot more news … from you.

It ranges from the CNN YouTube debates to political blogs to cellphone video of that sniper who opened fire at an Omaha Mall. These are all examples of so called "citizen journalism," the hot new extension of the news business where the audience becomes the reporter.

Supporters of "citizen journalism" argue it provides independent, accurate, reliable information that the traditional media don't provide. While it has its place, the reality is it really isn't journalism at all, and it opens up information flow to the strong probability of fraud and abuse. The news industry should find some way to monitor and regulate this new trend.

The premise of citizen journalism is that regular people can now collect information and pictures with video cameras and cellphones, and distribute words and images over the Internet. Advocates argue that the acts of collecting and distributing makes these people "journalists." This is like saying someone who carries a scalpel is a "citizen surgeon" or someone who can read a law book is a "citizen lawyer." Tools are merely that. Education, skill and standards are really what make people into trusted professionals. Information without journalistic standards is called gossip.

But unlike those other professions, journalism — at least in the United States — has never adopted uniform self-regulating standards. There are commonly accepted ethical principals — two source confirmation of controversial information or the balanced reporting of both sides of a story, for example, but adhering to the principals is voluntary. There is no licensing, testing, mandatory education or boards of review. Most other professions do a poor job of self-regulation, but at least they have mechanisms to regulate themselves. Journalists do not.

Yes, indeed, that is absolutely true. Journalists have no standards. Which is why the professionals at The New Republic can run a patently fabulist story, be confronted by citizen journalists, wait five months and then finally retract it. Or why Reuters can run photoshopped pictures and sell them as the real deal until citizen journalists catch them. Here's a clue, Mr. Hazinski. Get out of your glass house before the return stones arrive. Because they will arrive shortly. The media is not a body that can impose regulation on others. Until very recently indeed, most reporters had no formal training whatsoever – and things seem to have deteriorated since the media began to require the services of professors of journalism.

I think we can see the problem. Unfettered journalism professors with delusions of competence.

UPDATE: Say there, Mr. Hazinski here's a word you should learn: INCOMING!

North Shore Journal: Maybe I don’t want to be tarred with the term “journalist”. It makes me feel dirty, and not the nice dirty either. (Fabulous takedown.)

Hot Air: Actually, citizen journalists usually have to spend some of our time fact-checking the lies coming from the so-called pros. Ever heard of fauxtography, Dr. Hazinski? Google it. You’ll be there a while.

Tigerhawk: There is no small irony here. Insofar as Hazinski's column is possibly the most asinine op-ed published by a newspaper in the history of the universe, it almost succeeds in its argument by dint of its own transporting amateurism. Almost.

Riehl World View: So, the media should monitor and regulate it somehow? I didn't realize they became a government agency when I wasn't looking. Oh wait. Were that true, what's being proposed would be illegal.

Center for Citizen Media Blog: Then, having kindly allowed that this new media “has its place” — use the servant’s entrance, please — he removes it entirely from the realm of journalism, which is literally absurd.

Daily Pundit: Your reputation wasn’t murdered, dummy. It was a victim of suicide.

Media | Gaius December 13, 2007

By Mwalimu Daudi, December 13, 2007 @ 10:54 pm

You are a threat, Gaius. David Hazinski says so, and we know the MSM’s sterling, unimpeachable reputation for accuracy. Those are the principals professional journalists live by.

Show proper contrition! And be sure to turn on your TV and genuflect towards it, too.
By TC@LeatherPenguin, December 14, 2007 @ 8:45 am

What makes this maroon’s screed even funnier is his byline calls him “Dr.” while his bio at Grady says he’s only in possession of a master’s degree.

Ergo, either he’s a liar or the editors at the AJC are incompetent in their “profession.” Or both.
By Maggie, December 14, 2007 @ 10:34 am

Seeing people such as Pat Dollard and Michael Yon and a handful others who put their wallets and lives on the line to actually get and deliver REAL news and truth from the war zone(s) … And how important blogs have been to getting those citizen journalists’/reporters’ stories out, and the researching and investigating and “policing” of journalistic malpractice of the MSM in the last few/several years the blogs have been providing, THIS is a prime example of the old media’s primal fear of their growing irrelevance in the modern world of information flow and accurate news reporting … and most importantly, power and control over us, the masses/populace.
By quilly mammoth, December 14, 2007 @ 10:38 am

I like the last libne:

Journalism organizations who choose to do nothing may soon find the line between professional and citizen journalism gone as well as the trust of their audiences

What trust, Jackass? The whole reason that Citizen Journalists have risen so fast is that no thinking individual trusts your “profession”. Sheesh.
By martian, December 14, 2007 @ 1:00 pm

Can you say SOUR GRAPES? Let’s all say it real loud. Then let’s read between the lines of this moron’s complaints to see what he’s really saying:

1. He’s not real happy that “professional” journalists are regularly being “scooped” (that’s a professional term) by “citizen journalists”. The citizens are getting the stories out as they happen and before the “professionals” can get on scene – this is the sour grapes aspect.

2. All this news is getting out to the general public WITHOUT proper editing from the MSM “professionals” that slants it the way they think it should be slanted. This just can’t be tolerated!

3. If the general public is allowed to see/hear news that hasn’t been properly presented by the “professionals” who can tell them the “right” way to interpret it, the members of the public might actually MAKE UP THEIR OWN MINDS! Sacriledge! Such things can’t be allowed!

Slap yourself on the wrist with a wet noodle, Gaius. You and all of those other bloggers and citizen journalists should be ashamed of yourselves for messing up the Journalism “profession”!
By skeneogden, December 14, 2007 @ 1:14 pm

Two words Mr. Hazinski: Dan Rather.
By Uncle Pinky, December 14, 2007 @ 1:24 pm

I blame Robert Redford and, to a lesser extent Dustin Hoffman.

Seriously, once the clowns have annointed themselves with the mantle of Journalist such mundane things as, you know, reporting become less than the dust beneath their sandals

Remember when reporting was a trade, rather than the vocation of journalism? If you polled one of this fool’s classes on why they are getting into journalism the responses would likely be 98% “To change the world for the better” to 1% “It’s a job” with 1% “To report facts accurately.
By Mockin'bird, December 14, 2007 @ 2:02 pm

Mr. Ha inski is an example of elitism. But he feels decidedly threatened by people who have truth and accountability on their side as they report news.
By Maggie, December 14, 2007 @ 2:12 pm

Don’t know if Gaius’s site will pick up and post this link I found some one else offer on another blog, hopefully it will:

Crunks 2007: The Year in Media Errors and Corrections
Written and compiled by Craig Silverman

http://www.regrettheerror.com/regret-articles/crunks-07-the-year-in-media-errors-and-corrections
By muffler, December 14, 2007 @ 4:27 pm

David Hazinski’s opinion is interesting. To suggest that anyone should define the credentials required to be a publishing journalist is absurd. Thomas Paine and Ben Franklin would go nuts! All you need is a printing press or computer. Let the public decide!

The point of freedom of the press is that anyone who wants to print a comment, opinion or news can do so without the government interference. The credibility of the publisher is defined by consistency, accuracy and the public.

David Hazinski indirectly suggests that the “self-accredited” mainstream press should be the filter for all the above and thus Nanny the public in opinion, news and policy. Since corporations now consolidate this line of information, I suggest that the people wanting to create standards for accreditation are the ones wishing to retain the power to meter out the news, opinion and policy. Those already in power are setting the standards only they can meet thus trying to excluding all others.

I suggest that the people must have unfettered access to everything they want to hear, read and see. They can make up their own minds. David Hazinski fears that after years of consolidation and control, his power is being diluted. He now has a huge amount of new competition. Everyone else has had to complete with global outsourcing and so, welcome to the Riehl World David Hazinski!

Via the 1st Amendment! Via the Constitution! Via Freedom of Thought! Via Enlightenment! Via the Truth!

Muffler
By Neo, December 14, 2007 @ 10:04 pm

Let’s not forget this “non-story” that we heard over and over again, the Iraq National Museum.

American forces have been widely faulted for failing to protect the museum as pillaging swept Baghdad after the invasion. Just 1 percent – of the museum’s 501,000 pieces were looted, and most of the looted pieces were tiny and relatively insignificant beads, amulets and tiny imprinting seals. Note this: Most of the looted items could have been removed in a single backpack.