Professors at Columbia University posed this question to students in a ``Critical Issues in Journalism'' class: ``What is a journalist?''
The students' answers -- good and bad -- provide insights into
what motivates people to seek a living as reporters and editors.
With the knocks journalism is taking these days, even from members
of its own ranks, knowing what a journalist is may be the most
critical issue of the decade for the media.
If character and personality are important issues for political
careers, why not for careers as journalists?
Thanks to Joan Konner, publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review,
the magazine sponsored by the journalism school at Columbia, several
answers given in that class have been made public.
Before I share some of the students' responses, let
me take a crack at answering the question: A journalist combines
a sense of curiosity, civic concern, idealism, a love of words,
and a craftsman's attention to detail in trying to chronicle human
activity in the everyday world.
That's my textbook shot; my definition from experience comes later.
When I read the student responses I chuckled, I nodded in agreement,
I raised skeptical eyebrows, and when all was done, I also grieved.
One student succinctly said a journalist is ``a nonfiction writer
with a job.''
Just barely, many would say. The average starting salary for reporters
without experience would make most teachers -- a traditionally
underpaid profession -- blanch in horror.
Another student touched on the frequently given academic
definition of a journalist as an ``eyewitness to history.''
``Recording history is not the goal of the journalist, but this
is ultimately what he or she accomplishes in the attempt to present
information that is believed to be of importance to the public.''
I react positively and negatively here: Historians interpret;
journalists try not to interpret in gathering news. Journalists
are no more eyewitnesses to history than any citizen, and it may
be far too self-congratulatory for journalists to say they are
observing history in the making. Unless one considers every mundane
civic or social function historical, working journalists are rarely
spectators to history-making events.
The sports journalist covering the Chicago Bulls may write about
``historic'' events, but his colleague following the Sacramento
Kings goes about his job without much sense of history in the
making.
On the other hand, someone defines what is important
to the public. Often that definer is the reporter.
Along the same lines, another student pinpointed this truth: ``A
[good] journalist imposes order, or a sense of order, on the chaotic
world we all inhabit. . . . the journalist explains why these
seemingly random facts are important enough to warrant precious
moments of the reader's attention.''
Many students provided poetic or idealistic definitions:
``I'm reminded of Robert Frost's epitaph: I had a lover's quarrel
with the world. That's the kind of journalist I want to be.''
``I am a journalist because I want to make the world a better
place, through honest reporting and writing.''
``A caring, feeling person like a police officer, a judge, a politician,
a grocery store clerk. We have relationships, children, ailing
parents, crazy uncles, . . . these things affect how we think,
how we perceive . . . , how we react . . ., with one big difference.
Journalists, if they go about it right, continually question their
actions, their reactions, their biases.''
``Journalists are the people entrusted with defining reality.''
Whew! That's heady stuff.
I'm reminded of a regional columnist who confessed after years
of pushing himself with these high ideals and visions that he's
concluded he writes about what he likes for himself.
Several students framed their responses around a ``pursuit of
truth.''
Others emphasized the traditional role of the journalist as a
``watchdog'' or the ``eyes of the public'' or a ``check against
the abuses of power.''
Superb ideals, but few journalists work in such arenas of power.
Many more live off lighter fare such as movies, music and automobiles
or spend hours in dreary courthouses or at school board meetings.
I had a colleague who argued that all journalists are fundamentally
shy people who enter the profession because it forces them out
of themselves and into relationships -- albeit often shallow and
short relationships.
One student seemed closer to my colleague's sentiments:
``Journalists would be insufferable in any other profession. They are people temperamentally inclined to the job: they are curious, or restless, they hate desk jobs, hate doing the same thing every day, and have no compelling interest in something more specific.''
I can hear the thousands of editors toiling at desks hissing at
this response, though even editors would admit they like the changing
world that confronts them each new day.
One clever student wrapped up the profession this way: ``Good
journalists pursue truth; great journalists communicate it with
grace. Legends do it every week.''
Earlier I said I grieved. I grieve that so many of these students
remain captives of a romantic vision.
A journalist to many newspaper beginners is a reporter; they ignore
that at most publications there might be five to a dozen editors
for every reporter, and often an editor turns a key phrase into
a memorable one or tracks down a crucial fact in some obscure
archive or saves the reporter from an embarrassing error of style.
In the broadcast media, romance points the beginner
to anchorpersons or ``on-camera personalities'' as they are labeled
in the television domain. For every on-camera person the evening
news employs 30 or more persons off-camera to deliver the news,
and the bulk of them are anonymous professional journalists.
I grieve that so many join our number hoping to become celebrities
and legends.
Much of the criticism of contemporary journalism should be heaped
on the egoists whose primary concern is the pursuit of fame or
fortune rather than of truth or the telling of a good story.
As to qualifications for a journalist, I suggest three: learn
to read and to think and to write -- in that order.
Allan R. Andrews can be reached at allan.andrews@reporters.net