The Mediacracy: How Journalism Went Bad

[brettdale]

The Mediacracy: How Journalism Went Bad

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0508/S00022.htm

YOUR EDITOR has occasionally noted that when he started out in what was then the trade of journalism, over half the reporters in this country only had a high school education. Ben Bagdikian, a bit older, describes in his memoir, Double Vision, an even less pretentious craft:

"Before the war a common source of the reporter was an energetic kid who ran newsroom errands for a few years before he was permitted to accompany the most glamorous character on the staff, the rough-tough, seen-it-all, blood-and-guts police reporter. Or else, as in my case, on a paper with low standards, reporters started off as merely warm bodies that could type and would accept $18 a week with no benefits.

[Catt03]

1. I disagree....... slightly

Then the trade stopped being a trade as not only a college degree but a masters in journalism became increasingly desired. Further, journalists - with the help of things like the Washington Post's new Style section - began joining the power structure by increasingly writing themselves into it.

I am of this era of journalism, degree and masters. However also before
journalism was renamed a "communications" degree to include television.

I had some great teachers who were working journalists and they wanted it right!

I remember being amazed at how difficult it could be to remain neutral when my passion was with the other side. Also, to this day, still get out my old book "Reporting" by Mitchell Charnley and check all the legals on current articles.