.What is Journalism?
“As a trade, journalism most frequently requires an aptitude for perceiving, ferreting out, comprehending and reporting the ingredients of major happenings in the lives and surroundings of the humble and the mighty, as well as an aptitude for interpreting and putting into ‘news shape’ the significant ripples of village gossip, middletown chatter, and urban talk because of their human interest, or their weird, strange or unusual flavor.”
—George Fox Mott (1907-1987), journalism professor, 1940
Editorial comment: Our fathers’ journalism? Perceptive ferret gossips?
Interesting that Mott calls journalism a 'trade.' We've tried to elevate it to a 'craft,' then to a 'profession,' and some have gone so far as to call journalism an 'art.'Maybe the word 'journalism,' with its connotations of journal-ing -- keeping a diary or a running internal commentary on life -- isn't the right word for what we do.
ReplyDelete