Unpacking the journalist, or Public Investigation

In his post How can we get people to "Geek Out" about journalism?, David Cohn over at PBS' MediaShift Idea Lab reflects on the fact that journalism has an image problem in North America.

I respond in the comments that we need to stop saying "Pay me to be a journalist" and start saying "Pay me to find the answers." But I can't help but wonder if we need to go further, and unpack the tasks of journalists.

The way I see it, a good investigative reporter is a cross between a private dick and a researcher (research librarian, perhaps?), with excellent writing skills, journalistic privilege (both in terms of access and legal protections), and a publishing venue to back her up. That publishing venue may also offer editing, copy editing, fact-checking, and even a strong reputation.

Well, today we all have a publishing venue, given that anyone can start a blog on the internet for free. Editing and copy editing are not essential, fact checking is provided by crowdsourcing in the comments, and reputation can be achieved per journalist, rather than per organization. Lots of people have adequate writing skills. And while some bloggers will undoubtedly sorely miss the legal protections journalists enjoy before society's adjustment to this 'media shift' is through, journalistic access is often overrated (just ask Mayhill Fowler, a citizen journalist with the Huffington Post's OffTheBus campaign who has made waves with the stories she has scooped by not being a member of the press). In short, at its core our business is to seek out truth, or at least, to get as close to the truth as possible, and then release it for public consumption.

[As an aside, this coincides with discussions I've seen about replacing the concept of journalistic objectivity with transparency. If I hire either a PI or researcher to do work for me, what I'm hiring them for is to answer a question, or a set of questions. I'm hiring them to get me some information that I couldn't get on my own, or that I don't have time to get on my own. And when they give me their results I expect complete transparency - surveillance photos, links, reports, data, you name it. For more on this, see Josh Young's post in Networked News, What we talk about when we talk about neutrality.]

So, we have private investigation. Why not public investigation? And, why separate the two? A large Investigation firm could have investigators on staff as well as writers, and customers could hire the firm to investigate privately, or for publication. I'm not saying that this is the journalism of the future, but it's an interesting idea.

The honesty double-standard

As I expand my reading list (yes, there will soon be a blogroll), I've been catching up on old posts. One of the blogs I've been reading is PressThink, home to Jay Rosen's incisive (albeit often lengthy) commentary on modern media.

After citizen journalist Mayhill Fowler's run-in with Bill Clinton on June 2, Rosen published an extremely thorough round-up of media reactions to what is now dubbed "PurdumGate."

Fowler committed the heinous crime of failing to inform Clinton that she was a citizen journalist or that she was recording the conversation (her recorder was in her hand, but apparently he didn't notice it). Clinton let his guard down (you can listen here) and spoke honestly and passionately to Fowler about Todd Purdum's Vanity Fair article, The Comeback Id. Needless to say, Clinton was not pleased to discover the conversation, with commentary, published on the Huffington Post's citizen journalist campaign section, Off the Bus. Both Fowler and Clinton regret the incident; Fowler wishes she'd remembered, in the heat of the moment, to identify herself, and Clinton probably wishes he hadn't let his guard down.

The incident hit a nerve with many media members (for a summary, check out Rosen's blog post as linked above).

Reading those reactions, I had a bit of an epiphany.

Old-school reporters hold themselves to a very strict code of ethics. Most believe that we must disclose who we are to sources. If the story is important enough and there's no other way of getting the information, this rule can be bent or in rare cases, broken.

In many of the excerpts Rosen quoted, it's clear that members of the traditional media feel that this is important, because otherwise, politicians would always have to be on their guard. And what a horrible way for them to live!

But wait. Why are they on their guard in the first place? What's so bad about the public seeing them as they really are - humans? The reason is simple. Politicians wear personas the way we might wear hats or masks. The guy we vote for probably doesn't even really exist. He's a carefully crafted ideal designed to capture votes. And most of us expect it, because being an honest and open politician just isn't the done thing.

So we bend over backwards to pretend that there is no man behind the curtain. We strive to be honest so that politicians can continue to be dishonest and lie to us about who they are. We must be honest and disclose at all times, but politicians are expected, always, to present a false facade, a lie. We aid and abet that by allowing them to choose what is and isn't off the record.

I don't mean to suggest that journalists should start lying about who we are. Nor am I suggesting that we should stop disclosing our intent before an interview. But when politicians complain about being on the record all the time (which is increasingly the case what with so many people blogging), we shouldn't feel sorry for them. If they were honest in the first place, and presented themselves as they are, being on the record all the time wouldn't be a problem in the first place, and voters would know who they are really voting for. In essence, elections could be about the issues instead of the image.

Food for thought.