Real Journalists

California Senator Dianne Feinstein may have put her foot in it up to the ankle as she introduced a bill that would shield journalists from criminal investigations related to their work. She made it clear that her measure was intended to protect real reporters, defined as those who draw a salary -- as opposed, I guess, to screwball bloggers with 10 or so faithful readers....er...like me.

There are lots of people out there who would love to be “real” reporters and be paid a decent salary, though such positions are fewer and farther between, as traditional news organizations that could actually pay salaries have drastically shrunk.

But I do know what DiFi is trying to say. Now that journalism has been democratized, anyone can have a platform, like the one I’m standing on right now. Journalism is one of those professions that many people think they can do without the least bit of training. They have eyes, ears, noses, and may be plugged farther in than the lame-stream media people in the big building down the street.

I used to work in a tourist town. Tourism involves promotion and marketing, and it seemed that at every public meeting, somebody would stand up and offer some whizbang magic bullet that would double the number of visitors to town overnight, and wondered why those in the business didn’t have the brains to see a solution that was right in front of them. It didn’t matter that the head of the convention and visitors bureau in the city had a degree or two in this subject, or that those running hotels actually had gone to a university to study their industry, and might even have a decade or three of experience in it.

Many parents are experts on how to educate children, and wonder why their kids’ credentialed teachers can’t do it and why they pay taxes to support overly compensated school district administrators, some of whom have doctoral degrees. Or your great aunt has a family recipe that has healed what’s ailing you a lot faster than the Harvard-educated doc with all those expensive pills.

But isn’t there something to be said for journalists whose passions have prodded them to get the training and put in the time practicing their craft, who’ve been around the block a few times, know when they’re being flim-flammed and where the bodies are buried, and have learned how to tell you the stories you need to see, hear, or read? They probably wouldn’t be in that profession over a period long enough to have acquired those skills unless someone paid them along the way.

So Senator, I hear what you’re saying. But maybe there’s a better way of saying it.