Monday, October 19, 2009
Should journalists have a licensing examination?
Communications is arguably one of the easiest majors at university. Currently in the United States, virtually anyone can become a journalist (while most major at a university in journalism, mass communications, or English). There is no licensing as there are with most other professionals (and those without licensing tacitly favor PhD's). Let's try to imagine how journalism would be different if such licensing existed.
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But are you assuming that licensing is to make sure these people are qualified? Or is it so that entry into the field can be limited, therefore keeping the salaries of those in it higher than they would otherwise be? Case in point - my furnace. A licensed guy bid $4800 on it. An unlicensed guy (known through a family member I trust on these issues, so I have no worries he'd be fully competent) bid $2500.
ReplyDeleteThe city requires a licensed contractor do the job, but who knows if that's from wanting people to be safe when they hire out this job, or if the labor unions pressure the city into making those requirements.
This could also apply to the AMA. How many qualified doctors from other countries would come to the US and do the job for $50,000 instead of $250,000?
I think another assumption we have to make here is that those “licensed professionals” and otherwise accredited “Ph.Ds” hold themselves to their respective oaths and maintain the integrity of their fields above and beyond self-promotion. I think this is false, but if we are to assume licensing would solve journalistic problems, we must assume this point. I think an alternative to licensing is a ranking system (think impact factor for science journals) and peer-reviewed editorial boards. Let me address the latter first, dialogues (I think it is safe to assume what is put on the teleprompters for Today and Nightly News is typed up prior to the show) must be checked by a peer-review process for facts, references, and lack of opinions/commentary. Now the former, each “news” program would be prefaced with its news impact factor (same goes for Newspapers). For example, Financial Time IF:20, Wall Street Journal IF 19, The Today Show IF 4, Glen Beck IF 1. A panel of journalist, similar to a panel of scientist, would be responsible for the IF rankings and peer-reviewing.
ReplyDeleteUltimately, I see this as a way for journalism to take back the media airwaves from corporate commercialism. NBC, ABC, CBS, and FOX could start competing for a higher Impact Factor.
A couple potential problems I see with this:
ReplyDeleteIf the network gets to pick the people who look at their info, it'll easily be biased to people who favor them or who will outright do what the CEO tells them to do. It's like jury selection with only one lawyer getting to eliminate people from the pool (if my knowledge of jury selection gained from John Grisham movies has any merit).
Second, if they don't have any input into it, I can only imagine the firestorm FOX News would invoke with restrictions on their free speech.
Free speech has nothing to do with it. I can't claim to have cured cancer in Cell/Nature/Science. Under the same regulations Fox News could not guise Beck and O'Reilly as news if their Impact Factors were low. However, their regular news programming, according to Pew Research Center, is rather unbiased and presents actual news (caveat, it may pick which news to present). So their news programming hours may very well have a high impact factor. I think they would have no problem with this as even Beck as been quoted as saying he is a commentator and not a journalist.
ReplyDeleteSimilar to NIH, Science, Cell, any other high impact factor journal/granting agency, a number of peers would be asked to review the subject matter of the manuscripts. Now you may make an argument there exists some corruption in these science articles, but they are the closest thing we have to a professional forum where peers in similar fields critize and praise each others work. It is not like jury selection, in that when you submit a manuscript for review you have no say in who reviews it. You just know they will be competent in the field.
If they mimic science, this is really not a hard concept to adopt.
I'll explain how I saw this problem. In my mind, it boiled down to accountability. There is no real system in place right now to hold journalists responsible (the public certainly isn't going to do it). This is why you have shows like Colbert Report and Daily Show whose secondary function is to critique the news delivery system. Think about how careful a a lawyer, an accountant, even a real estate broker has to be in their business dealings. And each has some sort of ethical responsibility and accountability per some test (real estate probably minimal but I still think it's there). Scientists have developed a different approach through their internal vetting and we can argue as to whether that's been corrupted but a mechanism still exists. Journalism is simply a job which may or may not require a college degree (as there is no board of journalists).
ReplyDeleteI'd like to reference this discussion on a different board:
http://onlinejournalismblog.wordpress.com/2007/12/04/do-you-need-a-licence-to-be-a-journalist/
Of note, Carte Press in France:
The issue of having or not having a license to be a journalist is not, at least for me, as simple as that. Remember, for example, how important was the law, approved in 1935 by the French Parliament, to grant the journalists a “Professional Card” and to allow people to distinguish them from all those others (mainly politicians) who wrote in the newspapers using them not for information’s sake, but for propaganda. It was an important step in the long-standing efforts of the journalists’ professional group to have their job publicly recognized and socially legitimized as a real profession – which means ‘privileges’, but also duties.
First of all, I'd like to briefly clarify what I meant about freedom of speech. I wasn't necessarily saying they'd have a legitimate gripe about it. I'm more saying that I wouldn't be surprised if Bill O'Reilly raised a storm about the liberals trying to filter his message or something like that. You know it wouldn't be hard for him to do, nor would it be surprising for them to take that stand. It'd just be their own spin on it.
ReplyDeleteOne question I have with Jarrod's proposal - would this be done on a daily basis, or longer term? If daily, I think it'd run into problems. However, if they were to do something like sweeps week except ongoing, it could work. In other words, their broadcasts over a 6 month period would determine their IF rating for the next 6 months, and so forth for that 6 month period. However, individual details become less important on a longer scale, so if you want to skew one issue, it might be possible to do so and still get a high rating.
In general, upon a reading of the 1st Amendment, I would say a broad interpretation of the amendment really limits anything the govenment could do to "license" journalism. Some sort of self-regulatory body would be have to be created, similar to what I have proposed, and adopted by journalist voluntarily. Hopefully, as stated in the Carte Press, most journalist would welcome this to legitamize their profession and welcome the "privileges" and "duties".
ReplyDeleteTo answer Steve's question; upon further thought, fact checking dialogues on a daily basis would be impossible. The best thing would be an Impact Factor for all Newspapers and News Programs. This could be done on a 6-month basis or something. A counsel of peers from newspapers and news outlets (progressive and conservative and international). I agree that a few incorrect statements might not warrant a decrease in an Impact Factor, but remember, Muscle and Nerve (common basic physiology journal) will never be Cell. I think there would be a clear divide between a lot of Newspapers and shows. The most important thing would be providing the knowledge to the viewer.
Lastly, I would say that Glen Beck, Hannity, O'Reilly, Olbermann, Rush, and others' ratings are higher than ever because our society seems to be becoming more bi-modal (win-lose, one-right vs. one-wrong). So despite Impact Factors I think a lot of viewers would continue to watch the biased shows and read the low Impact Factor newspapers.
Could the rise of the bimodal media have something to do with people feeling underrepresented by the mainstream media? Perhaps people like the feeling of their news and world view coming from somebody who purports to be "on their side." If so, could an Impact Factor be tailored to draw people away from this, and hopefully get them to challenge their own views rather than pick the medium that reinforces them? This may be going off-topic, but was just a thought I had in response to Jarrod's last post.
ReplyDelete