{"id":110,"date":"2005-03-06T23:15:34","date_gmt":"2005-03-07T03:15:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/dbnews\/2005\/03\/06\/fair-and-balanced-hell-no\/"},"modified":"2005-03-06T23:15:34","modified_gmt":"2005-03-07T03:15:34","slug":"fair-and-balanced-hell-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/2005\/03\/06\/fair-and-balanced-hell-no\/","title":{"rendered":"Fair and Balanced? Hell, no!"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n
\n

From tomorrow’s New York Times:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

In the physical world, being labeled
\n a journalist may confer little prestige and may even evoke some contempt.
\n But being
\n a
\n journalist
\n can
\n also confer certain privileges, like the right to keep sources confidential.
\n And for that reason many bloggers, a scrappy legion of online commentators
\n and pundits, would like to be considered reporters, too.<\/p>\n

A lawsuit filed in California by Apple Computer is drawing the courts
\n into that question: who should be considered a journalist?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Funny, we have been discussing this regularly at our Thursday
\n night meetings<\/a>.
\n The consensus among the Bloggers@Berkman<\/a> seems
\n to be that to the extent that bloggers want to be accepted as journalists
\n and thereby get the
\n access and privileges that accrue to journalists, they are obligated
\n to follow
\n the
\n written and unwritten rules of professional comportment that define that
\n honored and historically crucial profession. It is a self-enforcing dictum;
\n those that violate the code lose credibility and access, and are no
\n longer taken seriously as journalists.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, some of us, including the Dowbrigade,
\n feel that this is a devil’s bargain, and the last <\/em>thing we want
\n is to be considered "journalists," if that means pretending to be unbiased
\n and subtly or
\n overtly editing our output in order to preserve the favorable opinion
\n and paltry
\n privileges meted out by the power structure to the "approved" journalists.<\/p>\n

If that means we miss out on the exclusive interviews
\n and the A-list events and the after-parties and the scoops and the face
\n time, so be
\n it. Journalism is a dangerous profession, for the body, for the mind
\n and for the soul, and its not for the faint of heart. It is addictive,
\n and terribly sexy, and creates a rush of action and adrenaline, the feeling
\n of being tapped
\n into the
\n mainline
\n of our
\n information society.
\n Gradually, the feeling of being privy to privileged information evolves
\n into the feeling of being privileged, period. And then the threat of
\n losing that privilege, of being disgraced and expelled from the brotherhood
\n can be used to tailor and channel output, focus attention
\n in certain directions, keep away from dangerous areas.<\/p>\n

Once fully into the brotherhood of journalists, the
\n penalty can be high for betraying the trust of the powers that be. Loss
\n of job, reputation,
\n or employability are real possibilities. The stress of sublimating personal
\n and political preferences in a vain and misconceived attempt at impartiality
\n can tear apart egos, families and a person’s sanity. Incarceration or
\n elimination are hazards that touch hundreds of journalists every year. <\/p>\n

This is not a fraternity we should be fighting to join. We
\n should rather be thankful for our foibles, our passionate partisanships,
\n our phobias
\n and personal peeves. Fair and balanced?  Hell, no. Welcome to the
\n real world.<\/p>\n

article from the New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From tomorrow’s New York Times: In the physical world, being labeled a journalist may confer little prestige and may even evoke some contempt. But being a journalist can also confer certain privileges, like the right to keep sources confidential. And … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}