A Journalist & Journalism Defined

What is journalism and who is journalism? That's been the topic of discussion in class the past two days.

Define Journalism

I love this definition, "journalism helps us "see with other eyes, hear with other ears and think other thoughts than those we formerly used"(pg 77, The Press). The public's access to this kind of journalism is harder to achieve in this day and age of online news, where readers are picking what they are interested in and most of the time, not reading other thoughts than they are used to. The newspaper offers this kind of journalism because as Professor Campbell said, the newspaper offers a variety of pieces on a single page and can draw the reader to new thoughts or interests.

I agree with the definition given in The Elements of Journalism that first and foremost, journalism's primary purpose is to "provide citizens with information to be free and self-governing"(pg 12).

Define Journalist

Anyone who provides information to the public is a journalist. However that doesn't necessarily make them a good journalist. A good journalist "tackles the complicated and unobvious" and that in turn empowers citizens (pg 70, The Press).