Public Eye
December 6, 2007 3:35 PM

Helen Thomas Bah-Humbugs Bloggers

By
Matthew Felling
Topics
4th Estate Debate
(CBS)
The other day I kicked the tires of a theory espoused by a freelance journalist from up in Boston. He was suggesting that anybody – whether blogger or "citizen journalist" or YouTube uploader – should be considered a 'journalist' if they do something that "genuinely looks like journalism."

More important than labeling, in the author's mind, was the thought that these 'genuine-seeming journalists' should be afforded the legal protections granted to accredited media members.

Well, not that it should come as too much of a surprise, but old school White House scribe Helen Thomas isn't drinking that "everybody's a journalist!" kool-aid.

Check out the Huffington Post Q&A with Thomas:
Do you think technology is changing [journalism]? That a good reporter will always find a venue because there are so many media outlets now?

No, but I do think it is kind of sad when everybody who owns a laptop thinks they're a journalist and doesn't understand the ethics. We do have to have some sense of what's right and wrong in this job. Of how far we can go. We don't make accusations without absolute proof. We're not prosecutors. We don't assume.

So if there's this amateur league of journalists out there, trying to do what you do...

It's dangerous.

Add a Comment
by thy1138 December 9, 2007 6:58 PM EST
I read in the National Archives journal an interesting article on the origin of the White House Press Secretary, the first said to be George B. Cortelyou, who held Cabinet posts under Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt, when he invited the press in to inform them on the condition of the President, who, climbing in the Adirondacks, the Vice President Theodore Roosevelt expected to recover. George Cortelyou is photo graphed at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, NY next to the President sometime before the shooting. It''s written elsewhere that the former NYC shorthand teacher, once Chairman of the Republican Party, caused the price of a loaf of bread to go from 5 to 10 cents, and in hindsight, said to have averted an economic depression. The article listed subsequent "White House Press Secretaries" but what I thought odd, left out Dee Dee Myers, the first woman to hold that position, for three years in the Clinton administration before leaving to get married. I suppose for many a journalist might be those invited into the White House, though considerable payoffs have gone on to "make the news" which professional journalists should be protesting more, in my opinion, my cousin George Murray once directed "Huntley and Brinkley" and won an award for "Vanishing Americans" about native Americans in our country.
Reply to this comment
by tishg-2009 December 7, 2007 7:02 PM EST
oh fer cryn'' out loud! She''s saying the same darned stuff she said *last* year at the Media Giraffe conference! Can we put her in the same room as Bill Keller and lock the door??

But, seriously, how many bloggers does Helen Thomas know to be so certain that all of us want to be journalists, and that all of us are acting without a sense of right/wrong--basically with no ethical standard? How does she know this? From a smattering of political blogs and comments at WaPo? He accusations about bloggers are just plain off-base. The blogosphere''s too big a place for such broad generalizations.
Reply to this comment
by romperroom2 December 7, 2007 4:44 AM EST
Helen Thomas says bloggers don''t understand ethics?

Read her "Watchdogs of Democracy." In it, she bashes Bush and other Republicans, of course, but she also writes about Democrats, JFK and Bill Clinton in particular, like a teenage girl with a huge crush. She brags about being invited to their parties and getting giddy in their company. Yuck!!!

Some ethics.

Reply to this comment
by rhomp2002 December 7, 2007 12:53 AM EST
Strange that she mentions journalistic ethics. I did not think they had any, at least that the ones who are working the field now show us.
Reply to this comment
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