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How Much Difference Can Journalism Make?

By Brian Montopoli

March 30, 2007 / 11:20 AM EDT / CBS News

(AP)

"Perhaps you are now reflecting that changing things isn't the job of journalists anyway: it is the business of voters and politicians. And this, of course, is true. What journalists are supposed to do is deliver the news, with some interpretation or commentary where appropriate. However, when the news you bring is 200,000 dead and two million homeless, and when after you have reported it the killing just goes on, it becomes even harder to swallow the idea that journalism shapes our world."

--Brian Cathcart, arguing in The New Statesman that journalists don't have as much impact on the world as they might like to think.