The Profession

So last Thursday Don Meyers from The Salt Lake Tribune came and spoke to us in class. I think my favorite quote from him was "Just Google him on YouTube." Probably not as funny in writing, but it cracked those of us in the corner up:)

We kind of skipped around to various topics but the central idea was about the profession of journalism.

Before class a few of us shared our worries for our social lives because in the reading other journalists were quoted as saying that it's too complicated to have friends outside the field of journalism. As people persons, this concerned us -- we like to have variety. But fortunately for us Bro. Meyer thought that was a ridiculous notion and said it's fine for journalists to expand their social circle. He told us to take The Godfather approach if issues ever arise: "It's not personal, it's business."

The Mind of a Journalist introduced the interesting concept that journalism is like a professional priesthood: that we as journalists "surrender to a higher calling of serving others." I definitely agree that journalists view themselves as part of a higher calling. We love what we do because we believe we are helping others through our skills of gaining information, processing it, and delivering it to the masses.
The book refers to two common theories in describing this priesthood: the hegemony theory, "directed at what journalists believe and comprising the social, cultural, and ideological beliefs of journalists," and the news work theory, directed at what journalists learn and experience on the job.

I believe the hegemony theory has a lot to do with our worldview. Our culture's standards and values affect the manner in which we present the news as well as the news content itself. In Western society we are very much focused on the timeliness aspect of the news because we value prompt and up-to-date information. Also in Western culture do we believe in negative news. When something bad happens in our community-we report on it, whereas in India, they hold a very different worldview such that their news is made when something good occurs. I'm not sure if journalists' world views differ from the average person. It seems to be the chicken or the egg scenario for me: do the world views and thus work of journalists influence the average person, or do the world views of the average person affect the way in which journalists present news?

Bro. Meyer's discussions about Bill Murray, the owner of the Crandall Canyon Mine, and the polygamist whose name I failed to write down, exemplified the news work theory (we got off on these topics when Prof. Campbell asked who the most interesting person Meyer had ever interviewed was). I wish I could find the Bill Murray clip we watched in class where he was going off about the Crandall Canyon Mine mess, but apparently I'm not that skilled at Google-ing things on YouTube, because I couldn't find his ridiculous press conference. But if anyone knows how to find it, let me know- it's a good laugh.

Just some tidbits I enjoyed from Don Meyer:

• Journalism is the only profession specifically mentioned in the Constitution because our Founding Fathers believed a free and unfettered press is the best check on government (since I'm an elitist, of course I enjoy the fact that my chosen profession is more important than others...)
• Journalism demands the government be accountable to the people
• Journalists are story tellers at heart + historians with a sense of justice; we try to understand how government works and point out when it's not working.
• We "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."

We also discussed the Shield Law sitting in the Senate right now. It will be interesting to see what happens with the Shield Law and the implications for our future. Bro. Meyer couldn't tell us much about it, but he hopes it will be passed within the next month or so, otherwise he believes it will be another 5 years before it has a chance again.