Journalism classes don't make students professionals
Alex Boles
Issue date: 11/12/09 Section: Opinions
What's in a name?
Many of you might be following the debacle at Northwestern University, where prosecutors issued subpoenas to professor David Protess asking to see his students' grades, his class syllabus and their private e-mails, according to an article on KMOV-St. Louis' Web site.
Protess and his various journalism students have been working on releasing 11 once-proven-guilty-now-determined-innocent people from jail since 1993, according to the article.
What's interesting is that the prosecutors are arguing that Protess and his students aren't technically journalists and therefore are not protected under reporter's privilege. They think the journalism students altered material in seeking a higher grade in the class. Considering the man whom they currently are attempting to free is incarcerated for the murder of a security guard, I would only hope that their facts have been checked and weren't altered for a grade.
It's tricky to come out and say, "Yeah! I'm a journalist, so I am on the journalist students' side!" Yes, I agree that it is fishy that the prosecutors have responded only to this case and not the other 11. It puts into perspective that maybe the prosecution's facts need to be checked.
The concern of whether the students are protected as journalists is touched upon in the Illinois Reporters' Privilege statute. This protects reporters from having to give officials information they gathered from reporting, including notes and e-mails, according to the article. Now the question is whether they are considered reporters or students with a class project.
Ultimately the judge will decide this, but I say that unless these students are actively involved with or are contributing to a media outlet, they are not technically considered journalists. Students participating in a class assignment are not to be categorized with people who contribute to a publication or broadcast program of sorts. Turning in a paper where you researched facts by using journalistic techniques does not make you a journalist. These students can say it is absurd to request these materials, and it is a little inconvenient, but with subject matter as serious as murder and no credibility beyond the status of student, I hesitate to take their word as fact. It would be far too easy for people to land a "Get out of jail free" card if prosecutors stop asking questions. The professor and students might see it as an invasion of privacy and a violation of their rights, but establishing themselves as credible journalists will land them those rights, so they should probably start there.
Defining what it means to be a journalist goes along with deciding if bloggers are journalists, too. Technically they are not, because any Joe Schmo on the street can meander through the interwebs and start up a "news blog" and call it fact. I'm not by any means knocking blogs - I have a few successful ones myself - but I merely classify myself as a blogger or an editor of content submitted. If I post campus news or deep, emotional insights into my mind, I hope people don't take it as concrete fact and run with it. I do consider myself a credible journalist, but only because I have established myself at a publication for the last four years, not because my major at one time was journalism. That is a title, not a right to the privileges of the trade.
Alex Boles is a junior communication major from St. Louis, Mo.
Many of you might be following the debacle at Northwestern University, where prosecutors issued subpoenas to professor David Protess asking to see his students' grades, his class syllabus and their private e-mails, according to an article on KMOV-St. Louis' Web site.
Protess and his various journalism students have been working on releasing 11 once-proven-guilty-now-determined-innocent people from jail since 1993, according to the article.
What's interesting is that the prosecutors are arguing that Protess and his students aren't technically journalists and therefore are not protected under reporter's privilege. They think the journalism students altered material in seeking a higher grade in the class. Considering the man whom they currently are attempting to free is incarcerated for the murder of a security guard, I would only hope that their facts have been checked and weren't altered for a grade.
It's tricky to come out and say, "Yeah! I'm a journalist, so I am on the journalist students' side!" Yes, I agree that it is fishy that the prosecutors have responded only to this case and not the other 11. It puts into perspective that maybe the prosecution's facts need to be checked.
The concern of whether the students are protected as journalists is touched upon in the Illinois Reporters' Privilege statute. This protects reporters from having to give officials information they gathered from reporting, including notes and e-mails, according to the article. Now the question is whether they are considered reporters or students with a class project.
Ultimately the judge will decide this, but I say that unless these students are actively involved with or are contributing to a media outlet, they are not technically considered journalists. Students participating in a class assignment are not to be categorized with people who contribute to a publication or broadcast program of sorts. Turning in a paper where you researched facts by using journalistic techniques does not make you a journalist. These students can say it is absurd to request these materials, and it is a little inconvenient, but with subject matter as serious as murder and no credibility beyond the status of student, I hesitate to take their word as fact. It would be far too easy for people to land a "Get out of jail free" card if prosecutors stop asking questions. The professor and students might see it as an invasion of privacy and a violation of their rights, but establishing themselves as credible journalists will land them those rights, so they should probably start there.
Defining what it means to be a journalist goes along with deciding if bloggers are journalists, too. Technically they are not, because any Joe Schmo on the street can meander through the interwebs and start up a "news blog" and call it fact. I'm not by any means knocking blogs - I have a few successful ones myself - but I merely classify myself as a blogger or an editor of content submitted. If I post campus news or deep, emotional insights into my mind, I hope people don't take it as concrete fact and run with it. I do consider myself a credible journalist, but only because I have established myself at a publication for the last four years, not because my major at one time was journalism. That is a title, not a right to the privileges of the trade.
Alex Boles is a junior communication major from St. Louis, Mo.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Whitney McFerron
posted 11/13/09 @ 2:46 PM CST
It makes me sad to see you write this, Alex.
Do you really think it should be up to county prosecutors and other government officials to decide who's allowed to question them? To decide who's a journalist and who's not? Journalism is not an exclusive club, Alex, and as a student, you're not much different from the reporters in David Protess' class (I don't care how "successful" your blogs are). (Continued…)
n
posted 11/15/09 @ 5:40 PM CST
I'm tempted to not open up the Pandora's Box about whether bloggers are journalists or not, but here's the screwdriver edging open the lid:
Where is this magical, all-powerful entity that deems a site that disseminates information as credible or not?
And how are blogs any different than an established news entity like a paper, magazine or a Web site?
At one point, those "established" entities were unestablished. (Continued…)
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