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If I have to fact-check the uncited claims made in news articles, doesn't that make me the journalist?
(self.showerthoughts)
this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2024
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News isn't a primary source. In most cases its a secondary source. They ask the primary "what happened" or get a press release from wherever and report on that.
They can be a primary source if they are live on location recording something as it happens. In that case, only the video (or written account) and individuals are primary sources, the second it goes through the studio's writers it becomes a secondary source.
Journalist is defined as anyone who writes for public news media. If op writes an article an publicly posts it, they are a blogger. If they post it anywhere that can be considered a news site (IMO, if their a own site is a news site, it counts), they are a journalist.
A good journalists is one who takes in many primary sources, maybe fills the gaps with some other secondaries and informs the public with the most informed information they have. Unfortunately corporate news has become an echo chamber of secondary sources with no one independently looking at primary sources. If it ain't cited don't trust it.
If the OP of the shower thought, basically fact checks someone else, then they are doing the work of a journalist. However simply doing a bit of work does not earn you the title, just like replacing a light switch at your house does not make you an electrician (even if you do it better then some of the "professionals")
Hm, I'm not sure that that's a fair comparison. If it is assumed that an electrician must be licensed in order to practice as one (and assuming that they can only call themself an electrician if they practice as one), do journalists have similar requirements? I may simply be ignorant, but I've not found any examples that a journalist must be licensed in order to practice. Such licensing feels like it would start infringing on fundamental rights.
No you don't need a license to be a journalist.
My thought was more about the scale of the project. For a journalists, just fact checking someone online doesn't make you a journalists. If you went out to fact check something at the source, compiled a bunch of evidence and presented it publicly, then you'd call your self a journalist.
Back to the electrician (ignoring license requirements), swapping out a light switch isn't much, but if you learned how to rewired a whole house, install panels, ceilings fans, etc - you'd call you self an electrition.
And you're right, the electrician is kind of a bad comparison.
I agree — it fits by definition ^[1]^, at the very least.
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