What Are You Willing to Risk?

A good friend and journalist wrote me last week after the Supreme Court refused to hear the case of two reporters who face jail time for not giving up confidential sources. What got her really stoked was that the court – and many others – wouldn’t acknowledge, as she put it, that “journalists are not ordinary citizens.”

For her, being a journalist means you’re in a special category, one with very real challenges. “Once somebody undertakes to be a journalist, they [need to] realize that they have, if not a sacred trust, then at least a public responsibility. … Hey, folks, you’re playing with fire here. And don’t forget the big ‘L’ word [libel]. … Let’s not forget those who have died in the line of duty, too.  Immigrant reporters, war reporters, crime reporters who ‘went too far.’  Daniel Pearl.”

It’s a great point and a real challenge for citizen journalists – How far are you willing to go, what risks are you willing to take, what price are you willing to pay to practice your craft? There’s no right answer, of course.

If journalism is your livelihood and your professional identify, the answer might be: “as far as we need to, including jail time or even the risk of death.” Others draw the line at things like combat duty, or other circumstances that put them in the physical danger zone.

These are gray areas, especially for bloggers or citizen journalists, since their legal status as journalists under circumstances like libel is still not very clear. But if you’re wanting to give citizen journalism a try, you’d be wise to start asking yourself these questions now.

As my friend put it: “… Once you take on the mantle, baby, you’d better be willing to take on the risks.”

Comments

[Amy Gahran]

Here's the thing that gets me, though -- journalists are not licensed, required to register with the government, etc. This is because journalists do what *anyone* can do, in terms of gathering info and reporting the news. The only difference is that news organizations, journalism schools, and journalistic associations have developed impressive infrastructures and procedures to support those tasks.

Doing journalism always entails risk -- at least if you're doing it right. However, it is possible to understand the law, ethical quandaries, etc. well enough to minimize or manage those risks in most situations.

But I won't kid you -- don't go into this kind of work, even as an amateur, unless you're willing to stick your neck out, make people uncomfortable, and take some heat.

- Amy Gahran

[Gary Goldhammer]

The news today about Judith Miller is chilling -- if this can happen to a reporter for the New York Times and all the lawyers it comes with, then how will judges view the "citizen" journalist?

Journalists are only as good as their sources – without them there are only press releases and staged sound bites. Yes, unnamed sources should only be used as a last resort, but sometimes they are necessary. Sometimes they need protection – and so do the journalists.

[A. Adam Glenn]

There's good insight on the importance of sources, especially anonymous ones, in a July 6 column by Newsday's Ellis Henican.

He recounts the story of an anonymous source he used for a local scoop early in his career, and writes: "I learned a simple but important lesson that day: This is how journalism is done. You get a tip. You check it out. You write what you know to be true.

And all of it depends on the reporter being able to protect the confidentiality of the source. You take that away, we'll all be rewriting press releases by this time next week."

[Dorian Benkoil]

My thoughts here: http://mediaflect.blogsome.com/2005/07/14/teaching-citizens-to-be-journalists/

[A. Adam Glenn]

Dorian makes some good points, but has misstated my view on this point of professional vs. citizen journalists.

Dorian writes: "Curiously, though, this post says that professional journalists are not ordinary citizens." He goes on to say: "Well, maybe not, but from what I know of First Amendment law, it’s dangerous for journalists — who don’t want to have to have certification or licensing to practice the craft — to claim they’re somehow special. In other words, there’s a lot a professional journalists knows that imbues his/her work based on years of experience and training. But it’s important to not get too high-fallutin in thinking we really are special."

I was actually quoting someone else who said "journalists are not ordinary citizens." My own point was that that argument raised a real challenge for citizen journalists in understanding how deep their commitment goes to journalist principles and public truth-telling.

I'd put it this way: It's not that we journalists are "chosen" and therefore special. It's that we are "choosing" to meet a higher standard than most ordinary citizens.

What I or any other person might speculate about in a conversation with neighbors, for example, is very, very different from what I might say in print, where I have to get really serious about what I know and how I know it.

It would probably be a better (if less interesting) world if that conversational standard applied to everyone. But it doesn't. We journalists make the decision then that given the potentially immense impact of what we project to a larger audience, our standard must be higher.