Card:? A Bedford/St. Martin?s Production

Card:? Clarence Page, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist

0:00:05.5
Clarence Page
One of the most surprising developments of this new media age is to me is how it has produced uh.. a new generation of youngsters coming into either journalism schools, or the business, who want to just right away start writing opinion, uh.. who don?t know that journalism <laughs> is supposed to be, at least in American tradition, uh.. is supposed to be primarily uh.. objective reporting. Uh.. and uh.. the providing of facts, uh.. ?just the facts,? as we used to say back in my day.

Card:? The Contemporary Journalist: Pundit or Reporter?

Card:? Richard Campbell, Author and Journalism Professor

0:00:36.5
Richard Campbell
I think there?s a lot of confusion about kind of opinion-based journalism, or punditry, and actual uh.. reporting. And some of this is self-inflicted. I mean, we have — you have l — on cable television, you have a lot of people who in their day job they?re reporters, and then on the weekends or in the evenings, they?re asked to serve as pundits and comment on their- their reporting often.

0:01:02.2
Clarence Page
Uh.. but today, because of uh.. of the internet and blogging becoming popular, talk radio, etcetera, I think youngsters see uh.. the big stars of the media expressing their opinion all the time, and think that that?s what reporting is about. And we have to disabuse them of that notion right away. ?Cause it?s really all about reporting. That?s really the foundation — and I don?t care whether you?re on a newspaper, TV, radio, or the web, uh.. what the public wants is that information first of all. Then you can give them an- an opinion to bounce their opinion off of, but reporting is basic.

0:01:36.3
Richard Campbell
And so we?ve often sort of kept this line between, again, I think a useful way to talk about this is the kind of a news or journalism of- of verification, in which the reporter?s job is to sort of document what?s going on in the world, and providing evidence for that, and talking to people who sort of know something about it versus uh.. journalism of assertion, in which you have lots of talking heads about strong opinions, but often d- don?t document uh.. what they do.

0:02:06.8
Clarence Page
I think uhm.. the explosion of- of new media has made it harder and harder uh.. for you to have a- a little think time, uh.. with- with all that media turned off, and just meditate a little bit. Uh.. and that?s the pundit?s prerogative, if you will, that we don?t take advantage of enough. Uh.. too often we think reflexively. Usually according to whether I come from the political right or the political left, or the social right or left. Uh.. and thus we have a pre-programmed ?s

0:02:36.6
boring. Uh.. I think it?s much better to be unpredictable. Uh.. sometimes you can s- you can sur- surprise yourself when you kick back and start thinking about uh.. these things, and- and get past the preconceived notions. And to me, that?s what journalism is really supposed to be about is just answering that curiosity, just following that curiosity out there. Not only to find out what is there out there in the world that you don?t know, you

0:03:00.7
want to tell your audience about, but what?s going on in your own head, that you?ve really taken that much time to explore?

Card:? Producers: Peter Berkow & Michael Hoopingarner

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