Got myself a journalism sheepskin from Cal State, Chico in 1978. I’ve still got my text books, most tattered, authored in the 40’s and 50’s. It was a different journalism back then.
In one of my assigned books, The Complete Reporter, copyright 1942, reprinted 1965 it describes a journalist:
“A journalist is a writer who’s stock in trade consists of current events. As contrasted with other types of writers who may employ imagination in their quest for reader appeal, the reporter must deal with facts. He records and sometimes interprets what has happened or will happen, and under certain circumstances he is permitted to give his own opinions on the events he reports. Hence, the two things basic to the journalist’s work are facts and writing, and his two distinctive functions are gathering information and composing stories which present this information accurately and interestingly.â€
Now let’s go to the videotape in a typical Jim Accosted report from the WH:
Notice his similarities to journalism, the angry tone, the leading questions, the demands for apologies to unsubstantiated rumors, the “do you deny†questions and, of course, always the desperate attempt to force a sensational headline.
The tape don’t lie. Jim Acosta, Roving Dick.
