Thread by @normative

As an undergrad, I’d started expecting to major in journalism. The profs I became really friendly with advised me not to: “Take a few classes, maybe do a minor, but you’re better off learning a subject relevant to what you report on. Journalism itself you learn by doing it.”

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1395746014963900416

What IS vital, and related to our “info problems,” is the transmission of journalistic norms & practice & culture, which traditionally happened via working with more experienced veteran reporters & editors, whether or not you’d gone through a college journalism curriculum.

The Internet has enabled a lot of people to bypass the traditional process of slogging your way up the journalistic totem poll, as it were. As a 20-something blogger in the early aughts, this was fantastic: You could build a sizable national audience out of nowhere.

That said, I got a lot of benefit out of taking SOME J-classes (and working on the college paper), and even more working with experienced reporters & editors at Reason & The Economist.... And I think there are tons of people writing for large audiences now who never had that.

I recall at one point working with some very smart, very good writers who’d crossed over to journalism from tech backgrounds, and an ad rep made a request that to my ears was just obviously unethical. Once I raised the issue & explained why I thought so, everyone agreed...

...but it struck me that what was an obvious red flag to me wasn’t so obviously a problem absent that background, and might even have been allowed for a while. If it’s your first reporting gig, maybe you just assume that’s how things work.

There’s a lot of important process stuff in journalism that’s not immediately apparent to the reader. So the great thing about the Internet is that a good writer can reach a large audience without working their way up covering dog shows & covering town council meetings...

...but the downside is that a good writer can reach a large audience without working their way up covering dog shows & town council meetings. Which is to say, without spending time absorbing all that important behind-the-scenes process stuff.

A stupid example: I remember covering an event where some politician spoke very early in my J career, sitting in the press section. When he finishes, I reflexively start to applaud politely. None of the other reporters are clapping. One gives me a look. I stop, red faced.

This is an arguably trivial norm, and certainly one I never learned in my journalism classes: “Journalists don’t clap.” It’s a little awkward, not doing the normal polite thing most of the audience is doing. But it reminds you *you’re there as a reporter*.

Which is to say, maybe as a person or as a citizen you liked or agreed with the speech, and maybe you didn’t, but your job when you put the journalist hat on is to leave that behind as much as you can. And it’s a minor thing, but a thousand minor things add up to a culture.