MMMM # 502 --Who IS a journalist? And Understanding polls.

     You would think police had enough trouble with their public image than to be arresting reporters, but apparently not.
     The Huffington Post reports:

Reporters from The Huffington Post and Washington Post have been charged with trespassing and interfering with a police officer’s performance, a chilling setback for press freedom coming nearly a year after their arrests in Ferguson, Missouri.

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     As a confirmed contrarian, I never watched Comedy Central's John Stewart.
     It's OK. Contrarians are usually in a tiny minority. Some of that was my early bedtime in the past six years. But there was more.
     Stewart's gig was another link in a series of events that helped diminish journalism. Most prominent in that line: Tabloid "news"papers that printed lies in a format that made them look like actual newspapers. 
     Then came tabloid newspapers that merged editorial opinion and actual news reporting (including the headlines, which became blaring editorials in themselves. 
     Then came the "entertainment news" TV programs like Inside Edition, which reported the news in spectacular style and spawning the name tabloid TV. Then came Stewart and Company...comedians who sorta "reported" news, but mostly mocked. 
     And finally the digital revolution that made everyone a hashtag journalist and destroyed the newspaper model that had served consumers pretty well for generations.
     And through it all, consumers were supposed to come away with...what? A better understanding of the news? A declining respect for anyone who tries to simply report the news?
     And just who IS a journalist these days anyway? One newly released survey found it is broader than it once was--no shock there:

"Back in the old days, any metro paper had six or seven people on the science desk and there were a lot of science magazines. A lot fewer people do that kind of work now, are pure science journalists," Edmonds said. "But universities, drug companies and hospitals are employing a whole lot of people, and it's not totally unbiased. But they are writing about scientific discoveries and doing a whole set of things that really transfer the journalism function from the independent outlets to various institutions and organizations." 

                                                                                  Rick Edmonds, the media business analyst
                                                                                 The Poynter Institute

   The bold emphasis is mine. There are more people calling themselves journalists, working for institutions with an agenda. Is that an improvement?

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     I'm always annoyed to hear reports on "polls" that should not be believed. Here's  a new explainer about how polls work--or don't. Read it would-be journalists, and news consumers too!

[The Monday Morning Media Memo is a longtime regular feature of Tim Lennox. com.]