SecondPrize said:
Exley97 said:
SecondPrize said:
If you want a list of better journalists it'll be a long one. It's better just to include everyone who has never mined quotes for an article from a letter refusing comment on the issue, as Klepek has recently done.
I think that's a little unfair. Nowhere in Walton's email does she state the words "no comment" or "off the record." And furthermore, "I don't have time for this, TBH" isn't some code for "This email is off the record."
https://twitter.com/JamieWalton
Klepek identified himself as a reporter and asked for comment. He was very clear about that. If Walton didn't want to comment, she should have said "no comment" or clarified that she was going off the record. But she went on a rant, and Klepek rightfully reported her comments. I would have done the same thing, as would most professional reporters.
Also include every journalist who has never claimed that objectivity is not something the profession should strive for because pure objectivity is an impossibility, as Scheier has done on multiple occasions. It's not a coincidence that this list would include just about every journalist that has ever worked in the field for a publication that had some respectability. Perhaps they all know something that online journalists don't.
Again, I think you're being a little unfair. Here's Schreier's full statement on the matter of journalistic objectivity:
http://tmi.kotaku.com/objectivity-in-journalism-1699347446
Walton's email is the message of someone who doesn't want to comment, there is absolutely no other way to read it. There is nobody I ever worked with in various newspapers that would have ever taken any quotes out of that. Her entire message clearly reads, "This you want to talk about? Fuck off!"
Then with all due respect to your colleagues, they were doing it wrong. Because what they teach you in journalism school, and what organizations like the Associated Press practice, is that comments are on the record unless the source clearly states otherwise.
For example, from the NYU journalism school handbook: "All conversations are assumed to be on the record unless the source expressly requests -- and the reporter explicitly agrees -- to go off the record beforehand."
http://journalism.nyu.edu/publishing/ethics-handbook/human-sources/
The AP handbook states: "Reporters should proceed with interviews on the assumption they are on the record."
http://www.ap.org/company/News-Values
In other words, Walton may not have wanted to be quoted, but that's irrelevant. If she didn't say it, then it doesn't matter. As a historical example, look at Watergate and "All the President's Men." I'm sure when then-Attorney General John Mitchell was asked for comment by Carl Bernstein about the Washington Post's Watergate story, he didn't want this comment -- "If you print that, Katie Graham is going to get her t*t caught in a big, fat ringer. And when this campaign is over, we're gonna do a little story on you two boys." -- to be on the record. Obviously, Mitchell didn't want to be quoted threatening members of the press and saying the publisher of the Washington Post was going to have her breast mangled in a clothing dyrer, BUT...he didn't say it was off the record. And that's why Bernstein rightly included it in his reporting.
If Walton was clearly stating she didn't want to comment on the record, then her email would have included those words, or even "fuck off!" -- but they didn't. She's not some rube that's never dealt with the media before. I assume she knows how it works when a reporter asks you for a comment. For whatever reason, she decided to say she didn't "have time for this" and then launched into a rant about how the media ignores her and her cause. It's not the reporter's fault that she did this. All she had to do was respond with two simple words ("no comment") or just ignore the email entirely.
And if you can find me source material that shows journalists must consider statements like "I don't have time for this, TBH" as an explicit statement going off the record, then I'm happy to consider them.
SecondPrize said:
Schreier can go ahead and take any definition of objectivity as it does not relate to the practice of journalism and stick it. It isn't an accident that the whole of the profession which looks down upon online journalism is taught that objectivity should be sought after while reporting. Schreier and his buddies online haven't figured out some special way to do journalism correctly that the rest of us don't get. He's a hack.
I disagree. And I don't think, based on your response here, that you read his full post on the matter.