Subject: Re: Professional exclusions From: curtmonash@monash.com (Curt A. Monash) Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 12:05:22 -0400

At 02:37  5/15/96 -0400, S. Finer wrote:
>S. Finer is my real name.  Honest.  8-)
>
>moreover, see below
>
...

>Impossible, or just difficult?  Do you think Vigdor is a journalist?  How
>many people on this list think Vigdor is a journalist?
> 

Is William Safire a journalist?  I am second to no one here in my contempt
for Vigdor's writings.  I think he's a very poor excuse for a columnist,
polemicist, journalist, or list participant.  But that's a question of
quality, not of kind.  If opinion writers are journalists, then Vigdor is
one too.

What harm is done to the customers/public if an inept
>> journalist pursues the trade? 
>
>I'd say that depends on his venue......the harm might be considerable...

Sure.  All those journalists who reported Joe McCarthy's ravings
uncritically did a lot of harm, as did the ones who fell for the dirty
tricks and reported on Muskie crying in the snow.  But how would
certification have prevented those problems, or any other real life ones?

>
>> Open debate deals with that, at least in
>> theory, and usually in practice.  (And I think the Net DOES have a lot to
>> offer in increasing the opportunities for non-mainstream opinions to be
>> heard.)
>
>In practice not often enough...

Anti-communism led to a Nazi government in Germany, and to World War II.  In
the 1950s, it led to some thousands of smart, creative, decent writers and
government officials having their careers demolished -- but at that point TV
helped bring McCarthy down.  Big difference.  (Yes, the difference between a
confident 1950s US and a shattered Weimar Germany is a huge difference too,
but I think the bend-not-break commitment to open debate in this country
worked, in that instance and most others.)  Carry the story forward, include
the Vietnam War on the negative side of our ledger, and I'll still say open
debate EVENTUALLY gets the job done.

>
>>  I have trouble coming up with a real-world problem that real-world
>> licensing would solve.
>
>Certification, not licensing.  Anyone can call themselves a journalist,
>just as anyone can call himself a "spiritual advisor".  But does a body of
>working journalist recognize their claim, or not.

I have trouble coming up with a real-world problem THAT would solve.


>What about Vig and his Senate problem?

Or presidential photo-ops ...  One criterion for access could be -- how much
of an audience do you have?  If a journalist has too small a following to
make the cut, s/he can watch C-Span like and report from there.  Makes more
sense to me than certification, and seems simpler.

But if a government proceeding is in a venue with limited access, maybe the
venue needs to be changed.  Virtual change, via video feeds ala C-Span,
could well be sufficient.



>
>> [I guess I could get sort of ad hominem here, and discuss the relationship
>> between certification and concepts like credibility -- specifically, its
>> relationship to signing one's real name on a mailing list -- but that would
>> be petty, so I won't.]
>
 ... Don't give a fig if a reader regards me as credible or not. ...

I'm sorry.  I obviously misremember the gist of some insult-slinging
discussion threads many months ago.


>
>cheers
>
>
>So happy you are not petty.

Likewise!

>
>


Curt A. Monash, Ph.D.
President, Monash Information Services
Editor and Publisher, Monash Software Letter

Please use dual email addresses:  curtmonash@monash.com and curtmonash@aol.com
http://www.monash.com
212-315-3120  fax:  212-399-3268
61 West 62nd Street, NYC, NY 10023


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