Journalist

A journalist is a person who practices journalism, the gathering and dissemination of information about current events, trends, issues and people.

Reporters are one type of journalist. They create reports as a profession for broadcast or publication in mass media such as newspapers, television, radio, magazines, documentary film, and the Internet. Reporters find the sources for their work; the reports can be either spoken or written; they are generally expected to report in the most objective and unbiased way to serve the public good.

Depending on the context, the term "journalist" also includes various types of editors and visual journalists, such as photographers, graphic artists, and page designers.

Contents

1 Origin and scope of the term 2 18th-century journalists 3 19th-century journalists 4 20th-century print journalists 5 20th-century broadcast journalists 6 Internet journalists 7 Contemporary journalists 8 Production journalists 9 Fictional journalists 10 See also 11 External links

Origin and scope of the term

In the early 19th century, journalist meant simply someone who wrote for journals, such as Charles Dickens in his early career. In the past century it has come to mean a writer for newspapers and magazines as well.

Many people consider journalist interchangeable with reporter, a person who gathers information and creates a written report, or story. However, this overlooks many other types of journalists, including columnists, leader writers, photographers, editorial designers, and sub editors (British) or copy editors (American).

Regardless of medium, the term journalist carries a connotation or expectation of professionalism in reporting, with consideration for truth and ethics. It should be added that some journals, such as the downmarket, scandal-led tabloids, do not make great claims to truth or ethical reporting.

18th-century journalists

• Daniel Defoe - as editor of the Review, he can claim to have invented many of the most popular formats, including the eye-witness report, the travel piece and the strongly opinionated column. Defoe's Review began publication on 19 February 1704 and lasted until 11 June 1713. He was also involved in several other periodicals, including The Master Mercury (1704), Mercator: or, Commerce Retrieved (1713-14), The Monitor (1714), The Manufacturer (1719-21), The Commentator (1720) and The Director (1720-1).
• Richard Steele - founded and edited London-based periodicals including The Guardian and The Spectator in the early 1700s.
• Joseph Addison - wrote many of the finest pieces in Steele's publications

19th-century journalists

• William Cowper Brann (1855-1898) - colorful editor of the Iconoclast in Waco, Texas.
• Nellie Bly (1865-1922) - undercover reporter
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge - political essays, poetry, and reportage
• Charles Dickens (1812-1870) - started as a shorthand writer logging debates in the courts and Houses of Parliament before becoming a Parliamentary journalist
• Pierce Egan (1772-1849) - early sportswriter and reporter on popular culture
• Rudyard Kipling (1865-1956) - newspaper editor and correspondent in India
• Jacob Riis (1849-1914) - journalist and slum reformer
• George Augustus Henry Sala (1828-1895) - editor and columnist

20th-century print journalists

• Samuel Hopkins Adams (1871–1958) - American investigative journalist
• Hannah Arendt (1906-1975)
• Ben Bradlee, editor of the Washington Post at the time of the Watergate scandal
• Winston Churchill (1874-1965) war correspondent in the Boer War, captured by the Boers
• Claud Cockburn (1904-1981) radical Irish journalist
• C.P. Connolly (1863-1935) radical American investigative journalist associated for many years with Collier's Weekly.
• Paul Foot (1938-2004)
• Martha Gellhorn (1908-1998) war correspondent
• Emily Hahn (1905-1997) - wrote extensively on China
• John L. Hess (1917-2005) - journalist, food critic for the New York Times
• Pauline Kael (1919-2001) - Film critic for The New Yorker
• Andrew Kopkind (1935-1994) - radical American journalist wrote extensively social movements in the 1960s
• A.J. Liebling (1904-1963) American journalist closely associated with The New Yorker
• Walter Lippmann (1889-1974)
• Jonathan Meades
• H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) - essayist, critic, and editor of The Baltimore Sun.
• George Orwell (1903-1950) - reported on poverty, misery, and the Spanish Civil War
• Robert Palmer (1945-1997) - first full-time, chief pop music critic for The New York Times, Rolling Stone contributing editor
• Edward Said (1935-2003) - essayist, Palestinan activist
• James ("Scotty") Reston (1909-1995) - political commentator for the New York Times
• George Seldes (1890-1995) - American journalist, editor and publisher of In Fact.
• George Bernard Shaw - better known as a playwright, but influential as a music writer and wrote other forms of journalism
• Randy Shilts - reporter for The Advocate and San Francisco Chronicle.
• Edgar Snow, pro-socialist journalist and writer, chronicled the Chinese revolution
• I.F. Stone (1907-1989), investigative journalist, publisher of I.F. Stone's Weekly
• Anna Louise Strong, pro-socialist journalist and writer
• Walter Winchell (1897-1972), American political columnist, radio broadcaster

20th-century broadcast journalists

• Edward R. Murrow, CBS News radio correspondent in London Blitz, maker of TV documentaries, noted interviewer
• Walter Cronkite, former United Press correspondent, TV anchor for CBS News in the 50s, 60s
• David Brinkley, television anchor and interview show host on the American networks ABC and NBC
• Peter Jennings, television anchor for ABC
• Jim Lehrer, anchor of The Newshour with Jim Lehrer
• Tom Brokaw, television journalist and former anchor and managing editor of "The NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw."
• Dan Rather, succeeded Cronkite as managing editor and primary anchor of the CBS Evening News
• Vernon Corea, a pioneering radio journalist and announcer with Radio Ceylon/SLBC and the BBC
• Sorious Samura, CNN TV documentary maker from Sierra Leone
• Fritz Spiegl, popularizer of classical music for the BBC
• Brian Williams, succeeded Brokaw as managing editor and anchor of "The NBC Nightly News."
• Lowell Bergman, a television producer for the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes best known for investigating the tobacco industry.

Internet journalists

• Larisa Alexandrovna - Journalist, editor at Raw Story (http://www.rawstory.com), essayist, poet
• Ana Marie Cox - works under the name Wonkette, famous for humorous coverage and breaking several stories during the 2004 Presidential Election.
• Matt Drudge - Active in revelations of the scandals of the Clinton administration, in the United States.
• Richard Menta
• Cali Ruchala

Contemporary journalists

• Kate Adie
• Christiane Amanpour
• Raymond Bonner
• Carl Bernstein - Washington Post reporter who, (along with Bob Woodward), uncovered Watergate conspiracy
• Joel Bleifuss
• Julie Burchill
• John F. Burns
• Alexander Cockburn
• Andrew Cockburn
• Patrick Cockburn
• Nicholas Confessore
• Ernest Corea
• Mark Danner
• Barbara Ehrenreich
• James Fallows
• Liza Featherstone
• Robert Fisk
• Laura Flanders
• John-Paul Flintoff
• Annette Fuentes
• Malcolm Gladwell
• Juan Gonzalez
• Alma Guillermoprieto
• David Halberstam
• Pete Hamill
• Johann Hari
• Doug Henwood
• Seymour Hersh
• Christopher Hitchens
• Doug Ireland
• Ryszard Kapuscinski
• Fergal Keane
• Jane Kramer
• Anthony Lane
• Jane Mayer
• George Monbiot
• Bill Moyers
• Allan Nairn
• Susan Orlean
• Greg Palast
• Christian Parenti
• James Ridgeway
• Sorious Samura
• John Seabrook
• John Simpson
• Jane Slaughter
• Sam Smith
• Jon Snow
• Matt Taibbi
• Siddharth Varadarajan
• Fred Weir
• Bob Woodward - Washington Post reporter, uncovered Watergate conspiracy along with Carl Bernstein
• Andrzej Zaucha

There are numerous examples of journalists who made their mark writing fiction or other non-journlism, including:

• Amanda Craig, who writes satirical novels about English society
• Joan Didion
• David Gates, who wrote about books and music for Newsweek
• Graham Greene who worked originally as sub-editor on The Times
• Carl Hiaasen, who writes about the corruption and glitter of Miami and Miami Beach, which he also covered as a reporter.
• Arturo Pérez Reverte and Manuel Leguineche were war correspondents before becoming successful Spanish novelists.
• Susan Sontag
• Calvin Trillin, who has written several humorous novels
• Tom Wolfe

Production journalists

Despite the fact that many people conflate journalist and reporter, a journalist is anyone who works any editorial aspect of a publications. This includes production journalists such as sub-editors, copy editors, graphic designers, art directors, and photographers.

Graphic designers and art directors who work exclusively on advertising material, however, are not considered journalists.

Fictional journalists

Attributing the profession of journalist to a fictional character allows many possibilities:

• The action and adventure genres use reporters because they may travel extensively and are supposed not to avoid risks as ordinary people do, but to face them like Tintin).
  • In the superhero subgenre, journalists may be among the first to have news of disasters and crimes. Since they can operate with considerable autonomy out in the field as long they meet story deadlines, it eases complications arising from maintaining a secret identity. Major superheroes like Clark Kent / Superman and Peter Parker / Spider-Man are journalists in their civil lives.
• Journalists are supposed to explain complex things simply. A clear case is Kermit the Frog in his news-reporter role on Sesame Street, but a journalist character is also useful in a fiction work about a country or a culture strange to an adult public. For instance, Guy Hamilton and Billy Kwan make sense of the politics of Indonesia in the early 1960s for the Western viewers of The Year of Living Dangerously, and Ernest Hemingway's alter ego introduces Spain to Anglo readers of Fiesta (The Sun Also Rises).

Besides, many fiction writers like previously cited Hemingway, or Arturo Pérez Reverte, use their professional background as journalists to create their fiction characters.

See List of fictional journalists

See also

• copy editor
• editor
• foreign correspondent
• journalism scandals
• Lists of authors
• objectivity (journalism)
• Reporters sans frontières (Reporters Without Borders)
• scientific journalist
• sportswriter
• war correspondent
• newsroom
• inverted pyramid - generally accepted method for composing a news story
• International Freedom of Expression Exchange - monitors attacks on journalists
• Society of Professional Journalists - US professional organization
• Canadian Journalists for Free Expression

External links

• Canadian Association of Journalists (http://www.caj.ca/)
• International Federation of Journalists (http://www.ifj.org/)
• National Union of Journalists (British) (http://www.nuj.org.uk/)
• Journalism.org: The Online Home of the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Committee of Concerned Journalists (http://www.cpj.org/)
• Investigative Reporters and Editors (http://www.ire.org/)
• Committee to Protect Journalists (http://www.cpj.org/)
• The Investigative Guide to Internet Research (http://www.journalismnet.com/)
• Les Carlyon. "The write stuff" (http://www.theage.com.au/news/Opinion/The-write-stuff/2005/03/20/1111253883620.html?oneclick=true). The Age. March 21, 2005. Carlyon states two reasons for being a journalist: curiosity and a love of writing.
• What Makes a Journalist? (http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/5002/journalist.html) - March 5, 2005 article in support of blogging as a form of journalism.da:Journalist

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