If I had a hammer

Sunday, March 25, 2007 by Dave Winer.

Ian Betteridge thinks my view of journalism is "frankly, nonsense," comparing journalism to carpentry. "This is as silly as saying that carpenters are middlemen for wood merchants," he says. 

Interesting point, but in carpentry the raw materials are dead things -- wood, nails, screws. In journalism the raw material are sources, living people, who can, if they want go direct, if they get tired of being misquoted, or if no reporter ever asks what they think, or if when asked, they don't understand. That's the sense in which reporters are intermediaries. 

I suggest a visit inside the sausage factory. Ask a reporter what dumbing down means, and how they feel about the headlines that have appeared over their writing.  

Charles Hope: "Who can believe any breathless hagiography about journalists?"