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Journalism is easy to define
By Dave Winer on Saturday, September 03, 2011 at 7:11 PM.

Really. It's not so hard.  #

Approach it like trying to define skiing. #

No one has trouble with that, do they? #

A picture named patrol.jpgI put on some boots, buckle them up, then insert the boots (with my feet in them) into bindings that attach me to some skis. (Yes, I can define what a ski is too.) Then I get on some kind of conveyance (examples include chair lifts and gondolas) that takes me to the top of a hill. I then slide down the hill on my skis, trying to maintain control until I get to the bottom of the slope. I might fall, hopefully not getting injured. If I'm okay, I get up and continue my trip down the mountain. If I get injured the ski patrol comes and gets me and takes me to the hospital. That's skiing.  #

Now journalism.  #

A picture named phone.jpgI get an idea for a story or someone gives me one. Do a little searching on the web, call a few people. Take notes on what I hear. Call some other people or send them emails. Write up the notes on my computer. Organize them into a sequence. Then, I optionally offer it for review to other people to get their opinions and they possibly rewrite it, or I incorporate their feedback and make changes. This is called editing. This process iterates a few times. Then the story is published, usually on a website, and possibly at some later time on paper.  #

If you do this then you're doing journalism. If you do something else, it's something else. It's not good or bad. But this is what we call journalism.  #




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