Journalism without a net

The New York Times ran a background story today on the journalists recently arrested in North Korea. I’m not really sure they can be called journalists, at least not in a very news sense. Who knows what anyone is called or should be called anymore. But just because there is no clear-cut criteria as to what a journalist is or should be, doesn't mean that it's not a valid question.

This is more than just a semantical question, and more than just an isolated story about two women trapped in a North Korean prison. This is an important story about the new face of the journalism industry. I saw what went on behind the scenes when Jill Carroll was abducted in Iraq. The difference between her story and the story of these two women is another type of fallout of the current precarious state of the news industry. All three women were arguably reckless. But even though she was a freelancer, Jill Carroll was lucky enough to have not just the moral support and visibility of a major newspaper (The Christian Science Monitor), but their skill, contacts, and compassion, all of which helped lead to her release. This type of network is not only not available to the two women sent out by a fledgling website to gather edgy video clips, but it's in danger of becoming just a quaint, dusty relic of another time.


As newspapers fold, surprise, the content they once provided is also disappearing. So new outlets are springing up to fill the content void. It’s an exciting time, but I think we would do well not to abandon all the things that make for good journalism. The format is definitely changing, but there's no reason that the basics have to be discarded. Some places, like GlobalPost do seem to be a legitimate sources of news. But other sites are just sending people out with camera phones, but with no training and no resources. (Can you say "exploitation"?) These “new journalists” may be younger and closer in age to the target audience, but that’s hardly a credential!