http://pressthink.org/2012/01/so-whaddaya-think-should-we-put-truthtelling-back-up-there-at-number-one/

I was trying something different here. Assuming a variety of truthful reports from different kinds of observers, which ones have a specifically journalistic authority and value? Where does this originate. I say it originates in a certain kind of claim the early creatures called correspondents made to their first employers: I’m there, you’re not, let me tell you about it.

We could just as easily state it from the employers end: You’re there, we’re not, what say you tell us about it, … and keep your eye out for these things…..

My argument at this URL is: If we go way back in the system by which journalism first asserted its value as a social practice, and the derivations on those original ideas still with us today, like the $5000 a year oil industry newsletter, which is just the House of Fugger in a slightly different form…. if we go way back, we are going to find a version of: I’m there, You’re Not, Let me Tell You About It.

http://archive.pressthink.org/2008/04/22/business_model.html

So let’s bring that idea forward: one of journalism’s classic derivations, useful in old fashioned and newfangled reporting, especially business reporting: I’m there, you’re not…

Jay Rosen

Without truth… any supposed ‘authority’ is mere posturing.

Journalists earn authority — it is not a “right” they are born with or bestow upon themselves. A practical record of accurate & reliable information is the only cause of any valid ‘authority’ — and that authority can only be granted by the audience.

The “I’m here, You’re not” stuff is bogus. Billions of people are constantly somewhere — and have little or no understanding of what’s actually going on around them, beyond the mundane issues of life. Eye-Witness testimony is notoriously unreliable. Truth-Telling (journalism) requires knowledge & effort — not ‘authority’.

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” To see what is in front of one’s nose requires a constant struggle. ”

— Eric Blair (aka George Orwell)

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I’d phrase it a little differently: “But, first, we have to agree on some rules about what will make the telling sound like authoritative journalism….”

But we’re getting into the nuances of what I have argued here, so things get more complicated.

Ideologically, you insisted that Murrow’s reporting would have been invalid had it come to a pro-Nazi conclusion…

Not so much invalid as non-communicative for an American audience. That a Nazi victory over Britain would be terrible belongs to the sphere of consenus, on this model…

http://archive.pressthink.org/2009/01/12/atomization.html

…and as such is a premise of the kind of reporting Murrow was doing. And yes, I am trying to suggest in this post that an act of reporting always has such premises underlying it, even when it may seem otherwise.

I don’t see that as the same question as: Can a reporter with a point of view go into a reporting situation without a preconceived idea of what he will find? But I would say that no reporter can go into a journalistic situation without prior assumotions of some kind.

Discursively, you insisted that Murrow’s reporting would have been invalid had it resorted to a non-journalistic frame of reference….

Not so much invalid as impossible. The result of the report would be a clash of worldviews, not an account of what happened.