Comments on: Should Commercial Journalists Be Licensed?

By: DJB

DJB — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 05:49:30 +0000

Junasun,
Thanks for your comment. Better late than never, I say.

However, you perhaps misunderstood the point I was making about commercial journalism basically using licensed professional reporters and journalists (not necessarily opinion column writers) to write stuff for the front page.

I certainly did NOT mean that a license be a requirement for free speech and expression. That would be silly, though I think that was also the dead horse you just beat up on.

But imagine a world of journalism in which certain newspapers or future media outlets, the best ones I would think, can advertise the fact that their Front Page News Articles are all written exclusively by “Licensed Professional Journalists” as a sort of guarantee of best effort journalism to be objective, factual and innuendo or propaganda free.

No newspaper would be required to engage is such a good or best practice, and anyone can still write front page news. But they would not be allowed to make the simple claim that for whatever it was worth, their reporters are “licensed professional journalists.”

By: DJB

DJB — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 05:47:47 +0000

Junasun,
Thanks for your comment. Better late than never, I say.

However, you perhaps misunderstood the point I was making about commercial journalism basically using licensed professional reporters and journalists (not necessarily opinion column writers) to write stuff for the front page.

I certainly did NOT mean that a license be a requirement for free speech and expression. That would be silly, though I think that was also the dead horse you just beat up on.

By: junasun

junasun — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 14:41:45 +0000

To DJB,
if your purpose is to have responsible journalism in the Philippines, it’s just alright to have licensed professional journalists. But how about intruducing first licensed professional politicians in the Philippines? This may limit the garbage production in Philippine Politics and naturally the garbage journalism. In countries where polical garbage is a scarcity,there are also scarce garbage journalists.
Your analogy with doctors and engineers, etc., is not applicable in journalism for journalism is about opinions, words, emotoions, ideas and natural gift of writing that -although also requires analytical thinking like engineers, etc.,- do not necessarily requires the technical precision of a surgeon, an engineer or a nuclear phycisists to write something in order to be effective. Doctors, engineers, etc., can be effective journalists in their pasttime but the reverse does not hold true; to practice medicine and engineering you need to study and pass board exams for their skills are technical skills and their tools not words, emotions,writing style and ideas alone but scientific skills. Journalism is not an exact science, it is an art just like music. And many “unlicensed” musicians were and are even great and famous than licensed ones. Were Mozart, Beethoven, Isaac Stern- or the Beatles, Jimmy Hendrix, Wes Montgomery, Apo Hiking, Fredy Aguilar,etc., licensed musicians? But introducing licensed politicians is worth of a gamble and serious considerations for this could upgrade the Philippine politics.

By: DJB

DJB — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 00:08:24 +0000

Let me be clear: the License for Professional Journalists is NOT a requirement for the practice of Free Speech of Press Freedom.

However, the mass media does not operate entirely on freedom of speech. Commercial media buys and sells not just news, but views, entertainment, tsismis, movie schedules, and of course cell phone load.

Mass Media is a commercial enterprise that uses Press Freedom to keep sources confidential. Press Freedom is not anything more than a General License to buy and sell thought and the products of the mind.

It is not some kind of religious experience!

By: DJB

DJB — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 00:05:37 +0000

Pareng Karding,
What planet do you live on? Filipinos are fed with a steady diet of garbage in the media and the blogosphere. I disagree that they know what is good or bad. Freedom of Speech is the price we pay to avoid tyranny, which is worse, but the default condition is the lowest common denominators of what can be sold for money!

Let’s not lose sight of the fact that freedom of speech does not guarantee quality!

By: karlpopper

karlpopper — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 23:52:50 +0000

If the concern be a kind of continuing journalist education or another Philippine Journalist Academy, place the box.

And then, ask the license card later.

By: Pareng Karding

Pareng Karding — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:28:53 +0000

Readers are not stupid people like our politicians
and leaders. They know if a story is really good,
worth reading and worthy of their time.

You can print garbage in the media. Nobody will
believe it. The Politicians’s PR people can print
the virtues of those politicians. We will not swallow it, hook, line and sinker.

The government propagandist can extol the virtues
of the present administration. We will just laugh
at it.

Garbage in, Garbage out…

By: DJB

DJB — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:56:29 +0000

The C at,
purring…

By: DJB

DJB — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:55:38 +0000

I guess another analogy would be teachers. Some are licensed for grade school. Others for grade school and high school. Yet others can be college teachers.

I think writing NEWS stories –meaning those that by their placement and by custom are portrayed as factual accounts of important social or political developments–ought to become the domain of licensed news writing professionals who have something like the American Medical Association to monitor and guide them, as well as promote and advance the proomotion, as well as licensure exams, refresher courses, etc. Teachers, lawyers, doctors, nurses, CPAs all have such licensing traditions. Why not journalists

I have not yet heard any good arguments based on eternal principles. It’s all … innuendo hehe

By: DJB

DJB — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:51:14 +0000

I argue by analogy. Everyone who drives a car must have a license. Most have ordinary driver’s licenses, but taxi and bus drivers require PROFESSIONAL LICENSES to drive public utility vehicles.

In the same way, I am proposing the creation of a new class of journalists–professional licensed journalists.

But this does not mean you are required to have a license to practice journalism. Only that you may not claim you are a licensed professional journalist in your work, whereas those with the proper credentials may.

That is the only change I am proposing. I am not suggesting that we have to require licenses to work as journalists.

But it becomes a kind of “Good Housekeeping Seal” just like it is for other professions.

I’m open to any non-hysterical objection that shows how this might “abridge” the freedom of speech in some way.

I think it would enhance the journalistic profession, not suppress it.