What is a journalist?
In the last post, I went through what defines media. In this post, we will look at what defines a journalist. I intended to define terms before jumping into the current events, but this last week was filled with so many relevant news items related to this topic that I couldn’t help but note at least some of them. So, since it is a leap year, I will leap a little into the news while still going through the basics.
Part of the reason I am defining these terms is that I am concerned that most of the public is confused by them. Worse yet, it’s not just the public who is confused, as played out on a public stage last week; misunderstanding is rampant even among leaders in my own and related career fields, which has dangerous consequences for truth in America, especially in the middle of a war. This confusion between the two has been deadly, so it is important to get it straight.
Today’s takeaway. A journalist is a professional who uses a code of ethics to report the truth accurately while preserving dignity. You can learn more about the Society for Professional Journalists code of ethics here. Journalists are not the media! The media is a tool, and journalists are people using the tool. We need to make this distinction quite clear.
If I put my public interest public relations hat on (we’ll define what that means more below), I think one of the greatest branding and credibility mistakes that the entire field of journalism made over the last two decades was not to make this distinction between journalism and media clearer. Trust in “media” is at its greatest low because people do not know what “media” means and are lumping everything they consume together. That means many are putting professionally trained journalists, public relations people who work for Google or Exxon, politicians, government officials, a peer-reviewed scientific study, the TikTok woman with 8 million followers, and Uncle Billy’s conspiracy theories on the same worthiness scale of being considered part of the “media.”
I often liken understanding media to buying grapes at the grocery store. If you do not know the difference between different types of grapes—some are green, red, purple, juice, organic, wine, seedless, plastic, and glass—you could end up sick or in the hospital. If you label both glass grapes and green grapes the same, you will not have trust in eating grapes ever again. Just as all grapes are not the same, not all “media” is the same either. You must read the labels to know what you are getting to have greater trust in your consumption. Over time, I will offer these skills in my Substack posts.
It’s not as simple as identifying journalism as one media outlet either. Pick your favorite: CNN, The New York Times, Fox News, Wall Street Journal, The Intercept, Scientific American, NPR, Breitbart-- none of these are journalism. They are branded media outlets or platforms for information, yet each publication has different types of content within that brand. Some of it is journalism, and some of it is not. Over time, I will teach you how to dissect to know the difference. Just because something runs in one of these publications does not make it true, and it does not make it journalism.
Without a trained eye, journalism is often confused with many things, including advertorials, native advertising, opinion editorials, content development, public interest public relations, propaganda, clickbait, shared media, owned media, and much more. We’ll get more into the dangers and how you can distinguish them as time passes. Understanding the difference is our job and right as American citizens.
Just this week, a lot of discussion has taken place in Fast Company and online about whether teaching journalism in the middle of so many recent layoffs is still ethical. The discussion seems to be insinuating that journalism is over as a viable career field. This could not be further from the case. As defined above, the need for real journalism is more important now than ever. If we don’t have trained journalists, our country will not survive. My future Substack posts will offer viable options for maintaining this industry based on approaches I have seen over 20 years in my career field. For instance, 20 years ago, non-profit media was considered a fantastic idea when I entered the field. I will explain over time why that is no longer the case in all situations.
In addition to that, this week, in response to the journalist layoffs, I saw the Public Relations Society of America offering a course on “Navigating the Transition From Journalism to PR & Comms.” The website offers that in 7-9 hours, and for $800-$1,200, you can get a certificate to enter the public relations field. It's as simple as that. This offer is a disaster for so many reasons.
The field of public relations is so broad, and many journalists think it means simply achieving earned media results—pitching reporters to cover stories or subjects to benefit an organization. I personally have been doing earned media for 20 years, and I learn more about it daily. I am writing this Substack to teach as many people about earned media as possible because I believe that an individual’s access to earned media to advocate for themselves is a fundamental right of all Americans. The failure of Americans to recognize this right has also been essential to the decline of journalism.
Yet, professional public relations is not even close to the same as basic earned media skills and cannot be taught in 9 hours. Earned media outreach occupies just about 1 percent of what I do as part of my own job, which I describe as a public interest public relations specializing in earned media and crisis. I strongly advocate for my career field, but knowing what it means first is essential. I am happy to do an informational interview with anyone who wants to do what I do. I will also reveal more about this field in this Substack as time goes on. Yet, I do not advise journalists to enter my job field without fully knowing what it is.
Additionally, there are many different types of good and bad public relations. The outlook of the many well-paying, well-meaning, dignified, and fulfilling jobs seems enticing to journalists getting laid off and who have bills to pay. Yet, while journalism and PR share some skills, the fields are radically different regarding their roles in society—both are highly important and needed right now.
The Public Relations Society of America has a code of ethics that those in our profession follow, which resembles many of the ones I cited regarding journalism. Specifically, a public interest public relations person goes beyond that and borders on the same ideals as journalism. I share the same goals with journalists: holding those with power accountable, maintaining dignity, and giving a voice to the voiceless. We are also dedicated to preserving truth. Yet, one of the most significant differences I note between public interest public relations and journalism is that public relations professionals have an agenda. They have a call to action. Public interest public relations is activism. Someone doing public interest public relations is working on a cause like access to mental healthcare, reducing sexual assault, and ensuring people have access to clean air, water, and food. In many ways, our job is to hold journalists accountable, and they are to keep us accountable. We’re working on social causes that seem noble to most people, but we are not journalists. Public interest public relations differs from the other types of public relations—legal, corporate, tech, political, etc. We’ll go through those in another post. None of it is good or bad, but all should be explained and understood.
Yet, I have seen some journalists decide that since journalism is dying, they will create a new form of “activism journalism.” There is no such thing as activist journalism. That is an oxymoron. A journalist is not supposed to be activating for any cause. It affects their ability to be unbiased. We need unbiased sources. Tip: If your “journalism” has a call to action, it’s not journalism.
Unfortunately, for those like David Sirota at The Lever, who thought they recently made up the field of “activism journalism,” that field already existed in some form, but it is a field called public interest public relations. This is a career field that I have been in for my entire life, and I felt particularly drawn to it when I learned of it. Public interest public relations is as old as time, and most of the social rights movements you see today resulted from it. It’s a founding ideal of America. Yet, the field started to get monetized when some firms were established in the 1980s, around the same time I was born. David Fenton of Fenton Communications is often credited as a founder of the professional field by taking what corporations were doing and applying it to social justice and non-profits, but for profit and not just pure change. I often call myself a grandchild of this effort because some of my past bosses worked directly for Fenton when the firm was developing. Fenton Communications still exists today, but many others do the same work.
There is nothing wrong with doing public relations, and I personally chose the field because I love it. There is everything wrong with calling it journalism and confusing people. And this post barely touches the surface of all the ways that is done in America. We’ll get more into it as we go on. This factor contributes to the desecration of truth in America in more ways than any other reason often credited for the downfall of the field.
This week, I saw a long-time Democratic public relations political consultant working with the late Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris and former California Governor Jerry Brown being labeled as a journalist. The article he published was propaganda being pushed on behalf of a certain politician. As this happens, we must become good consumers and citizens to know what we consume. It’s not just Democrats. We’ll get into how Republicans are doing it as well in upcoming posts. It’s not just politics either; we’ll get into who else is doing it as well, people even more dangerous, in upcoming posts. The implications for this level of confusion and misleading definitions are extreme, and again, I want to create these tools for people to know how to see this when it happens.
We will face devastating consequences for truth if all journalists become public relations people—even public interest public relations people.
On a larger scale, I have been talking about all this very broadly, and it seems like boring insider baseball, but next, I want to apply a specific example of how it played out in the news this week and its implications in our war, politics, and all levels of society.
Yesterday, The Intercept published an excellent article exposing propaganda from The New York Times published in late December, “‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7.” The piece had been used to sell a narrative that sexual assault was being used as a weapon of war to justify some of the actions that the Israeli Army had taken in the War in Gaza.
However, there was one huge problem. The piece was compiled partially by Anat Schwartz, who, as The Intercept uncovers, was never a journalist when the piece was published, even though she was commissioned by The New York Times to cover it as a journalist. Schwartz was an Israeli filmmaker and former Air Force intelligence official. This situation represents one of the greatest ways I see misinformation getting into the news ecosystem. When people who are not journalists are allowed to take over and manipulate the system, our society can no longer tell what is true and what is not, which has devastating effects on all of us, especially those who faced violence and death in Palestine as a result.
There are many ways that disinformation is getting picked up regarding the current war, but I will mention some that are lesser known but more important. In future posts, we’ll discuss what we can do about them.
I feel particularly inclined to comment on this incident and the ramifications because I mentioned I do earned media for a living. In addition to Schwartz, another New York Times reporter mentioned as a byline in the piece was Jeffrey Gettleman.
For background, in 2010, when I started my own earned media public interest public relations firm, my clients were mainly some of the top global anti-hunger organizations, especially those with headquarters in Africa. For about a decade, my public interest public relations efforts highlighted the issues causing hunger in Africa. Jeffrey Gettleman was the reporter covering Africa for a while. My clients were a source for him. I experienced the rigorous fact-checking that the New York Times usually does when I worked with him and others at the outlet. I mention this not to brag or provide too many extra details but to show how earned media interacts with journalists. My job was to pitch him information with an agenda, and his job was to make sure it was true.
The moral of the story here demonstrates exactly the point that I am making in my definitions above: when non-journalists start trying to be journalists, disinformation enters. However, there is more to it than that. In the article from The Intercept, I was surprised to see Gettleman speak of his role in reporting this piece as, “Not just to inform, but to move people.” In saying this, he admits he verged into public relations, spreading a narrative and propaganda that benefited certain parties. He shouldn’t have done that. He created a narrative that abuse was happening that led to actions that might not have been taken otherwise. He helped do the job of Israeli intelligence officials by participating in this effort.
This journalist put his thumb on the scale in ways he should not be doing when covering a war and the consequences were dire. Another huge lesson to be learned here is when journalists start doing public relations, that is also where the disinformation comes in.
At the same time, the New York Times is not the only one doing it. Among the reporters who bylined The Intercept piece is Ryan Grim. Just like I worked with Gettleman as an outside source on hunger in Africa, I also worked with Grim on telling stories about political movements, journalism rights organizations, and the metoo movement. He did good work here, and he often does.
However, while Grim was quick to criticize the New York Times, he has also had his fair share of verging into the public relations field himself from time to time. I have observed instances we will cover in upcoming pieces where Grim, wanting to be an activist over a journalist, was more than willing to take untruths and disinformation from outside sources with an agenda. This was particularly the case regarding coverage related to his own book, which presented conflicts of interest in many ways.
When this happened, Grim quickly noted the conflict of interest in the coverage of Gettleman’s book in the New York Times, but Grim allowed The Intercept to cover his own book. When journalists become public relations people, our entire society declines. Journalism works when done correctly. In other words, everyone sticks to their role. The disinformation comes in when people do not stick to their role.
My area of expertise comes from the fact that my past clients have been outside sources subjected to the fact-checking process for many media outlets, including the New York Times and The Intercept, so I can give input on how that works and how information and disinformation come to happen based on that experience.
When people tell me about the issues with the “mainstream media,” they often talk about clicks, monetizing, advertising, and bias from funding. Having worked in this field for a long time, I do not see those as significant problems as most people think based on how the systems work. The issues are there but vastly differ from what most people think regarding newsroom operations. To fix the problem, we must understand it. So, I will be bringing up these issues more over time. I realize that my posts seem very discouraging about the scope of the problem. However, I see solutions, and for those who stay tuned, I promise to provide much more knowledge about the actual issues and how we fix them.