And that’s the way it is… or at least as far as I know, that’s the way it is….
When I was a student at The Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University (’83), we used manual typewriters.
We also were required to take a class called ‘instant expert’.
Of course, these were the days before Google or the Internet. Down in the J-School library there was something called a ‘clip file’, and there, in hundreds of envelopes were thousands of physical clippings from newspapers. This was research then.
The “instant expert” course, taught by a man named Phil Davidson (amazing how memory works), showed us up-and-coming journalists how to use stuff like the clip file to become ‘instant experts’ on anything upon which we were reporting. That is, a general smattering of knowledge – just enough to write an article.
I was reminded of the ‘instant expert’ course as I watched the Cronkite-o-thon on TV last week.
There he was at the moment of Kennedy’s asassination. There he was explaining the lunar landing. And there he was again on that famous ‘I have seen the light’ moment in Vietnam – following his two week trip.
Powerful, everyone said.
Scary, I think.
Scary because, honestly, after two weeks in Vietnam, what the hell could Walter really have known about the country or the war anyway?
He didn’t speak Vietnamese. He didn’t spend too much time with the NVA or the VC. He wasn’t like Francis Fitzgerald who spent 5 years researching Fire in the Lake, her definitive history of Indochina.
No. But Walter would have gotten a A in Phil Davidson’s ‘instant expert’ class.
Well, what the hell. That was the best we could do at the time. It was expensive to send TV crews and reporters to Vietnam. And those clip files and all. That’s what journalism was all about. Henry Morton Stanley in ‘darkest’ Africa.
Journalist- the instant expert on all things. One day it’s Vietnam, the next it’s the Civil Rights Movement.
That’s the way it is.
Last week we trained and equipped 25 NOAA staffers with video cameras and laptops and taught them how to shoot and edit and produce video reports.
Each day, we unleashed 25 of the world’s best experts on fisheries onto the streets of DC.
These weren’t ‘instant experts’. Unlike Uncle Walter, they actually knew what they were talking about. They have been studying this stuff for years.
They won’t be covering moon landings or Vietnam or Iraq. But they will be covering the globe’s fisheries, and I have a pretty good feeling that what they will be reporting and producing will have a lot more value than some CNN reporter showing up to talk about bluefin tuna… then wrapping up and doing a piece on parking meters in Atlanta.
When making television news was complex and expensive; when y0u needed a camera crew and a producer and a van and a broadcast tower to get the signal out, well maybe the ‘Instant Expert’ was the best we could do.
But those days are over. The TV crew is rapidly going the way of the ‘clip file’ and if we are lucky, so is the ‘instant expert’ reporter.
We can educate ourselves better than depending upon someone who on Monday is an instant expert on Iraq, on Tuesday an instant expert on Iran and on Wednesday an instant expert on cooking and grilling. We deserve better.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Teach a man to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime.
Send a CNN reporter to NOAA for an afternoon, and you’ll get a mediocre story on longline fishing.
But teach an NOAA scientist to communicate with video, and you’ll get a lifetime of intelligent, accurate and important reporting and public information.
Is the day of the ‘instant expert’ over?
I hope so.
Is this the death knell of ‘journalism’ as we once knew it?
I hope so too.
The promise and the power of the web + cheap video technologies means that we can empower those who really know what they are talking about to deliver information for us that is accurate and real, if we can just get the gear and the training into the right hands.
And that’s the way it is….
I hope.
7 Comments
Adrian Black August 15, 2009
How will priority of news be handled if everyone is talking about their particular interest, how can the general population be united in understanding. Surely you need a generalist to weigh what is most important and bring it to the forefront, consulting experts for sure, but able to see a larger picture.
peter July 22, 2009
NOAA has been producing video for years – they can certainly save money by moving production to employee VJs. But can they produce videos that get watched?
I wish them all the best. If NOAA’s VJs start spinning the counters on YouTube – it could really change the media landscape very quickly.
Michael Rosenblum July 22, 2009
Dear $
Well, of course the issue here is not KRON but rather if there is any value to the ‘generalist’ journalist any more.
Ironically, I just got an email from my uncle, who was a Lt. General in the US Army and commander of the 101st airborne in Vietnam (3 tours). He felt quite strongly that the US media continually misreported and misrepresented what was actually happening in Vietnam. It does not surprise me. I was a PhD candidate in Islamic Studies before I got into journalism and I was endlessly astonished at how little most network news reporters knew about the Middle East. To this day, I am still astonished at how largely inaccurate most of their reporting is.
The idea is to empower those who actually know something with the technology to report it on their own. Much as I love the folks at KRON, they would be rather in the former category rather than the latter – but then so too would the reporters from NBC or Fox.
$ July 22, 2009
Please Mr. Rosenblum.
You have spent little or no time in life, especially of late, as a journalist.
When was the last time you did anything close to journalism?
By a calendar for a reality check about how relevant your ideas and limited journalistic experience have in todays world of the news business.
I’m sure the folks at KRON and WKRN have learned their lesson about how to stay in business and compete in the real world of business covering the news.
Both places remain right where they were the very first day you brought your VJ circus to their towns.
At the bottom of the rating heap.
Michael Rosenblum July 22, 2009
My classmate from Columbia Mike Lemonick, former Senior Science Writer for Time; author and prof writes:
“Small point: I was in your class at Columbia J-school and never took a class called “instant expert,†or met anyone named Phil Davidson. It clearly wasn’t a required course.”
For some strange reason, WordPress will not post the comment on its own, so I paste it here instead.
He is probably right, which is why he was a journalist for Time and I ended up in TV.
Mike Lemonick July 21, 2009
Small point: I was in your class at Columbia J-school and never took a class called “instant expert,” or met anyone named Phil Davidson. It clearly wasn’t a required course.
Cliff Etzel July 21, 2009
I think the paradigm of what has been known as journalism is dying – and is being replaced with those experts providing a more in depth look at whatever the topic is being covered.
I think you’re right – the death of the instant expert/journalism is at hand.
And I believe we’ll be much better off for it in the long run.