global voices, one world

Summary of Michael Schudson, “What Is a Reporter?” in Schudson, The Power of News (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995) 228:245.

Schudson is interested in the ontology of the reporter as an occupational type, in other words, ‘what is a reporter?’ He turns to the bibliographies of two exemplary reporters to find an answer to his question, to see what two reporters themselves, Lincoln Steffens (1866-1936) and Harrison Salisbury (1908-), had to say when they tried to make sense of who they were and what they did.

Schudson provides us several notions of what a reporter might be. He starts off with the idea that an important part of the answer to the question is that it depends in large part on the audience. Who does the reporter report to? Reading the bibliographies, he goes all the way back to when the reporters were still children, when they first realized their (future) role in society. By focusing on the genesis, he subsequently brings up the notion of reporting as craft and the importance of play and imagination, or as Schudson himself says: “making is not faking, not lying, but neither is it a passive mechanical recording. It cannot be done without play and imagination.” (230)

In contrast, for Benjamin Franklin, journalism was a trade. However, this was certainly not true for Steffens or Salisbury, for whom both reporting was a distinct way of experiencing the world. Steffens, on the one hand, was interested in the universal nature of human kind and looking for general laws, treating its subjects as instances, while Salisbury, on the other hand, resembled more the modern journalist who saw no general laws except perhaps in the instances themselves. For Steffens, reporting was a means to a greater goal, while for Salisbury the only aim was defined within reporting itself, to get better at it. Schudson had several explanations for these differences: first, Salisbury represented an increasing trend towards professionalism in reporting; second, Salisbury perhaps represented a kind of modesty in a world fragmented in more specialized roles; and third, he was part of a growing tradition, no longer a pioneer like Steffens and perhaps thus more modest ambitions. Together, they mark a shift from an individual with a mission, to an individual with a role within a profession that has a collective responsibility.

If reporting is done for an audience, we can consider definitions of reporting by looking at what kind of categories of content were kept away from the audience. (1) The first category is withholding confidential information as noted by sources, what Schudson refers to as short term compromises for a long term commitment; (2) information the reporter simply could not believe it was true; (3) information the reporter knew would not be printed by the editor and (4) the idea that news is only news from a newspaper point of view, but not, for example, the news form the point of view from a sociologist or novelist. News does not offer a totality of view. Finally (5) news that is constrained by competition and camaraderie of other reports

So then, what is a reporter? According to Schudson, “a reporter is someone faithful to sources, attuned to the conventional wisdom, serving the political culture of media institutions, and committed to a narrow range of public, literary expression.” (239)