JOURNALISM.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 29 August 1924, Page 10

JOURNALISM.

ITS GUIDING CODE OF ETHICS.

“Is Journalism a Profession ?” is a question which, lately has assumed a certain degree of importance.. Ever since the American Association of .Newspaper Editors attempted to establish a code of ethics for the guidance ox its fellow-practitioners of journalism, it has been urged by the more cynical that no such code would be followed, or could be enforced. The plea was made that journalism is not, in fact, a profession, and that no code of professional ethics could be made to apply to it. The chief reason for denying professional standing to the followers of journalism as a daily pursuit has been that in the majority of cases the editor is an employee, and is therefore subject to the direction of those who will not be bound by the code of ethics to which lie himself may cheerfully subscribe. There is practical force in this criticism of the efficiency of an editorial code of ethics, but to deny to journalism the honourable status of a profession is unjust, declares the Christian Science Monitor, and will be increasnigly unjust, as more and more a technical training is demanded of those who would follow this calling. The fact that the journalist in many instances—of course, not in all—is subject to domination from sfime other authority is not conclusive. We do not think that anyone would 1 deny the clergyman strictly professional status. His calling is one of the three described in all of the lexicons as “the learned professions,” namely, law, medicine, and theology; but the clergyman invariably is a salaried employee subject to the dictation of vestries, trustees, or other boards having authority. More and more, also, it is becoming a fact that attorneys in the larger cities, until they have passed the greater part of their life in the practice of their profession, are the employees of great law firms, yet no one denies to them professional standing.

Ihe definition of “profession” as given by standard authorities is of interest and importance in this connection. Webster defines the term as ollows: “That of which one professes knowledge; the occupation, if not purely commercial, mechanical, agricultural, <>r the like, to which one devotes one s self; a calling in which one piotesses to have acquired some special knowledge used by way either of instructing, guiding, or advising others or ot serving them in some art: calling vocation, employment; as, the profession of arms; the profession of chemist. The three professions, 'or learned professions, is a name often for the professions of theology law, and medicine.”. Virtually the same line is followed by the Oxford Dictionary in the following phraseology: “The occupation which one professes to lie skilled in and to follow. A vocation in which a professed knowledge of some department of learning is used in its application to the affairs of others or in the practice °t an art founded upon it. Applied specifically to the three learned professions of divinity, law, and medicin^? also to the military profession.** It will be noted that the superficial essential is that the calling shall be: one which the practitioner professes to fol!ow The requirement that knowledge shall be used by way of instructing or guiding others alsc^seems; to point directiy to journalistic efforts. Of more importance, however, is the requirement set forth in both of these lexicons, that it should he one in which there has been systematic training and education. This does not necessarily miply training in an academic institution A long roll might be set forth of distinguished attorneys in the past 3 r ears who never attended a law school, iust as in the past none of the great editors, to whom no one would deny professional standing, thought of attending a school of journalism. It is apparent, however, that the tendency to-day is toward systematic education in the journalistic career. Schools of journalism are multiplying, scarcely a .Mate university is without one, and their graduates are no longer laughed at in newspaper offices. It is wholly probable that before two generations shall have passed the newspaper editor who has not had a. training in a school of journalism will be the exception rather than the rule. It is interesting to speculate upon the part which the substitution of the typesetting machine for the oldfashioned hand compositor in newspaper offices is playing in the replacement of the graduate of the printer’s case, by the college-trained man in; the editorial rooms. For the old-time printer who brought to his art a measure of literary training, or at least of _ journalistic intelligence, as well as 'the technical knowledge of typesetting, is rapidly disappearing. The hand compositor who could, and did,' set up an article out of his own head, without copy, when there was a “hole in the paper” needing to he filled in a, hurry' has vanished. Apparently that sort of protein talent does not go with skill in manipulating the keyboard of a. typesetting machine, and so more and more as the composing room has ceased to he an antechamber to the editorial room, the college of journalism lias taken its place. Is the change making for a more forceful, responsible and vigorous tyne of journalism ? Only time can answer that question. Bjit it is fair to note that, as a. professional training becomes required of those who would adopt journalism as the calling of a lifetime, that calling takes on the character of a learned profession. Perhaps insistence on this thesis is not important. If a man does good work it he serves that portion of the world with which he is brought into business contact efficiently, honorably, and well, it may he of the least importance to know whether he is following a profession, a handicraft, a business, or a trade. And yet when the effort of those who are endeavouring to set a high standard for the calling of journalism is impeded by the plea that they are seeking to subject it to rules and regulations of conduct which should apply only to the learned professions, the time comes to determine whether it is not entitled to he thus classified. No calling, no profession, demands a higher sense of responsibility to the general public than this. In none is every bit of education, academic or technical, so valuable as in the making of a daily newspaper. In no profession are the opportunities so great for the man devoid of any professional sense of honour and integrity to prey upon the weaknesses of his feflowbeings, and in none is the chance of the upright man for honourable and useful service greater. Tf there be any calling whrli it should he the study of its practitioners to elevate to the standing of a true profession, and to surround with the protection of a guiding code of ethics, it is this calling of the journalist.