One point I think needs is expanding in your calculation is the medium of social media. It is the consumption and participation of such highly networked interaction that has made anyone a potential news breaker, more than ever before.

Ryan’s example is a good one of what I described more as hard news and, as he says, the author would probably not describe himself as a journalist. So, clearly, even citizen journalists are breaking hard news as I’ve defined it. I do agree with him that it depends who breaks news (citizens or professionals) based on who has access to the information but the premise for your argument was a great way to start the conversation.

http://texex-xpress.blogspot.com/2009/05/is-cindy-trigg-defrauding-us-government.html

I don’t think the guy doing that would describe himself as a journalist, but he’s doing some really interesting stuff.

My disagreement with the idea in this post wasn’t to say that journalists are still the only ones breaking news, but that this example wasn’t the right one. Simply put, it depends. Sometimes it’ll be journalists, who have a little better access at this point, and sometimes it’ll be hard-working bloggers and people on Twitter who care enough to check into stuff. The hard statement Bob made is an easy one to target because it’s forceful.

Andrew Heilman: Bob, I had originally said (via twitter) that I agreed with you except that I didn’t consider the MJ story today hard news.After thinking a little more about it I may have to disagree with your premise, but more so on your argument’s semantics.I’m going to focus on what you appear to have defined “hard news” as (so this is, admittedly, somewhat subjective).To me hard news is the scandals, the affairs, the back-room deals and sunday night power grabs.It’s the type of stuff guys who want their name in the journalism hall of fame next to woodward and bernstein spend hundreds and thousands of hours researching, identifying the trail of people and money, getting inside sources (real anonymous sources, not the ones who are leaking leads on a daily basis because their boss told them to) and piece together scraps of information that cause them to leap to conclusions that are a stretch but appear the only thing to make sense among the countless notebooks of information.To me, hard news is the stuff that you can’t glean from a simple conversation or by reporting one fact.It’s investigative journalism at its best.I believe that what you’re referring to is spot news coverage and I completely agree that more and more than type of journalism will come from everyday people.

Well, Andrew, I confess that it has been many years since I attended a journalism class and my use of the term is perhaps based on faulty memory. I did a quick search for the definition of hard news and it appears there is not a super precise, universal agreement on the point. You are correct to point out that my point is more about breaking news — or spot news coverage. Some refer to this as hard news, but it appears to be more broad than you define it, as in describing the difference between hard and soft news.

To me hard news is the scandals, the affairs, the back-room deals and sunday night power grabs. It’s the type of stuff guys who want their name in the journalism hall of fame next to woodward and bernstein spend hundreds and thousands of hours researching, identifying the trail of people and money, getting inside sources (real anonymous sources, not the ones who are leaking leads on a daily basis because their boss told them to) and piece together scraps of information that cause them to leap to conclusions that are a stretch but appear the only thing to make sense among the countless notebooks of information. To me, hard news is the stuff that you can’t glean from a simple conversation or by reporting one fact. It’s investigative journalism at its best.

I believe that what you’re referring to is spot news coverage and I completely agree that more and more than type of journalism will come from everyday people.

I think professional journalists will be the ONLY ones to break hard news as I’ve defined it. What’s worse is, slowly, journalism programs and students are graduating without those skills. Instead, a majority of our journalism students are studying how to report, shoot video, grab audio, take photos and get it all out as quick as possible. Yes, they’re still great information gatherers and impartial observers but they increasingly lack the skills to grind out a story that takes weeks, months or even years to track, glean and eventually piece together.

So are professional journalists losing their ability to break news first, absolutely. However, I don’t believe hard news is something that will ever be left to citizen journalists. More than ever we need journalism programs that give us true, investigative journalists. Beyond that journalists will slowly become nothing more than information pushers. Get it from someone and repurpose, repackage and release it in the thousands of ways we now all consume information.

I can’t say for sure, but I don’t know of any blogs that will make claims that are unsubstantiated without saying so or calling it a rumor. That makes them roughly the same as CNN, right? Am I kidding myself?

On the other hand, I caught CNN (I don’t watch television news) for the first time in a long time the other day and was amazed by how much it was trying to be in touch with social media and vaguely sensational (weird camera angles, panning, etc.) and yet still trying to retain some journalism ethos. It was obnoxious. But at least they credited their sources and cautioned when information couldn’t be confirmed and that it was coming from citizens in Iran.

Scott, I’m curious, because I have no idea, what TMZ has ever gotten wrong, if you know. Or if anyone can tell me. I have a feeling that it’s not about them being wrong, but more about them being kinda sleazy. People don’t want to think that an outlet like TMZ can do something like break this story, mainly because a lot of people are hard pressed to admit they would even watch TMZ. I’m not trying to be argumentative, and I apologize if I seem like I am, but I happen to think that TMZ is very, very vested financially in getting a story like this right.

I also think about this story when I think about “credibility” of the celebrity gossip sites: remember when Perez Hilton said Castro was dead? That was a big mark against that guy, and might be unfairly soiling TMZ here. When I heard that they reported it, I believed it right away. I happen to think that a lot of what I read from people saying that they didn’t trust TMZ today was driven by something other than TMX’s ability to get it right.

What the traditional news media have over social media and citizen-based ‘journalism’ is training, usually, and a more objective and more cautious process of checks and balances, laws, ethics and so on.