XM MLB Chat: Less information available about a particular reporter means more doubt about his analysis

"Even those journalists on TV whose face you did see — you couldn’t click on a link to see their background, disclosures, or why they might be qualified to be reporting on a certain topic.

Now you can go on the Web and find out.

The less you can find on them, the more skeptical you are of their analysis.

On the Web, where social connections reign supreme, trust and truth matter more than objectivity.

For this reason, journalism schools in the way they are currently comprised don’t work. For my money, one of the better business journalists to emerge in the coming years probably went to business school and interned at a multinational firm instead of a newspaper.

In the Church of Journalism, this was deemed an ugly “conflict of interest”;

For new content creation on the social Web, this is viewed as great experience and credibility

provided it’s disclosed.

This will have great benefits. If more of the financial journalists worked in finance first, maybe they could have blown the whistle on certain practices before it was too late and we were plunged into a near-catastrophic recession.

But this argument about expertise and credibility glosses over an important question: Is teaching people how to create quality content important? I think it is, but that’s something that should occur in elementary school education and in high school, utilizing the variety of tools the Web offers and making sure kids know how to write and express themselves in a clear way."...

Journalism schools were made to serve the Church of Journalism and the vanity contained within it (“Oh, I’m a journalist actually.”). The foundations of that cathedral have been shaken to the core because there is less money to validate its existence and shield the inadequacies of some of the people in it."...

from "What the reader elite means for journalism schools," The Lynch Blog, 3/25/10, via Poynter.org/Romenesko ***

Some have their backgrounds 'scrubbed'. Then they can say, well, you can't prove such and such about me so you lose. As Mr. Lynch states, the censored or 'clean slate' puts everything about a 'journalist' in doubt. Not to say there isn't a lot of false information about people on the internet, but the absence of much relevant historical data is something different. Especially when the only evidence of a reporter's trustworthiness are his own claims and those in whose interest it would be to defend him. That is why such individuals should not be in the business of conferring immortality and multi-million dollar paydays.

For example, the BBWAA decides the AL Cy Young Award with only 28 voters. It is an award that confers immortality and often great financial gain. I sent an email to its long-time secretary-treasurer Jack O'Connell asking for the backgrounds of the voters. He informed me that information is secret:

Friday, July 21, 2006

Jack O'Connell of BBWAA replies to my email

I sent an email to Mr. O'Connell asking for the names of the 28 persons who voted for the 2005 AL Cy Young Award & their professional affiliations. Here is his reply: (July 21, 2006)

"Ms. Mullen,
This information is available to BBWAA members only.
Jack O'Connell" ****

I appreciate his prompt reply to my request, but I need this simple information. I've already asked the HOF & they said they have nothing to do with the Cy Young Award. For an award like this where such a small number of selected voters determines an immortal and often financial outcome, it is important to know the bio and resume of voters, their voting history, and bio and resume of the person who appointed them. The public also needs to know disciplinary history of voters, ie which voters have been admonished or penalized (such as temporary suspension of voting rights) and all details involved.