12-08-2010 FITZPATRICK LEARNS BLOGGER VS. JOURNALIST LESSON Jim Fitzpatrick was a superb journalist with the Kansas City Star. His career there spanned 37 years until his retirement in 2006. Today, the affable "Fitz" works as a substitute teacher in the Shawnee Mission School District, and loves it. He also has an interesting blog---JimmyCSays---that examines media issues, and often focuses on the Star. Fitz has written a number of interesting stories on his blog. At times we will grab one and use it on the Bottom Line site. However, he recently (11/6) wrote a story that Bottom Line very quickly decided not to run. Fitzpatrick's article was critical of the Star's coverage of a story about a Lenexa teen, 16, who tragically died in an automobile crash in Olathe. Fitzpatrick not only questioned a number of omissions he felt were made in the Star story, but then decided to investigate the incident on his own. He went into full journalist mode. He re-traced the boy's driving route. He called Olathe officials and peppered them with probing questions. He even called the distraught parents and grilled the boy's father with questions. That may have been a mistake. About an hour after calling the parents the Lenexa police called Fitzpatrick and told him to stop "harassing" the family. He was told by police if he called the family again he would be charged with harassment. "…Such is the lot of a blogger who dusted off his reporter’s hat and tried to satisfy his curiosity — and perhaps the curiosity of members of the public –about a case that got short shrift from “the paper of record,” wrote Fitzpatrick. Feedback to Fitzpatrick's blog article has been overwhelmingly negative. He has been roundly criticized on his own blog and others for grilling the distraught family in the midst of their grief over the death of their teenage son. Fitz is learning a painful lesson that people look on journalists in one light, and bloggers in another. In reality, when he had the power and prestige of the Kansas City Star behind him he could shift into full reporter mode. However, today he is a former reporter with his own blog site. He is learning a painful lesson that being a blogger is light years away from his days at the Star.
12-09-2010 FEEDBACK: WHO IS A JOURNALIST TODAY? This raises a good question. Just who is a journalist? There is no license to practice journalism, no registry.
In the old days it was simple. There were only a few outlets who owned the airwaves or the barrels of ink and bails of paper it took to perform mass communication.
Then came the computer and the lines blurred. First came newsletters. They were printed, distributed and looked like newspapers or magazines but usually only went to a small group and published mainly meeting or trade info to that group.
The real question arose with the advent of the blog.
What qualifies as a journalistic blog? One read by a lot of people? One run by a former journalist or whoever the person being interviews deems worthy of giving their information.
For example this blog and TKC have built a following (so have others I just don't know all of them). Some people even seek them out to give a story to them when they feel mainstream media isn't doing them justice.
But what makes them journalists and not say, just me, if I started a consistently updated blog tommorrow?
If any blog qualifies does that mean police and politicians need to give them invites to press conferences? If so which ones? Should crime or accident victims expect calls not only from the 4 area TV stations, the daily paper and maybe their community weekly but tens or maybe hundreds of bloggers.
Don't get me wrong I am not saying blogs are not worthy and since so many former papers are going to online only it blurs the lines even further.
I just think it is a worthwhile discussion.
12-08-2010 JIM FITZPATRICK RESPONDS TO CRITICISM:
It's no fun being the target of commenters who allege that I'm a calloused, uncaring person who has imposed himself on a grieving family. I believe that people who know me will tell you that I am caring and empathetic. At the same time, I am a journalist, and journalists have been calling the families of victims of crashes, homicides, suicides, etc. for decades, at least. Many members of the public want to know more about what happened in this case. A 16-year-old boy is alive and well one minute, mortally injured the next minute on a residential street in Olathe. The public counts on journalists to at least try to get to the bottom of tragedies like this. In its Saturday story -- the only one of any substance -- The Star didn't even say that an investigation was underway. Among other things, it didn't bother to explain why the boys were not in school at 10:30 on a Wednesday morning, and it didn't say where they were headed. It was totally lacking in information that would help the public put the crash in any kind of context. My feeling is that in the vacuum of official information, I became the outlet for people who were understandably frustrated and saddened about Zach's death. Of course, I feel badly about it, too, and, again, I extend my sympathy to Kimberly and John Myers, to their surviving son, John Myers Jr., and other family members and to friends of the family. I would just ask them to try to understand, even in their mourning, that the crash, being a very public matter, has many members of the public wanting to know what happened. And I would like them to try to understand that journalists -- even online journalists -- have every right to attempt to get answers.
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