Here's my position: were TV to have already existed, newspapers would not exist.
Print is a stopgap medium between scribes creating individual documents one at a time and the current and expanding delivery of near on-the-scene accounts of events. And this I say with all respect for my stepbrother, who was publisher of a recognizable American newspaper for 30 years.
The pieces on the website are "kibbles and bits" condensations of the on-air reporting. Like many TV sites, they offer condensed versions of the actual report as aired so as to encourage actual viewing.
You know, those of us who actually studied journalism were taught that the average user of print media does not read the whole story; only the most interested and most idle do. So we were instructed on how to create inverted pyramids with a summary of who-what-where-when-why in the first lines and then a gradual expansion of the information throughout the article. Thus the causal reader got the gist of the story without reading the whole thing.
Good television news gives just enough information to satisfy everyone's needs, in the full knowledge that the more interested viewer may seek out additional sources. But the timeliness and immediacy generally compensate for the necessary brevity while the visual aspect often compensates via the old "a picture is worth a thousand words".
Certainly they are professionals, just as a mechanic, and artist, an attorney and a mason are professionals. They practice a profession, whether that profession require a college degree, an advanced degree or simply special skills or abilities.
You just demeaned most of America's workforce.
Do they report on happenings that are of interest and importance to a segment of a community's population? If they tell the stories of what is going on, they are journalists.
If I am mowing my lawn (if I had one) and someone tosses rocks onto the grass in front of my lawn mower, I would be angry. If I were framing a photograph, and someone purposely stood in front of the lens, I would be annoyed. You get the point: anyone who interferes with the work or livelihood of another is not just a distraction, but a social misfit and worthy of disdain.
And you thin that print journalists don't, also, try to "get the story"? Either you are arguing for argument's sake or just disingenuous.
Generally, the lack of trust of some of the news media has to do with the opinion segments or pages in publications or the injection of opinion or bias into newscasts. Here, we are talking about a local news crew in the Seattle area... no opinion, no bias... just a crew that found themselves in a scene where shots were fired. A scene which, because of the shots, became a news story or event on its own merit.
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