RE: About IETF communication skills

At 11:57 PM +0100 7/31/08, <michael.dillon@bt.com> wrote:
>Of course then there is
>the clarity of terminology, so lets define journalist as someone
>who is paid to write articles for a publication and who is
>at IETF to do their dayjob. Whether or not the journalist
>also has a blog is irrelevant. This definition does exclude
>people like me who are not currently paid to write and who
>only write on things like blogs and mailing lists.

Aside from my view that it would be unwise and counterproductive to 
try to exclude any type of journalist, you propose an unworkable and 
unrealistic distinction.  As much as you may not like it (and as much 
as some "traditional" or "real" journalists and the companies that 
employ them certainly do not like it), journalism is radically 
transforming, and "real" reporters are dwindling in number and 
Internet-age reporters are exploding.

There are "real" reporters who work on a freelance basis and are not 
paid until they write a story and (if they are lucky) place it. 
Should they be excluded because they are not on someone's payroll? 
There are bloggers who work full time for a corporation with one 
employee (themselves), and are compensated from advertising revenue 
-- an arrangement that (except for the number of employees) is 
remarkably similar to reporters who work for the New York Times.  Are 
they in or out?  I think you would find it impossible to draw a 
rational, fair line that allows in the people you prefer and excludes 
the rest.

A much better approach would be for the IETF to move into the 
Internet age (vis-a-vis journalists) and figure out how to work with 
all journalists, rather than cling to an outdated conception of that 
profession.  If some journalists are not getting it, we all 
collectively need to do a better job of educating them.  If a blogger 
gets it wrong, then we can all correct the error (either on the 
original blog or other blogs), and readers will begin to figure out 
that the blogger does not know what he/she is talking about (and 
perhaps then the blogger will listen more carefully the next time 
around).  And isn't it likely that the blogger will get it more wrong 
if we exclude him/her in the first place?

My 2 cents....

John Morris
jmorris@cdt.org
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