Baskadia

There is an ongoing debate about whether journalism is a craft or can be considered a profession like the traditional professions in medicine and law (Tumber & Prentoulis, 2005), with a profession seen as more than an occupation. The debate still persist even in scholarly circles as to whether journalism is a profession or not. Due to the fact that some people argue that there are many routes to journalism, they think it is a semi profession. There are yet others who think that journalism is NOT a profession. Again another group of people also think that journalism is a profession. They say that Journalism has always been a craft - in rare moments- an art - but never a profession. It depends too much on the perception, skill, empathy and honesty of the practitioner rather than on the acquisition of technical knowledge and skills

Nonetheless, I arguably think that journalism is a profession and journalists are something more than justnews reporters, editors, media employees, or the like. And that is why they have a future even if mere reporters, editors, writers, and the like do not.

Profession is an occupation being any  full-time activity defined in part by an easily recognizable body of knowledge, skill, and judgment, a discipline by which one can and people typically do earn a living. According to Odunewu (2000:3), a profession is “an occupation requiring advanced education and training, involving intellectual skills as in medicine, law, pharmacy, engineering, etcetera”.  

Journalism on the other is the collection, preparation, distribution of news and related commentary and feature materials via print and electronic media such as newspapers, books, blogs, podcasts, magazines, social networking, motion pictures and radio.

Microsoft Encarta (2009), journalism refers to the process of “gathering, evaluating and distributing facts of current interest”. According to Odunewu (2000:3), a profession is “an occupation requiring advanced education and training, involving intellectual skills as in medicine, law, pharmacy, engineering, etcetera”.

I arguably think that journalism is a profession because it has an enforceable code of code that is shared body of values and standards. That is journalism is a profession because it is being guided by an established institutions which has codes of ethics for journalists to abide by. For example, the Ghana Journalist Association is an establish institution in Ghana that has develop rules and codes for journalist to adhere to in their field of work.

Secondly, journalism is a profession because it seeks the welfare of the public in the society. Thus it seeks the needs and importance of the society as a whole in their field of work.

Furthermore, journalism is a profession because it has a specialized educational institutions to train people to become a journalist in the society. Thus a body of knowledge that is transferable.

From the above, it could be deduced that, for Journalists to live up to their expectations in the society and to acquire appropriate knowledge and skills to perform those functions as prescribed by the constitution of the land, they must be properly “schooled” in the art and science of journalism. The process of detecting news, gathering news, sorting news, processing news and eventual dissemination of news require both education and technical skills. Also, it is instructive to point out that, Journalists (Press) do not operate or function in a vacuum; the society ascribes to them certain social responsibilities. Neophytes or novices cannot adequately fill the gap. Only those who are sufficiently trained and grounded in journalism or mass communication can perform these functions satisfactorily. Thus, journalism, like other disciplines such as law, medicine, engineering, etc could be described as a profession, especially when considering its impacts and role in the society.

Odunewu (2000:5) submits that journalism is a profession because journalists perform critical functions in the society such that any “journalist that wants to excel must adhere to certain standards of behaviour …also… there are core values such as respect for truth, accuracy, independence, fairness, balance, which a journalist must uphold”.

It takes people who respect the profession to protect the profession. One should have love and respect for the society so that you can serve them well. If you have society at heart, you will do your profession well.

In conclusion, I arguably think that journalism is a profession because it has enforceable code of conduct, that is, a shared body of values and standards,

dedication to public’s welfare in serving the interest of the public

specialized educational preparation  and a distinct body of knowledge that is transferable.