A Stitch in Haste

“Coming over the airwaves
The man says I’m overdue.
‘Sing along, send some money!
Join the chosen few!’”
–Huey Lewis & The News, “Jacob’s Ladder”

Every so often, I get a piece of spam at work from some outfit called “Madison’s Who’s Who” informing me that I’m important enough of a corporate executive (or lawyer, or investment banker, or something) to be on their email marketing list included in their publication — for a modest fee of $600 per year, give or take.

Then I think back to “Who’s Who Among American High School Students” — another rip-off designed to bilk proud parents. Was there a “Who’s Who Among American Law School Students”? I can’t recall…

Well, you just knew that such a time-tested scam would reach the blogosphere eventually:

Robert Cox wants to bring some professionalism to the blogosphere.

As president of the Media Bloggers Association, Cox is about to unveil new membership policies designed to help bloggers who see themselves more as journalists than freeform diarists.
…
Among the planned criteria: Members would have to take an online course offered by the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank, covering legal issues related to blogging.

Members also could seek credentialed status by undergoing training or demonstrating other work as professional journalists.
…
Of course, having credentials from Cox’s organization won’t guarantee access.

No, but they’ll guarantee that the “Media Bloggers Association” (good grief!) and its co-conspirator “think tank” (good grief squared!) will make some easy money by bilking fools. The more things change…

The measure of a quality blogger is not the junk posing as “credentials” that he buys over the Internet from hucksters. It’s his readership, as well as the response he generates from his audience. No different than any other journalist. Go figure.

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As I’ve blogged previously, journalists are simply not “professionals” on a par with truly credentialed occupations such as physicians, attorneys or accountants. They are not required to graduate from a privately accredited school, they need pass no comprehensive examinations, they endure no continuing education requirements and they swear to no ethics codes. Their insistence that they are somehow an “elite” (especially relative to “mere” bloggers) and should therefore enjoy special status — up to and including testimonial privilege — is simply absurd.