Who is a Journalist and what is Journalism?

We have talked a lot in class about what makes someone a journalist and what something needs to be considered journalism. I think through discussion my ideas on what defines these terms has changed. A Journalist is someone who reports the news through television, radio, print and other forms of media. Merriam-Webster defines journalism as “The activity or job of collecting, writing, and editing news stories for newspapers, magazines, television, or radio.” Although this seems accurate, I think that the medium used to show journalism can be very different. Journalism in my opinion is the action of sharing something that is newsworthy with the public. The way that this information is shared can differ. In class we saw examples of song, Prezi slides and images. I would not have originally considered these mediums as journalism but why? I think that in my mind is had a preconceived idea of the definition of journalism. I imagined radio and television broadcasters and the newspaper when I was asked to define journalism. My view has now changed, the idea that a picture or song is journalism seems reasonable to me. If it shares accurate, newsworthy information with the public then that is to say that the method in which it is shared is correct or incorrect. After all, a picture is worth a 1000 words.

            At first I was certain that the image I created in Photoshop was NOT journalism but now for sake of discussion I am going to argue that it is journalism. My image contains no text but simply images that chronologically display the key happenings in the story. I think because the images are placed in the order of occurrence and share the story with the public it is considered journalism. However, the lines do get blurred when the ability to comprehend what is being said is addressed. The images do show what happened in the event but without background knowledge on the actual event it may difficult to fully understand the timeline of images.