Journalism Defined

JOUR-nalism (French, "the accounting of the day")

JOURNALism ("the act of recording the events of the day")

Journalism (the post-1920s industry that serves the social function of surveillance, watchdog of the government and corporate institutions and the primary interface between citizen and society)

"The news of the day as it reaches the newspaper office is an incredible medley of fact, propaganda, rumor, suspicion, clues, hopes, and fears, and the task of selecting and ordering that news is one of the truly sacred and priestly offices in a democracy." Walter Lippmann, Liberty and the News, 1920