Who is a 'journalist'?

Joe, Mika and our changing media world.

On Friday, my Georgetown students and I were talking about the decision by MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski to travel to Mar-A-Lago to meet with President-elect Donald Trump.

(Fun/interesting fact: Of the 8 students, only 3 knew about the controversy. And that same number even knew who Joe and Mika were!)

As part of that conversation, one of the kids said that she thought it made sense for Joe/Mika to go to Mar-a-Lago because they were journalists — and that part of the job of a journalist was to gain access to (or at least have some sort of relationship with) the powerful people in government.

(Sidebar: I tend to believe that the “access” era of journalism is either dead or in the process of dying. But, that’s for another piece! )

Which prompted me to ask this question: “Is Joe Scarborough a journalist?”

I noted that Joe had never gone to journalism school or been a reporter — and that his formative experience in adult life prior to becoming a TV host was as a Republican Congressman.

But, I also added that Joe has now spent years interviewing politicians and other newsmakers on TV — asking questions and looking for answers.

Most of the class said they believed Joe to be a journalist.

To which I then asked: “Is Joe Rogan a journalist?”

Because Rogan has as much journalistic training as Scarborough — none. And/but Rogan does interview people! Including Donald Trump — for three hours!!! — in the final days of the 2024 campaign.

Most of the class said they didn’t think Rogan was a journalist.

We moved on — because, well, I had other stuff I wanted to do in the class. But I have been thinking about that conversation ever since — and I wanted to share a few more thoughts on it with you and see what you made of it.

Start here: The dictionary definition of a journalist is “a person engaged in journalism especially : a writer or editor for a news medium.”

Which isn’t super helpful!

Here’s how “journalism” is defined by that same dictionary: “the collection and editing of news for presentation through the media.”

Again, not super helpful! Collecting and editing the news is a very broad set of verbs. And what defines the “media” nowadays?

This used to be MUCH more straightforward. When I started back in journalism in the early 2000s, you were a journalist if you worked as a reporter or an editor for a newspaper or TV channel. Simple.

But then two things happened:

1. Social media/YouTube/Instagram/TikTok was invented and became incredibly popular

2. The line between reporting and analysis — and even opinion — got very, very blurry.

I have lived this change in my own life. I started my career as what I would describe as a “straight reporter”: Working at Roll Call newspaper, my only goal was to get news before my competitors. I spent most of my time on the phone with sources — trying to cajole information out of them. I offered almost nothing by way of analysis or opinion in those pieces.

Then I went to the Washington Post where I wrote a blog, which was a revolutionary thing at the time(!), called “The Fix.”

And, while I started out writing for “The Fix” just like I had for Roll Call — just the facts, ma’am — I found myself wanting to branch out. I started to lean into analysis — because I was tired of the breaking news game and because I believed (and still believe) that people who can tell you “why” something matters are absolutely critical in our modern news environment.

By the time I got to CNN in early 2017, I was in all-analysis, all-the-time mode. I would still make calls — or, more realistically, send emails — to sources, but it was mostly to check my line of thinking and make sure I wasn’t missing something big. And, to be honest, I made far less of those calls (and sent less of those emails) than I had a decade before.

Now? Well, I still do mostly analysis. But I also talk to other Substackers, journalists and political people — usually to ask them their opinions about a specific subject. (One of the things I have very much enjoyed doing is going back and forth with

Damon Linker

over the past year.)

So, what does that make me? I am definitely not the “straight reporter” that I was in my mid 20s. But, I have a lot more traditional journalistic credentials — in that I worked at big media companies — than lots of people in the political content space….

I think, honestly, the term “journalist” is outdated. What do we call people like me now?

I like “next-gen journalists” — via my friend Ezra Brettler at YouTube. Pew described this new journalism and the people who populate it as “news influencers,” which might fit but reminds me too much of people who do weird challenges like who can stand with their hand touching a car the longest.

Journalism — not just who does it and what we call them but HOW it’s done — has changed drastically in the two and a half decades I have been doing it. And yet, I still — when people ask me about I do for a living — respond: “I’m a journalist.”

But what, exactly, does that mean? And are there now any limits on who can call themselves a journalist — as long as they are making news or news-adjacent content? Should there be?

What do you think? I want to take a few of the most thoughtful comments on this subject and turn them into their own separate post. So please offer you impressions on all of this in the comments section below! Thanks in advance!