Separated Journalists and Confidentiality

The group that presented talked about "Separated Journalists" which completely goes against my ideal image of a journalist. Journalists tend to be separated journalists as a matter of emotions self-preservation and they feel that they must then separate themselves from the rest of community. At least, this is what I got out of the presentation. I do not think that I can be a separated journalist because I firmly believe in getting involved with the community. As a consumer of the media I am least likely to trust a journalist who in uninvolved as I feel like "how can they possibly write about this? They don't understand. They haven't experienced it. They are just on the sidelines." Maybe if journalists were not separatists then the print media would be of higher interest to media consumers and wouldn't die off as quickly as it is.

In this YouTube video, a journalist gets punched in the face by Canadian police. The journalist, as made clear in this video, was not a separatist. He was in the middle of the protests and not simply on the sidelines. Thus, he was more active than separate. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7OA920pbv8

The part of the presentation on confidentiality is one that I can somewhat relate to. As a person who has lived through certain events and has certain people who would like to find me in the near future for certain reasons, I really do not want my name to be publicized too much. As a future writer/journalist this is something I will have to battle with as my name will be used in publishing most likely. However, I have been on the part of the source's side where I needed the confidentiality. I was raised to fear what the media could do to my reputation and what consumers could do to the information given.

This YouTube video is a Grad student who, I believe, is not a journalist, but she talks about confidentiality when it comes to publishing. She says that maintaining people's right to confidentiality is a part of being an "open professional": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjvxWatjrT8

Another issue that stems from confidentiality is what happens when the media fails to protects a confidential source. This video discusses this issue and talks about a certain case and the results of the breech of confidentiality. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySHwABcSPXw