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When Joe the Plumber parlayed his fame into journalism, the media outlets went nuts. “What makes him qualified”, they said. Journalists are such elitists and I say that coming from a former-journalists perspective. We like to think we have significant power and influence because we see products and corporate roadmaps months before the public. It eventually goes to your head. When I wrote reviews, I liked to think that I could make or break a product. If that were true there would be a lot of companies that no longer existed. The question is, "what makes a journalist?" Where doctors, lawyers, or engineers need to have a specific degree to practice their profession, journalists require no particular degree at all.
Barbara Walters has a degree in English, Peter Jennings dropped out of college, and Wolf Blitzer is a history major. Brian Williams jumped from college to college and never graduated. Anderson Cooper at least studied Political Science and International Relations. And then there are the pundits. Rush Limbaugh dropped out, so did Glenn Beck, and Keith Olbermann is an economics grad that built his career as a sports caster. The list goes on.
If Elizabeth Hasselback with a fine arts degree and Yul Kwon with his law degree can parlay their fame from Survivor into television careers, why can’t Joe? Granted The View isn’t news in the traditional sense, but they do cover current events. And the Asian American Journalist Association is quick to attack any politically incorrect things they might say because of Barbara Walters’ association with the show. If you didn't know, Yul Kwon does some work for CNN.
My point is that give Joe a break. He’s doing what so many others before him did, except he’s jumping in with both feet and not starting as a prompter reader or covering local news in market 255. He’s learning the hard way...in the spotlight. Give him props for taking his 15 minutes and trying to turn it into something more. Isn’t that the American Dream? The so-called "qualified" journalists need to look back in their own bio's before criticizing others. As far as I can tell, journalists are basically people with an extensive Rolodex and/or a producer that comes with connections, or a company with a big name. Note: In the interest of full disclosure...I do work for the company that hired Joe as a journalist, but I work on the tech, not the editorial side.
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