Was or Is James Kotecki a Journalist?
Not in the traditional sense, but then again if you compare Chris Matthews to Walter Cronkite, I am sure you see some changes in the industry there as well.
This is not a slam against either Chris or James, but rather a mere observation that over the years with changing technologies there has been a blurring of entertainment and journalism and entertainment. There was never a rule book that said that journalism could not be entertaining.
Kotecki is referred to as a pundit in the interview with Garrett last year.
In fact not only is he a pundit, according to Washingtonian magazine, but he is the top pundit in his ”niche” of youtube and politics.
Kotecki, at the ripe age of 23, understands the repetitive nature of present day media and has decided to come up with his own hybrid form of journalism.
Above is a video giving a brief history on how is blog postings came to be. We have discussed repeatedly in class the use of edgy behavior and language when bloging. Kotecki takes this idea to a new level. In the most recent post he spent the last 33 seconds of the video blog quoting the 1996 movie Independence Day.
One of our journalism professors in this program told our class once that our mission as journalists is to tell a good story and tell the truth. If this is what definines journalism, than what are the limits?
Obviously, how we get the message across to the general public is subject to change based on the changing technologies. Kotecki is now optimizing on the changing medium of online video programing.
Because the medium of which the message is being transmitted is changing, so is the message to adjust to the audience. In recent years we have found that more and more news consumers are getting their news from comedy news sources such as The Daily Show or The Colbert Report.
So yes journalism is changing because of the new mediums on which it can be presented. Does that mean Kotecki is a journalist? Possibly, I think we will have to wait it out and let history decide.
