Amateur vs Professional

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What is a professional? What makes this person professional? Why does this professional superior vs someone who is consider an amateur?

What separates the amateurs and the professionals is someone with professional status (discussed in class) is paid, expert, training, considered best, experienced, more educated, very committed, well paid, and abide by a code/regulation.

Someone with the amateurs status can easily fit into our perception of “professionalism” even though our class defines an amateur with no credentials , not known / not recognizable, not able to make a living, its’ not their primary job. 

Personally, I think different career paths can use the term professional or  amateur. 

Journalist SHOULD NOT CALL THEMSELVES A PROFESSIONAL OR AN AMATEUR.

MASS AMATEURIZATION  is happening, everyone is producing stuff. Everything is can be accessed.

Now.. being a doctor or maybe even a teacher.. yes.

3 thoughts on “Amateur vs Professional”

  1. I disagree with your comment about a journalist not being able to call his or her self a professional/amateur. I believe professional journalists serve a very important role in our society, as they are the ones trained and paid to spend time uncovering the truth in an objective way. A journalist’s writing is not for his or her self; a journalist serves the public. Not all bloggers are journalists, and by no means are they all professional journalists either. There are professional journalists who have blogs; there are amateur/aspiring journalists who have blogs; and there are just people who have blogs. Having a blog does not make you a journalist, amateur or professional. For a better explanation, check out the following article from Nieman Reports as well as the Society of Professional Journalist’s Code of Ethics.

    http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reportsitem.aspx?id=102412
    http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp

  2. Being a journalist takes more than just knowing how to write well. The have to find stories, research them and deliver the news with an un-bias oppinon. I am sure Barbara Walters, Ted Koppel and other journalist who have dedicated many years to present their craft to the world would be offended if they could not consider themselves to be professional.

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