Professional and Accurate

What makes a professional...actually a professional? Let's take the given example of photography. For some reason, the idea has been brought up that having a fancy camera instantly makes you a photographer. I would say a good quarter of my friends have a "side photography business" where they just get their expensive camera and take pictures. 

Let's look at three different photographers. This is a high schooler that I am friends with, who has an album dedicated just to her photography. The album has around 40 likes.

This is the Facebook page of a woman I know who got her Bachelors and Masters Degree in Photography, and has been highly demanded by people needing any type of photos done. The page has 1,069 likes.

The last page I'm showing is a young boy who got a camera and decided to experiment. He hasn't had any formal education in photography. His photos were shared on Buzzfeed, and his page now has over 248k likes.

So, which of these three is a photographer? Is it all of them? Is it none of them? Is it the one with the most likes, or the one with the most education, or the one with the most photos on display? What do you have to do in order to earn the title of a "photographer"? 

I think social media has changed our perspective on professionalism because anyone can claim to be anything. If you just make a Facebook page for yourself, you can post your work and anyone can see it and like it. If I wanted to make a Clara Goodwin Photography page, I'm sure my friends would like it, mostly because they want to support me, not because they care about my photography. 

On a completely different note, I believe I'm the only person in the class studying broadcast journalism. The question of how instantaneous news affects quality is something that is very big in my division of study. We are all fighting to have the "Breaking News" and to have people tune into our channel. 

One example of this took place last June. CNN started reporting straight from the Supreme Court that President Obama's health care law had been overturned, which ended up being an extremely embarrassing error. 

It is important that, although we have these sources to make things so instantaneous, we take the time to gather the facts and report with evidence and truth. It is important to be first, but it's more important to be accurate.