Yet journalism as a calling asks for more than professional aims and professional skills. A calling goes beyond these to ask for moral commitment to work for more than pay, recognition, seeking public good, and avoiding unprofessional acts. A calling to journalism requires commitment as educator and trainer, and as watcher for danger and institutional defect. The aims are pursued for their own sakes and not for pay or professional recognition. Pay and recognition might follow-or might not.


Whether chosen (the few) or not chosen (the many) from those who are the called to journalism, whether professional or amateur, all are able to pursue liberty and justice in their roles as worthy individuals and be good members of society. Some seem likely to receive high pay and professional recognition in fields akin to journalism.


But those who are called are endowed with a moral dimension.

Kenneth Harwood, who has been a professor and scholar at a number of universities for more than five decades, currently is an adjunct professor of communications at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His E-mail address is harwood.kenneth@verizon.net

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