Amanda Congdon’s not a journalist, but she plays one on TV
“I don’t want a role as a traditional journalist now,” says ABC correspondent Amanda Congdon, “and I don’t believe I ever will in the future.”
A few months ago, Congdon acted in some online promo spots for DuPont. This week Advertising Age reported it, just as a normal blog post. But Radar Magazine turned it into a cutting story:
The DuPont deal isn’t doing anything to endear Congdon to ABC News staffers, who have already complained to Radar about her low traffic, cloying online persona, and snotty posts on her blog about how lame ABC News’s website is.
Eventually the story hit the Huffington Post with the headline “ABC Videocaster Congdon Caught Working For DuPont On The Side.” But Congdon wasn’t “caught” — she had pointed to the ads on her blog, and she later wrote that ABC and HBO had approved the DuPont work.
It’s not typical for a journalist to do promo work on the side; it’s seen as a conflict of interest. Amanda argues that okay, if those are the rules then she’s not a traditional journalist. Those who’ve seen her interview Dan Rather and parade around as a “new media” queen may call that bullshit. Well, I have to take Amanda’s side. She doesn’t really buy into the whole “do research, cooperate with the studio giving you resources and access, act like a professional” deal. She’s not a journalist, she just plays one on TV.
This entry was posted by Nick Douglas on Thursday, March 22nd, 2007 at 10:26 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...
on March 23, 2007 at 1:25 am Nicole Lee wrote:
Well that is the question right — is she or is she not a journalist? If she really was just hired by ABC News as an entertainer rather than a news person, then hey, she can do whatever she wants. But from what I’ve read, ABC does intend to move her career further into the realm of an anchor person in a news-type of show. If that does happen, and I’ll have to see what kind of show it is to really make the judgment, that means that she may be “molded” into a journalistic type of role. Think of it this way — if she’s like a Ryan Seacrest, she can do whatever. If she’s like a Matt Lauer or a Katie Couric, it’s way way way sketchier because of the gravitas of her role as a reporter of the news.
That said, I don’t really think the fault is with her — she clearly was not hiding anything, and she doesn’t seem to have any illusions that she did anything wrong (which seems to be norm). The fault here may be with ABC News — if it’s true that the execs did indeed give her the go-ahead, then either A) they do not think of her as a journalist, or B) they think that conflicts of interest issues are nothing to worry about. If it’s A, then ABC News had better make it damn clear she’s not. If it’s B, then, well, their credibility is shot.
I think the one thing that makes me nervous about the whole deal is the implication that video bloggers aren’t really journalists. Some aren’t, of course. But what about the video bloggers that do take it upon themselves to do journalistic work? What about Josh Wolf? I know, it’s an old story, and we’re all sick of the blogger vs journalist debate. But the flippant attitude toward her accused conflict of interest, however misguided, still leaves me feeling uncomfortable.
on March 23, 2007 at 12:15 pm Jackie wrote:
So what? The internet is like the wild west right now. Bloggers, vloggers, and journalists are going to have to experiment with this new medium and see how things shake out. Very possibly a few people will get hurt in the process, but that’s how we learn.
on March 23, 2007 at 12:22 pm Ben wrote:
guess I’m not the only one who doesn’t like Amanda Congdon anymore (ok I’m just pissed she didn’t return my email), but I think her fans from Rocketboom thought she sold out.
on March 31, 2007 at 5:14 pm Dayngr wrote:
I’m not a journalist either but I play one on the net.