The strange saga of James O'Ke

I DO NOT believe in "citizen journalism."

Yes, I know that's heresy. Yes, I know the old model has changed: The monologue is now a dialogue. Yes, I know ordinary people with cell-phone cameras now "report" newsworthy events and bloggers are indispensable to the national dialogue.

Yet I remain convinced that, with exceptions, citizen journalism is to journalism as pornography is to a Martin Scorsese film; while they may employ similar tools - i.e., camera, lighting - they aspire to different results.

So I've had it up to here with people calling James O'Keefe III a journalist.

Last year, you may recall, political conservatives lauded O'Keefe for "investigative journalism" that helped bring down ACORN, the financially troubled group whose sinister works included advocating for poor and middle-income people.

O'Keefe, in a hidden camera sting, posed as a pimp and filmed some of the organization's employees advising him on how to facilitate his supposed illicit business. It made him the toast of the blogosphere and earned him the admiration of Fox News. A resolution honoring him was even introduced in the House of Representatives.

The resolution, which failed, praised O'Keefe and his conspirator, Hannah chanel replica watches Giles, for "exemplary actions as government watchdogs and young journalists."

A year later, the star of the "young journalist" is, putting it mildly, fading.

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Earlier this year, prosecutors declined to prosecute ACORN employees amid reports that the videos were selectively and misleadingly edited. Meanwhile, O'Keefe and three others were arrested and charged with trying to tamper with telephones in the office of Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu.

Now comes last week's report of a bizarre plot to embarrass CNN correspondent Abbie Boudreau, who was seeking an interview. O'Keefe had apparently planned to lure her aboard a boat filled with sex toys and secretly record their meeting; thankfully, one of his henchwomen warned Boudreau off.

This is journalism? No.

Journalism is hours on the phone nailing down the facts or pleading for the interview.

Journalism is obsessing over nitpicky questions of fairness and context.

Journalism is trying to get the story and get it right.

"Citizen journalism," we are told, is supposed to democratize all that, the tools of new technology making each of us a journalist unto him or herself. It is a mark of the low regard in which journalism is held that that load of bull pucky ever passed as wisdom.

If some guy had a wrench, would that make him a citizen mechanic? If some woman flashed a toy badge, would you call her a citizen police officer? Would you trust your health to a citizen doctor just because he produced a syringe?

Of course not. But every Tom, Dick and Harriet with a blog is a "citizen journalist."

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Worse, they are spreading like the common cold. Ask Shirley Sherrod if you don't believe me. Sometimes it feels as if there are more "citizen journalists" than citizens. It is hard to know how to feel about that.

After all, it used to