Men can be so emotional can't they?

That slur so often applied to women came to mind as I read with horrified fascination the slanging match between Yusuf Abramjee, Chris Vick, Nic Dawes, and associated men, who have sensed blood and entered the fray.

How demeaning it is. Ironically a lot of the fight is about the Protection of Information Act, but it has descended to a name-calling brawl. It would not be surprising if those in the public read the venom in the missives of these leading journalists and wonder if they should allow us any room at all to fairly interpret the news. We are certainly not fair in dealing with our own.

Journalism gives us rare status. I can remember the first time I entered a newsroom as a very young reporter, I was horrified by seeing in front of me the single largest accumulation in one room of the sort of people my mother had always warned me about. But I quickly grew to love my profession; in it were some of the cleverest, most principled people I have ever met. Many were prepared to risk their lives in reporting apartheid; some still do in conflict zones around the world.

When picture bylines were introduced in the 1980s I resisted it. I did not believe the public were interested in what we looked like - I still don't believe they care, all they want is that we do our best to thoughtfully report and analyze the news. But picture bylines were the start of the ego-journalism that now drives media corporations and bloggers everywhere. It encourages journalists to believe we are more than the first writers of history; that we are more than the conduits of information and that we should question, balance, and are always fair.

Two decades ago I admired the sunglasses of a talented broadcast journalist, "oh they're from a fan," she tossed out. Journalists should not have fans, being popular has never been part of the job description.

Ego has allowed publishers and broadcasters to pay us low salaries because some will make it up on the side on speaking circuits, or not entirely ethical business deals or ‘freebies'.

In the early 1990s, the South African Union of Journalists undertook a survey ahead of wage negotiations that showed a significant percentage of journalists then had at least one PhD, very many had Masters. They earned pitiful salaries compared to what they could have earned in the private sector, but journalism in those days drew those who were committed to truth-telling, and an almost naïve belief in democracy and the creation of social justice.

Today journalism is not as idealistic, it is more structured, even corporate but ever-important as our democracy struggles to create economic opportunity and retain some of the values freedom demands.

Yes, there are journalists who carefully store every clipping, every news broadcast in which they are quoted. We who report on how ‘fame' seduces and corrupts should know better, but some don't.

This profession is ready to applaud those who do well. We are happy to call on those quick with the 'instant quote', which journalists can usually offer better than anyone else. But there is something those in this current mudslinging battle forget - no profession turns on its own with as much viciousness or savagery. 

How those who would like to silence journalists must be laughing, you're playing right into their hands with this undignified battle.

Journalism demands better than your petty likes and dislikes. It is not interested in journalists settling scores against those they have long harbored resentment against. And quite frankly it is easy to dislike all the parties in this fray, they have all done things they should be ashamed of - but haven't we all?

Tabloid journalism encourages hypocritical self-righteousness, good journalism demands stepping back and suppressing our own feelings, and considering what is in the public interest. It is the hardest thing to do, and the most necessary, because frankly the public is sick of "me journalism." I am too.

Charlene Smith who counted eight "I's" in this story is an award-winning South African journalist who now lives and works in Boston in the United States.

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