There is an old rule in Journalism that maybe bears repeating.

The rule: Don’t be awed by the players.

I’m sure many of you have heard the line there is “no cheering in the press box.”

Both are sort of the same thing.

When you are assigned to cover a sporting event, it is your job to be there as a Sports Journalist and not as a fan. Your job is to report on what happened during the game and give viewers (readers) the news. You are not in the press box to cheer on either team, you’re there as a professional covering the game.

The rule, don’t be awed by the players is basically the same thing.

Sports journalists head down to the locker room after the game and their job is to ask players about the game. You likely will not see Journalists in the locker room asking for autographs or selfies while they are there do a job.

In fact, doing so will get you booted from the locker room very quickly.

But, these rules don’t just pertain to sports, but to all stories covered by journalists. You are there to do a job, not be some fan.

This brings us to KRON (San Francisco) Reporter Justin Campbell.

Campbell was covering the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) presented by Apple. This is where Apple talks about their latest software (and sometimes hardware) to developers that will be designing things for the platform.

Campbell posted across his social media a selfie he took with him and Apple CEO Tim Cook.

His job was to be at WWDC covering the news and here he is fanboying over Apple’s CEO. It really doesn’t seem like the behavior of an objective Reporter, now does it?

Campbell is a Journalist, not some tech vlogger that gushes all Apple all the time.

If you meet Tim Cook and you feel the need to ask for a selfie, my advice is, first, don’t. But, if you do, keep the picture for you wall in your home office and not put the selfie on blast all over social media.

You job is Journalist, not fanboy.

You would think that a Reporter in a top 10 market would know that. For sure you would think that his bosses know that.

Let’s put Journalism back in TV news.