IMAGINARY DARKROOM

What are the current working conditions and future prospects of Latino journalists working for any type of news media outlet? This question has not been addressed in any national study since Federico Subervi's 2004 research on behalf of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. This paper revisits the same subject matter seven years after (2011) the original work was produced, updating the figures and expanding the study by incorporating Latino journalists working for ethnic media, as well as those working for general market media. The results indicate that the dominant “motivation” factors present in 2011 that influenced US Latino journalists' job attitudes were work itself, advancement, and growth. The leading “hygiene” factors that influenced US Latino journalists' job attitudes were salary and relations with peers. Survey respondents agreed that opportunities to obtain professional training would significantly increase the likelihood of keeping their job and their preference for a training topic was digital/multimedia reporting. Journalists suggested three elements to assure a better coverage of the Latino community—a Hispanic/Latino supervisor, an educated supervisor, and media owned by Hispanic/Latino person/family. Additionally, news staff feel underpaid and dissatisfied with promotion opportunities as well as opportunities to increase their salary. They have felt job discrimination based on race.     

The Dynamics of Professional Identity

The aim of this article is to analyse how journalists' professional identity is related to their attitude towards PR. The focus is how—and to what extent—journalistic ideology, organizational belonging and the individual's social position influence journalists' perception that other journalists working with PR lower the trustworthiness of journalism. The analyses rest on data from the Swedish Journalist Survey 2011, which is a national representative survey of Swedish journalists. The results show that journalists in general embrace a hostile attitude towards journalists who start working as PR practitioners. However, those who have worked as a journalist for fewer years or have journalistic ideals promoting the amusement function of journalism, or have worked as a freelance, or been employed in an organization producing newsletters, as well as female journalists, weaken this posture. The article concludes with a discussion on how the results could be understood in relation to recent changes in journalism's power and prerequisites, and how a professional identity might function as a form of resistance.     

Determinants of Journalists' Professional Autonomy: Individual and National Level Factors Matter More Than Organizational Ones

This article seeks to map systematically predictors of journalists' perceived professional autonomy. On the basis of survey responses of 1,800 journalists from 18 countries, the study tests the extent to which journalists with different backgrounds and jobs, who work for different media and organizations, under different kinds of ownerships and pressures, in democratic and nondemocratic regimes, can perform their roles as society's main providers of information. We demonstrate that predictors of professional autonomy are twofold: comprising journalists' perceived influences on news work, and objective limits of autonomy that exist beyond journalists' perceptions. The latter reside on 3 levels: the individual journalist level, the organizational level, and the societal level. Journalists' subjective perceptions of political, organizational, procedural, professional, and reference group influences proved to be strongest predictors of professional autonomy. Of the hypothesized objective determinants of journalists' autonomy, ownership, editorial rank, and professional experience had the highest predictive value.     

The Portrayal of Public Relations in the News Media

This study explored the meanings and connotations of public relations in news stories carried by major newspapers and network television. The findings suggest that the term public relations was primarily used to suggest image building, reputation management, and persuasion efforts. News story interpretations of public relations terms were likely to refer to publicity, image, campaigns of persuasion, and marketing efforts to promote an organization's claims. The results reveal that negative connotations of public relations prevail in journalists' stories discussing the practice of public relations. The results imply that public relations practitioners trying to pitch their clients' stories need to understand how journalists will likely perceive the stories' news value. Two-way communication should begin with media relations via an understanding of journalists' viewpoints.     

A comparative study on source credibility and use in multinational nuclear talks

This study examines US and South Korean journalists' use of sources and their perceptions of source credibility in covering the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear ambitions. In particular, this study analyzes the relationship between journalists' perceptions of source credibility and the media's source use in terms of the aggregate and individual levels. Results of content analysis of US and South Korean newspapers are compared with data from a survey of US and South Korean journalists who covered the six-party nuclear talks. Government officials are dominant sources in media coverage of the talks because of their high level of accessibility and credibility. US and South Korean journalists assigned the greatest credibility to government officials of their own country. The two groups showed significant differences in their perceptions of credibility of South Korean officials, North Korean officials, Japanese officials, and Japanese experts. Moreover, this study finds that individual journalists' perceptions of source credibility were as strongly correlated with their individual use of sources as with the news media's aggregate use of sources. Implications of the findings are discussed in the context of media sociology, in particular gatekeeping.     

THE COMMUNICATIVE ACTION OF JOURNALISTS AND PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICERS

Public information officers (PIOs) represent a type of communications professional distinct from public relations practitioners (PRPs). From a structural functionalist viewpoint, journalists and PIOs share goals: both see themselves as facilitating the information flow into the public sphere. Habermas' communicative action models defining journalists as committed to revealing the “whole truth” to the public, but PRPs as enmeshed in advocating private interests, do not adequately describe PIOs. Although journalists' and PIOs' goals are similar, barriers exist to inhibit their cooperation in achieving those mutual goals. Such barriers arise from academic ideal types fostering inaccurate perceptions of each other, perceptions reinforced by adaptive structuration within their respective organizations' cultures. Empirical data support that PIOs' and journalists' divergent attitudes about their professional praxis combine with ideal-type constructions and organizational cultures to produce communication disconnects between the two.     

Social Media References in Newspapers

Social media are increasingly being used as sources in mainstream news coverage. Yet, while the research so far has focused mainly on the use of social media in particular situations, such as breaking news coverage, during crisis news events or in times of elections, little attention is paid to journalists' routine, day-to-day monitoring of social media platforms. The aim of this study is to examine the use and selection of social media as sources in routine newspaper coverage. First, it presents a quantitative overview of all the articles published between January 2006 and December 2013 in the print editions of two Flemish (north Belgian) quality newspapers, De Standaard and De Morgen, that explicitly refer to Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. Next, a content analysis is conducted of a sample of newspaper articles published in 2013 that explicitly mention Facebook, Twitter or YouTube as sources of information. The goal of this content analysis is to examine the different appearances and functions of social media references in the news. The study thus provides a first insight into Belgian newspaper journalists' regular sourcing routines in relation to social media.     

Identity(ies) Explored: How Journalists’ Self-conceptions Influence Small-town News

Existing literature on community journalism suggests it is worthwhile to theoretically and conceptually examine journalists in small towns. These reporters and editors always wear multiple hats, including news worker, community member, and booster. Therefore, drawing on newsroom observations and interviews, and applying the interpretive lenses of sociology and identity theory, this study examines the self-perceived identities of weekly newspaper news workers, and how those identities influence their news production. Findings across three organizations show that for these journalists, professional identity is intertwined with personal identity as a church member or baseball coach. Simply put, these journalists see themselves as members of the community that their newspaper covers. Their interactions with friends and neighbors are also interactions with sources – and with advertisers. This sense of personal connection further serves as a key motivation to produce meaningful news for their communities, which the author suggests has served as a safeguard to declines in readership for many small-town weekly newspapers.     

ELIMINATION OF IDEAS AND PROFESSIONAL SOCIALISATION

This article investigates and interprets social and cultural production and reproduction as we turn our attention to an important part of routinised practice in the newsroom: the early newsroom meetings. These meetings are essential sites for the building of the craft ethos and professional vision. Our aim is to study how this building of expertise takes place at meetings with a particular focus on the decision-making process concerning ideas for new news stories. In order to do this, we perform linguistic analysis of news production practices, as we investigate how the journalists' ideas for potential news stories are eliminated by the editor at the daily newsroom meetings. The elimination of ideas for news stories are not just eliminations; they are also corrections of culturally undesirable behaviour producing and reproducing the proper perception of an important object of knowledge—what constitutes “a good news story”—in this community of practice.     

Networking or Not Working?

This paper examines journalists' changing sourcing practices in the context of an emerging media ecology initiated by processes of globalization, digitization, commercialism and concentration. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter or YouTube provide the means to access a more diverse range of sources, including civil society organizations and ordinary citizens. We developed a quantitative content analysis to examine to what extent Belgian news coverage showed signs of diverse sourcing practices during the 2011 uprisings in three Arab countries. We analysed a total sample of 1121 news items about the street protests in Syria, Egypt and Tunisia, in four Belgian newspapers (two popular and two quality dailies) and two Belgian broadcasters (the public broadcaster VRT and the commercial channel VTM). The analysis shows that ordinary citizens and non-mainstream groups are important news sources and that social media platforms are consulted relatively often compared to everyday foreign news coverage. In terms of inter-media differences, the findings show that broadcasters' dependency on video footage and eyewitness accounts is reflected in their use of ordinary citizen sources and amateur footage. Moreover, the analysis confirms that quality newspapers display more diverse and more innovative sourcing practices than popular newspapers.     

AMERICAN SPORTS WRITERS’ SOCIAL MEDIA USE AND ITS INFLUENCE ON PROFESSIONALISM

American sports writers' use of social media as a newsgathering tool has influenced journalism practice, further complicating the industry's abstract definition of “professionalism.” This study builds on a pilot study published in the fall 2011 issue of Journal of Sports Media, which assessed print sports journalists' use of social media. In the current study, a survey was administered to 77 full-time print sports journalists who cover professional sports. This paper seeks to extend the pilot study and previous professional research in two ways: firstly, to assess how this specific subgroup of sports writers use Facebook and Twitter to gather information; and secondly, to analyze how these sports writers define “professionalism” and what industry factors correlate with chosen definitions, such as newspaper circulation and work superiors' attitudes toward social media. Cross-tabulations and chi-square tests were used to test hypotheses. Cramer's V or Phi, depending upon the cross-tabulation, were used to measure relationship strength. Results suggest this subset of sports writers more often uses Twitter for newsgathering purposing than Facebook. There is also a strong relationship between the frequency of Twitter usage and the definition of professionalism chosen; circulation size and instances of directly quoting from athletes' social media accounts; and age and Twitter usage.     

NEWSMAKING PRACTICES AND PROFESSIONALISM IN THE ZIMBABWEAN PRESS

This article examines newsmaking practices and professional cultures in the Zimbabwean press. It explores the extent to which journalists make independent professional choices in the context of organisational, occupational, and wider contextual demands that shape and promote specific newsmaking cultures. The paper argues that the country's polarised political terrain and journalists' struggles for economic survival in the context of a severe economic crisis have spawned practices that provide context for (re)examining the relevance of the predominant Anglo-American epistemological imperatives of journalism in Africa. Thus, while on the surface daily journalistic practices in the Zimbabwean press typify the prevalent and somewhat universal professional normative ideals such as balance, impartiality and fairness, a deeper analysis reveals discrepancies that counter these established ideals. To this end, the claim that professional journalists subscribe to the generic normative ideals of objectivity and associated journalistic notions perhaps generalises what in fact are differentiated newsmaking cultures.     

Mediatization,Legal Logic and the Coverage of Israeli Politicians on Trial

This paper investigates the characteristics that point to the mediatization of legal coverage in Israel, and the adoption of media rather than legal logic in the coverage of five trials of key political figures between 1961 and 2012 in two leading Israeli newspapers. Using insights from the literature on the mediatization of political coverage, our analysis focused on the changes over time in the type of dramatization of trial news; in the nature of criticism expressed in the press; in the forms of journalists' interventions and judgments; in the context of the meta-coverage of media advisors and media initiatives by legal actors; and the media's own reflections about these interventions. We found that the mediatization of the legal sphere resulted in a “trial by media” where journalists pass judgments on defendants and present media alternatives to legal procedures. Moreover, meta-coverage of the media strategies of legal actors was accompanied by “counter-interventionism”, i.e., journalistic criticism of their own role in cooperating with the media interventions of legal actors. We suggest that this “counter-interventionism” is tied to the defense of the legal sphere by legal journalists.     

MIND THE GAP

The study of journalistic role conceptions rests on the assumption that these conceptions shape the news stories that journalists create. However, limited empirical evidence exists to support this assumed linear relationship between role conception and role enactment. This exploratory study compared role conceptions deduced from survey data of 56 journalists with a content analysis of those same journalists' articles (N=270). The findings suggest that this assumed linear relationship between role conception and role enactment should be questioned rather than presumed.     

Free Gay Community Newspapers: Advertising Synergies Led To Expansion

In the 1990s a key shift occurred in Australian gay publishing with the rapid expansion of free city-based newspapers. These increasingly commercialized free newspapers adopted a business model based on seeking more readers in order to attract more advertisers. Their success was such that the overall national print run of gay and lesbian publications increased six-fold between the start and the end of the decade, 90% of which were free newspapers. This expansion coincided with the growth of a visibly more diverse gay and lesbian community. Newspaper publishers adopted building and defending this community as their primary political project that allowed a range of synergies to develop between the newspapers and the growing number of community groups, events and businesses. Each helped the other grow which led to greater knowledge of the community's activities and its political aspirations.     

早期记者的职业意识和精神危机

早期记者产生于外人所办报馆 ,孕育于半殖民地半封建社会。从产生之初就深受西方新闻观念影响。中国最早的现代意义上的记者正是在西方文化冲击下 ,初步形成了自己的职业意识和观念。同时 ,他们又受传统文化影响 ,难以摆脱传统观念影响 ,热衷科举 ,对西方文化表现出排斥心理。本文试图通过揭示早期记者的职业认同危机、科举情结、文化认同危机 ,考察分析早期记者的职业意识和精神状况 ,以及其对新闻工作的影响     

‘A Fine Healthy Place’

This paper presents a close reading of Australian local newspapers The Queenslander, The Week, and The Logan Witness. It argues that by representing triumph over local challenges these newspapers also constituted a late-nineteenth-century civilizing process. They played a vital role in generating community cohesion. Stability and civilization were represented to the target audience of families and entrepreneurs as ‘natural’ and appropriately embodied by colonizers. Embedding a sense of belonging established a ‘civilising (sic) goodness’ through disavowal of the displacement of indigenous peoples as familiar community practices were enacted. In this highly literate population newspapers, rather than books, provided local Australian content. A case study of the Lahey family, who arrived as South East Queensland became available for serious settlement in the early 1870s, personalizes the settlement ideology produced by local newspapers.     

The Undressed Newsroom

Rapidly changing working conditions in recent years, along with the need to reduce the costs of news production, require journalists to adapt. Our suggestion here is that many of the research methods for analysing journalists' work environments to date are no longer sufficient for capturing this ongoing change. In searching for new approaches to analysis of the journalistic environment, we decided to apply visual ethnography, a method not yet used in the Czech Republic and not much used in the world beyond. For our pilot study of Czech newsrooms, we worked with both photographs taken of the journalists involved in our project and photographs taken by our research team (photographs showed both journalists' working conditions and working processes). We then interviewed the journalists about the photographs and more widely about their working practices and conditions. This paper presents the results of the research but also considers the advantages and challenges of the visual ethnographic approach and its implementation in media environments.     

The role and management of newspapers in Nigerian University libraries

Newspapers in university libraries have never fared well as a basic information resource. They are used rather to supplement an enlightened patron's daily dose of gossip. It is the writer's contention that newspapers provide more than this. They popularize knowledge and make it more accessible. They are important to research, fundamental to language and area studies as well as to scientific, legal and historical study. They are documents of history.The result of this survey is organized in five parts: controlling, delivery of services, development, size and methods of handling, and display.The findings indicate that newspapers are treated as serials and receive handling similar to that of serials. It also reveals one of the great distinctions libraries make between serials and newspapers: newspapers for the most part are not classified and therefore have not been fully integrated into the service provisions of the library. Therefore the university libraries' newspaper collections should be organized for maximum use.     

Chinese-style pragmatic objectivity in war reporting

China plays an increasing role in the wars and conflicts around the world with its expanding political and economic interests overseas and its diplomatic role in international affairs. More and more Chinese journalists go to the frontlines overseas to cover distant conflicts for domestic audiences. Based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with 16 Chinese correspondents who have covered conflicts outside China, this study examines Chinese journalists' perceptions and reflections on objectivity in the war zones. The author adopts a term of Chinese-style pragmatic objectivity to mean that objectivity is a convenient approach for Chinese journalists to do war journalism in the field. At the level of objectivity-as-a-value, objectivity is defined as a pragmatic value and a practical ritual for Chinese journalists to do news within the scope they can reach, to protect themselves from criticisms, and to justify their version of the truth. It promotes allegiance and patriotism. At the level of objectivity-as-a-practice, objectivity in war coverage is compromised by China's foreign policies, military constraints, the press's political orientations and editorial polices, and journalists' personal experiences and values. Chinese journalists use Chinese-style objectivity to negotiate their roles in the power struggle with the state, foreign militaries, the newsroom, and journalists.