Changes in U.S. Journalism

During the past decade, great changes have occurred in journalism, many of them due to the rapid rise of social media. What has happened to American journalists in the decade since the early 2000s, a time of tumultuous changes in society, economics, and technology? What impact have the many cutbacks and the dramatic growth of the internet had on US journalists’ attitudes, and behaviors—and even on the definition of who is a journalist? To answer the questions raised above, in late 2013 we conducted a national online survey of 1080 US journalists. The survey is part of the American Journalist project, which conducted similar surveys of US journalists in 1982, 1992, and 2002. We found that US journalists use social media mainly to check on what other news organizations are doing and to look for breaking news events. A majority also use social media to find ideas for stories, keep in touch with their readers and viewers, and find additional information. Thus, journalists use social media predominantly as information-gathering tools and much less to interview sources or to validate information. Our findings also indicate that most journalists consider social media to have a positive impact on their work. Of particular value, it seems, was the fact that social media make journalism more accountable to the public. However, only about a third of the journalists also think that social media have a positive influence on the journalistic profession overall. One of the most common negative perceptions was that online journalism has sacrificed accuracy for speed. Overall, then, it appears that most journalists do see the benefits of social media, but fewer are convinced that these new forms of digital communication will benefit journalistic professionalism.     

Online Censorship and Journalists' Tactics

This paper explores the dynamics between journalistic practices and the mechanisms of internet control in the Chinese context. Principally drawing on interviews and focus group discussions with journalists, this paper investigates in detail the key tactics employed by journalists to counter online censorship, which include: journalists working undercover; the use of “transformed words” or alternatives to “sensitive” words to evade blocking filters; and de-verification on microblogs (Weibo in Chinese) where critical alternative accounts on social media oblige officials to recant earlier versions of events reported on traditional media. Informed by Scott's research, this paper argues that journalists employ these strategies as weapons against the party-state's censorship. Such strategies avoid direct confrontation with the authorities, and are conducted on a “quiet” but substantial scale. Consequently, it is not easy to apply sanctions against particular individuals. The strategies have a profound impact on the dynamics of the relationships between journalists and the powerful party-state. On the one hand, the strategies can empower journalists with psychological gains. On the other, these strategies weaken the party-state's authority. But such strategies are not new and can also be found in traditional journalistic practices. However, one phenomenon worthy of note is the association between journalists and scholars facilitated by microblogs, since increased associations among various professional groups may spark resistance to the party-state's information monopoly.     

“THIS IS NOT WHAT WE AGREED”

This paper analyses the attempts made by sources to influence journalistic interviews and the way journalists cope with these attempts both in Germany and the Netherlands. Based on interviews with journalists, examples from interviews, material from handbooks and Press Council complaints, a model is developed that describes the different options sources and journalists employ when negotiating interview conditions. When journalists fail to persuade reluctant sources, they can negotiate the conditions under which the interview is conducted. We found four different persuasion strategies (pathos, logos, ethos and financial), seven ‘conditions’ strategies (anonymity, format, subjects, interviewer, setting, duration, exclusivity) and three publication strategies (correction, authorisation, veto). Although journalists are reluctant to admit that they have been negotiating conditions, we found numerous examples of such agreements. Journalistic cultures in the Netherlands and Germany differ, but in both countries competition between media is high while the professionalism of sources has increased. Sources not only ask for special conditions but they are often granted such treatment.     

Travel Journalists and Professional Identity

Online resources are increasingly facilitating research for those traveling for business or leisure. Professionally produced articles and guides are now consulted alongside TripAdvisor, blogs, wikis, and other non-professional sources. This research seeks to understand the role of travel journalists, to explore their occupational ideology and how they distinguish themselves from other content creators. Through content analysis and interviews with English-speaking journalist and bloggers who focus on Paris as a destination, researchers were able to identify an ideology specific to professional travel journalists. Ultimately they do not do anything that amateur writers cannot, and often rely on their branded publication to give them credibility. Travel journalists do, however, adopt some practices inherent to bloggers interviewed, including moving towards more personal writing and lowering reporting standards, while resisting social media. While in a moment of identity crises, travel journalists still differentiate themselves from bloggers, further research will reveal if this phenomenon is unique to a highly mediatized destination like Paris.     

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.     

War Journalism and the “KIA Journalist”: The Cases of David Bloom and Michael Kelly

This paper examines mediated discourse around the deaths of two prominent journalists who died in the Iraq war in 2003: NBC reporter David Bloom and Washington Post columnist Michael Kelly. Their deaths are interpreted by journalists though narratives related to bravery, volunteerism, sacrifice, and witnessing. A discursive construct, labeled the “KIA journalist,” develops that situates the death of the war reporter within broader tropes connected to the normative journalistic role. Ultimately, Kelly and Bloom are placed in a framework that strives to increase journalism's cultural authority by positioning journalists as representations of the collective good.     

Decisión 2016: Comparative Analysis of Journalistic Role Performance on Spanish- and English-language TV Networks

ABSTRACT

This study is one of the first to compare journalistic role performances of English– and Spanish–language TV networks during the 2016 U.S. primaries. Previous research finds that the corporate structure of Spanish–language media in the United States is looking more like its English–language counterparts and that Latino journalists share the norm of objectivity. Meanwhile, research suggests that individuals of different ethnicities turn to different communication channels and that this divergence can be explained by the degree of alignment in linguistic and cultural orientation. In this study, we therefore assess how linguistic differences of TV networks impact journalistic culture during the presidential primaries in 2016. As a crucial component of journalistic culture, we focus on journalistic role performance and find important distinctions: Findings reveal that the greater coverage of presidential candidates as sources on English-language networks have significant consequences for the roles journalists perform. Results suggest that the Spanish–language networks performed significantly more civic journalism roles than their English–language counterparts that perform an interventionist and service role. These differences are discussed alongside different audience-orientation of the networks that reflect deep racial and ethnic divides.     

From “Trust Me” to “Show Me” Journalism

This study explores the potential of an online platform that encourages journalists to post the documents behind their news stories to help restore the deteriorating public trust in news media. Based on content analysis of 200 news items and 315 accompanying documents posted on DocumentCloud, findings indicate that contrary to journalists’ traditional reluctance to rely on documents, the platform succeeds in boosting massive use of documents, both by mainstream and alternative journalists. Findings show that documents serve mainly to support factual claims (in 96 percent of items) and enhance the transparency of news processes, allowing audiences’ unmediated access to raw materials, and greater capacity to evaluate information independently. However, there are no apparent signs that journalists verified the content of the document. The article suggests that DocumentCloud is a unique example of a technology that may succeed where the former technology that promised to serve as a journalistic reference system, hyperlinks, had failed. If the DocumentCloud experiment is implemented on a wider scale, it might have serious theoretical and practical implications, which are discussed here.     

STORIES FROM PLANET FOOTBALL AND SPORTSWORLD

The profile of sport journalism has increased as the scale and media profile of large-scale international sporting events have escalated. This article considers the ways in which sport journalists have responded to such changes. It concentrates upon the nature of sport journalists’ relationships with their sources; their relationship with gatekeepers; and the issue of collusion, between journalists themselves and journalists and their subjects and sources. Drawing upon extensive periods of participation and observation at the Olympic Games, the FIFA (men's) football World Cup, and international football club and national championships and tournaments, and citing in-depth interviews with a senior wires-based journalist, the authors examine the practices of the sport journalism profession. These are also discussed in the light of journalists’ own published accounts, memoirs and reflections, and the wider, limited literature of research into the professional culture of sport journalism. In conclusion, the article argues that traditional legacies of source relations combine with current trends in promotional culture to confirm the collusive dynamic, and in widespread cases to intensify the trivialisation of the subject matter of the sport journalist.     

Practice of Hypertext

Despite scholarly research inconsistencies in conceptualizations of hypertext, there seems to be a consensus among scholars from different epistemological grounds that hypertextuality as a communication potential refers to the interconnectivity and interlayering of textual parts in an extended nonlinear chain of integrated content that enables innovation in practices within the triad journalist–text–reader. However, within this rather large area of research, media and journalism scholars have paid minimal attention to hypertext as practice despite hypertext raising many questions regarding the processes and relations of news making. In this paper the author attempts to fill this research gap and to investigate how hypertext shapes different phases of online news making, that is, gathering, selecting, and assessing information, and how these processes influence journalist–source–audience relations. This study thus provides analysis of data gathered through participant observation in the online departments of two leading Slovenian print media organizations, Delo and Dnevnik, and in-depth interviews with their online journalists and editors. The analysis indicated that (1) lack of reasoning and a conservative mind-set prevail among online staffers when conceptualizing hypertext; (2) the normalization of hypertextual news making is subordinated to speed and timeliness in news delivery; and (3) nurtured journalist–source–audience relations bring little to strengthen the social relevance of news. These results confirmed hypertext as a commodity rather than emphasizing its public character. The practice of hypertext at the two Slovenian newspapers indicates a phenomenon that could be labelled as journalistic deskilling in online news making.     

THE ONLINE JOURNALIST BETWEEN IDEALS AND AUDIENCES

How do online journalists define themselves? Journalistic self-perception plays a big part in understanding developments in the practice of online journalism in newsrooms. This article presents an analysis of the self-perceptions of online journalists using the theoretical framework of Pierre Bourdieu and data from empirical longitudinal observations based on ethnographic fieldwork in three Danish newsrooms. The analytical concepts “journalistic doxa”, “news habitus” and “editorial capital” are applied in an analysis both of ethnographic observations of journalistic practice, and a series of interviews with 35 journalists and editors. This analysis shows that online journalists position themselves in opposition to the “old” forms of journalism, which include the use of such well-known journalistic resources as specialist knowledge, technical skills, and research and writing as professional tools. However, at the same time they accept the “old” as “better” journalism, which indicates that online journalism is deeply embedded in a dominated position in the overall field of journalism. A scheme of four different analytical positions among online journalists is presented within a constructed “field of online news production”.     

Media Accountability and Journalists: To Whom Do Spanish Professionals Feel Responsible?

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses to whom Spanish journalists feel responsible. To achieve this objective, we sent out a survey to Spanish journalists to ascertain their opinion on this question. The journalists’ point of view was then compared with that of the general public though six focus groups consisting of Spanish citizens from six cities in Spain (Barcelona, Castellón, Madrid, Sevilla, Mondragón and Santiago de Compostela). Lastly, five in-depth interviews were conducted with journalism experts (e.g., directors of professional journalist associations). The main results show that the journalists feel particularly responsible to their conscience, the journalism code of ethics and their sources. The citizens, in contrast, believe that journalists should be responsible to the audience. We contextualised the Spanish finding in the European context by comparing our results with those derived from a study among European journalists.     

Fake News

Much has been written about the alleged “crisis” of journalism, with narratives of cultural pessimism centred on the decline of legacy news media, and print media in particular. Whilst factually accurate in parts, such narratives offer an incomplete picture not just of how journalism is declining, but also evolving as it transitions in the digital age. This paper is funded by a major Australian Research Council-study of “Journalism beyond the crisis”, a project which seeks to evaluate the emerging assemblage of journalistic forms, practices, and uses in a transnationally comparative study across four different countries. The present study is a first step in investigating how journalists perceive their roles at a time in which the legitimacy of factual accounts of current events is increasingly put into question. To do so, it draws on in-depth interviews with senior journalists based in London and Sydney, providing topical insights into how these practitioners understand their role in an era of “fake news”. The findings indicate that journalists are particularly concerned about a decrease of public trust in the media, and urge colleagues to adapt more rigorous fact-checking techniques – particularly at times when the role of journalism as a “watchdog” over society appears to be most crucial.     

Investigative Reporting in the Networked Media Environment

The internet and social media sites are used extensively by violent extremist actors, providing new areas of inquiry for journalists reporting violent extremism. Based on 26 in-depth interviews with Norwegian media professionals, the present article describes how journalists monitor, assess, and make use of online information in investigative reporting of violent extremist groups in today’s networked media environment, characterized by complex interaction patterns, a plurality of voices, and blurred boundaries between private and public communication. While existing research on journalists’ use of social media as a source has tended to emphasize breaking news, the present article focuses on longer-term investigative efforts of journalists. The article gives insights into journalistic investigative practices in the networked media environment, in general, and in reporting violent extremism, in particular.     

Conditional Autonomy

Current developments in the Swedish news business have resulted in clashes between the professional stands of journalists and the incentives of their managers, or—from a theoretical perspective—a confrontation between discourses of journalistic professionalism and managerialism. While professionalism includes values of autonomy, self-regulation and public interest, managerialism on the other hand promotes business ideals, standardisation and organisational efficiency. Above all, it promotes a centralised management model of line control at the cost of collegial decision-making and peer review. But what does this mean in practice? In what situations does the negotiation between those discourses arise in everyday news work and how does it affect the autonomy of journalists?

This paper aims to answer those questions by focusing on the experiences of Swedish journalists working in the tension field between professional and managerial discourses. This empirical study includes observation studies as well as interviews with journalists and their managers in four Swedish daily newspapers.

The results clearly reveal a conditioned journalistic autonomy, and shows how professional ideals are tarnished. The economistic view of journalistic activities is forcefully and successfully implemented by management.     

In the Margins of Journalism

Research on journalists and journalistic work has focused on journalists with permanent, full-time employment. Given the rapid decrease of such employment opportunities, we argue that journalism research needs to pay more attention to those who those who have had to leave their jobs and either stopped doing journalism entirely, or who have switched to a freelance career (sometimes combining journalism with other work). This category of people is at once becoming more marginalized and “the new normal” within the occupation: In this paper, we furthermore focus on local (Swedish) journalists and ex-journalists. Based on a set of semi-structured interviews (n?=?12) with ex-journalists who share the experience of having lost their permanent, full-time jobs, we use the concept of livelihood as an analytical tool. The concept of livelihood highlights the shift from journalism as a job practiced exclusive of other jobs to an activity conducted alongside other income-generating activities and makes it possible to analyse leaving the occupation from a context that incorporates the whole life situation of the respondents. This also contributes to the current wave of studies of journalism and job loss by adding qualitative data about individual experiences of job loss to the existing quantitative survey evidence.     

Just Getting By? Francophone Belgian Journalists Dealing with Dutch-language Sources in Their Public Broadcasting Service

ABSTRACT

In this article, we examine how the Dutch language is used when francophone Belgian journalists prepare and produce their reports—during all stages of the process—up until the actual broadcast. We conducted 16 qualitative interviews with TV news journalists employed by the Belgian French-speaking public broadcaster. Taking as a starting point the highly variable level of Dutch in the newsroom, we highlight four practices used by journalists when they have to cover a news story in Flanders or interview a Dutch speaker: avoidance, mutual assistance, specific efforts to deal with linguistic difficulties and what we call a “tactical use” of Dutch with the sources. This study reveals practices that are by no means a demonstration of excellent language skills. Journalists’ frequent lack of knowledge is compensated by a certain pragmatism: they aim to illustrate how their daily routines tackle a concrete problem in a relatively informal, flexible, and collective manner. Finally, we explore to what extent these practices impact journalistic performance and how the use of the Dutch language in the newsroom reflects the language divide in Belgium’s journalistic landscape.     

Sharing the Stage

Despite the proliferation of research on social media and journalism, only a few studies have analyzed how journalists in Latin America embrace the affordances of social platforms for journalism practice. Based on a survey of 877 Latin American reporters, this article examines the platforms journalists use and how they use them. The broad finding is that, despite the great popularity of Facebook in the region, Twitter is the most important platform for daily newsgathering and journalistic work. Journalists turn to Twitter to find sources and stories, showing an important openness to participatory journalism. Yet, they mistrust information provided from political sources. Our findings show that different regions in Latin America work with social media in different ways, and local journalistic cultures have an impact on these adoptions, especially in the case of Brazil. Further research and implications for the field are discussed.