Canadian journalistNardwuar at TEDxVancouver in 2010
Ajournalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into anewsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is calledjournalism.
Areporter is a type of journalist whoresearches, writes and reports on information in order to present usingsources. This may entail conductinginterviews, information-gathering and/or writing articles. Reporters may split their time between working in anewsroom, from home or outside to witness events or interview people. Reporters may be assigned a specificbeat (area of coverage).
In his best-known books,Public Opinion (1922) andThe Phantom Public (1925), Lippmann argued that most people lacked the capacity, time and motivation to follow and analyze news of the many complex policy questions that troubled society. Nor did they often experience most social problems or directly access expert insights. These limitations were made worse by a news media that tended to oversimplify issues and to reinforcestereotypes, partisan viewpoints andprejudices. As a consequence, Lippmann believed that the public needed journalists like himself who could serve as expert analysts, guiding "citizens to a deeper understanding of what was really important".[2]
In 2018, theUnited States Department of Labor's Occupational Outlook Handbook reported that employment for the category "reporters, correspondents and broadcast news analysts" will decline 9 percent between 2016 and 2026.[3]
In 2020Reporters Without Borders secretary generalChristophe Deloire said journalists in developing countries were suffering political interference because theCOVID-19 pandemic had given governments around the world the chance “to take advantage of the fact that politics are on hold, the public is stunned and protests are out of the question, in order to impose measures that would be impossible in normal times”.[6]
In 2023 the closure of local newspapers in the US accelerated to an average of 2.5 per week, leaving more than 200 US counties as “news deserts” and meaning that more than half of all U.S. counties had limited access to reliable local news and information, according to researchers at theMedill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications atNorthwestern University.
The Committee to Protect Journalists also reports that as of 1 December 2010, 145 journalists were jailed worldwide for journalistic activities. Current numbers are even higher. The ten countries with the largest number of currently-imprisoned journalists areTurkey (95),[11]China (34),Iran (34),Eritrea (17),Burma (13),Uzbekistan (6),Vietnam (5),Cuba (4),Ethiopia (4) andSudan (3).[12]
Apart from physical harm, journalists are harmed psychologically. This applies especially to war reporters, but their editorial offices at home often do not know how to deal appropriately with the reporters they expose to danger. Hence, a systematic and sustainable way of psychological support for traumatized journalists is strongly needed. Few and fragmented support programs exist so far.[13]
On 8 August 2023, Iran's Journalists' Day, Tehran Journalists' Association head Akbar Montajabi noted over 100 journalists arrested amid protests, while HamMihan newspaper exposed repression against 76 media workers since September 2022 following Mahsa Amini's death-triggered mass protests, leading to legal consequences for journalists including Niloufar Hamedi and Elaheh.[14]
The relationship between a professional journalist and a source can be rather complex, and a source can sometimes have an effect on an article written by the journalist. The article 'A Compromised Fourth Estate' uses Herbert Gans' metaphor to capture their relationship. He uses a dance metaphor, "The Tango", to illustrate the co-operative nature of their interactions inasmuch as "It takes two to tango". Herbert suggests that the source often leads, but journalists commonly object to this notion for two reasons:
It signals source supremacy in news making.
It offends journalists' professional culture, which emphasizes independence and editorial autonomy.
The dance metaphor goes on to state:
A relationship with sources that istoo cozy is potentially compromising of journalists' integrity and risks becoming collusive. Journalists have typically favored a more robust, conflict model, based on a crucial assumption that if the media are to function as watchdogs of powerful economic and political interests, journalists must establish their independence of sources or risk the fourth estate being driven by the fifth estate of public relations.[15]
Journalists can face violence and intimidation for exercising theirfundamental right tofreedom of expression. The range of threats they are confronted with include murder,kidnapping, hostage-taking, offline and online harassment,intimidation, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention and torture.Women in journalism also face specific dangers and are especially vulnerable to sexual assault, whether in the form of a targeted sexual violation, often in reprisal for their work. Mob-related sexual violence aimed against journalists covering public events; or the sexual abuse of journalists in detention or captivity. Many of these crimes are not reported as a result of powerful cultural and professional stigmas.[16][17]
According toReporters Without Borders' 2018 annual report, it was the worst year on record for deadly violence and abuse toward journalists; there was a 15 percent increase in such killings since 2017, with 80 killed, 348 imprisoned and 60 held hostage.[18][19]
Yaser Murtaja was shot by an Israeli army sniper. Rubén Pat was gunned down outside a beach bar in Mexico. Mexico was described by Reporters Without Borders as "one of world's deadliest countries for the media"; 90% of attacks on journalists in the country reportedly go unsolved.[20] BulgarianVictoria Marinova was beaten, raped and strangled. Saudi Arabian dissidentJamal Khashoggi was killed inside Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul.[21]
From 2008 to 2019,Freedom Forum's now-defunctNewseum inWashington, D.C. featured a Journalists Memorial which honored several thousand journalists around the world who had died or were killed while reporting the news.[22] After the Newseum closed in December 2019, supporters of freedom of the press persuaded theUnited States Congress in December 2020 to authorize the construction of a memorial to fallen journalists on public land with private funds.[22] By May 2023, theFallen Journalists Memorial Foundation had begun the design of the memorial.[23]
In the US, nearly all journalists have attended university, but only about halfmajored in journalism.[24][25] Journalists who work in television or for newspapers are more likely to have studied journalism in college than journalists working for thewire services, inradio, or fornews magazines.[25]
Deuze, Mark. "What is journalism? Professional identity and ideology of journalists reconsidered."Journalism 6.4 (2005): 442-464online[dead link].
Hanitzsch, Thomas, et al. eds.Worlds of Journalism: Journalistic Cultures around the Globe (1979)excerpt of the book alsoonline review
Hicks, Wynford, et al.Writing for journalists (Routledge, 2016) short textbook;excerptArchived 11 November 2020 at theWayback Machine.
Keeble, Richard.Ethics for journalists (Routledge, 2008).
Mellado, Claudia, et al. "Investigating the gap between newspaper journalists' role conceptions and role performance in nine European, Asian, and Latin American countries."International Journal of Press/Politics (2020): 1940161220910106online[dead link].
Patterson, Thomas E., and Wolfgang Donsbagh. "News decisions: Journalists as partisan actors."Political communication 13.4 (1996): 455–468.online
Shoemaker, Pamela J., Tim P. Vos, and Stephen D. Reese. "Journalists as gatekeepers." inThe handbook of journalism studies 73 (2009)onlineArchived 10 January 2020 at theWayback Machine.
Wettstein, Martin, et al. "News media as gatekeepers, critics, and initiators of populist communication: How journalists in ten countries deal with the populist challenge."International Journal of Press/Politics 23.4 (2018): 476-495online[dead link].
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