Newsworkers: A Comparative European Perspective 9781780931838, 9781780931869, 9781780931852

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Newsworkers

Newsworkers A Comparative European Perspective Henrik Örnebring

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc

LON DON • OX F O R D • N E W YO R K • N E W D E L H I • SY DN EY

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc

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www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2016 Paperback edition first published 2017 © Henrik Örnebring, 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-Publication Data Names: Örnebring, Henrik, author. Title: Newsworkers : a comparative European perspective / Henrik Örnebring. Description: New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.  Series: Comparative media, communication and culture Identifiers: LCCN 2015039240  ISBN 9781780931838 (hardback) Subjects: LCSH: Journalism–Europe.  Reporters and reporting–Europe.  BISAC: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Journalism.  SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies. Classification: LCC PN5110 .O76 2016  DDC 079/.4—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015039240

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Contents Acknowledgments

vi

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1

Journalism as Work and Institution Institution, Work, and Professionalism: An Analytical Framework Six Countries: Background and Empirical Data Technology Skill Autonomy Professionalism Newswork in Europe: Continuity and Change

Methodological Appendix Bibliography Index

15 39 65 91 117 155 177 193 215 239

Acknowledgments This book has been a long time coming. It is based on research I conducted in 2007–10 as Senior Research Fellow at the Axess Programme for Comparative European Journalism, hosted by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford. Life happens and now, some five-­odd years later, the book is finished. All delays and mistakes are of course my own responsibility, but the book would have been a lot worse if it was not for the help and support of a number of people along the way. First of all, a sincere thank you to Kurt Almqvist and the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation, whose generous donation to the Reuters Institute and the University of Oxford made work on this book possible in the first place. For the duration of the Comparative European Journalism project, my institutional home was the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to work in the challenging yet supportive environment that is the Reuters Institute, and I would like to thank all members of staff of the Institute past and present who have been instrumental in helping me make this project a success: Rima Dapous, Kate Hanneford-Smith, Angela Julian, Tori McKee, Trevor Mostyn, James Painter, and Alex Reid. Particular thanks are due to the current and former Directors of the Institute, David Levy (2008–) and Sarmila Bose (2006–08), both of whom showed unflagging support and enthusiasm for the project, and John Lloyd, Director of Journalism at the Institute, who was a tremendous help and inspiration in matters large and small throughout the project. Thanks are also due to a number of people associated with the Reuters Institute in different ways, mainly through membership in the Institute Editorial Subcommittee and the Institute Steering Committee. Their input at different stages of the project has been essential, so thanks to Timothy Garton Ash, Antonis Ellinas, Tim Gardham, Geert Linnebank, and Neil McFarlane. I finished this book at my new institutional home, the Department of Geography, Media and Communication at Karlstad University, Sweden. It is a very collegiate environment and my work and personal lives have both benefited enormously from friendships formed and maintained here. Thank you in

Acknowledgments

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particular to Christer Clerwall, Karin Fast, André Jansson, Michael Karlsson, and Johan Lindell. Over the course of the project, many people have helped me in different ways: by reading and commenting on my manuscript or parts thereof, by helping to get access to interviewees, by contributing to the data gathering in other ways, by translating texts and research material, by offering general research advice, and so on. My heartfelt thanks (in alphabetical order) to Stuart Allan, Peter Bajomi-Lázár, Joakim Bjelkås, George Brock, Glenda Cooper, Martin Degrell, Roger Dickinson, Boguslawa Dobek-Ostrowska, Wolfgang Donsbach (who is sorely missed), Iginio Gagliardone, Thomas Hanitzsch, Ellen Helsper, Bengt Johansson, Christiane Kellner, Epp Lauk, Arno Lauk, Johan Lindell, Matthew Loveless, Paolo Mancini, Claudia Mellado, Monica Löfgren Nilsson, Gunnar Nygren, Angela Phillips, Thorsten Quandt, Terhi Rantanen, Kristina Riegert, Inka Salovaara, Phillip Schlesinger, Václav Štetka, David Weaver, Lennart Weibull, and Jan Zielonka. I would also like to reserve a special thanks to my hard-­working research assistants, who greatly and independently contributed to the high quality of the research interviews on which this project is based. Thank you very much to Alessio Cornia (Italy), Leyla Dogruel (Germany), Maret Einsmann (Estonia), and Katarzyna Kopecka-Piech (Poland). Thanks also to Paul Watts and the staff at Redshift Research who did a tremendous job in managing the email survey so well from beginning to end. And of course thank you to all the journalists who took the time to fill in my survey, and all the journalists that gave generously of their time in the interviews. To write is human, to edit is divine. I have been gifted with two truly divine editors, Katie Gallof and Mary Al-Sayed, whose patience has been near-­ inexhaustible during this book’s long journey towards publication. Thank you for your help and support. Considering when I started working on it, this book is older than my two children, Charlotte and John. If the eldest (metaphorical) sibling has caused me many headaches, heartaches and sundry problems, the two younger (actual) ones have been nothing but a source of joy and inspiration, and I am humbly thankful for their presence in my life. I am also very grateful for the continuing love and support of my wife and now colleague at Karlstad University, Elizabeth Van Couvering. Yes, it is indeed important to slack off and have fun once in a while. I dedicate this book to the memory of my grandmother Eva Thåström. She lived through two World Wars and in her lifetime saw (and heard!) the

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introduction of radio, television, Internet, and smartphones before she passed away, aged 101, in 2011. Her lived experience of changing media landscapes puts the changes described in this book in perspective. Karlstad, September, 2015 Henrik Örnebring

1

Journalism as Work and Institution

In 1931, C. F. Carr and F. E. Stevens, two British provincial newspaper veterans (Carr was assistant manager at Southern Newspapers and Stevens editor of the Hampshire Advertiser), published a guide for aspiring journalists titled Modern Journalism: A Complete Guide to the Newspaper Craft. The purpose of Carr & Stevens’ book was to provide some background, career information, and practical advice for people considering a career in journalism. At the outset, it was made clear that this was not as straightforward as advising people seeking a career in, say, business or law (Carr and Stevens’ publisher, Isaac Pitman & Sons, had published numerous similar guidebooks for those two sectors), because: [I]t boils down to this: that the term journalist is much too ill-­defined, and one of the special needs of the profession is that it should be defined with greater precision, not as a means of restricting entry, but in order that there should be less looseness in its application. Carr & Stevens, 1931: 29

And furthermore: It is obviously true, too, that there are many journalists, using the word in strict regard to its derivation, who have never practiced writing for the journals at all, because they could not find their way in through a door, which is, in truth, wide enough, but which is admittedly difficult to locate. Carr & Stevens: 30.

From a contemporary perspective, Carr and Stevens’ concerns and characterizations of the occupation are instantly recognizable. There’s too much looseness regarding who should be considered a journalist, and you can call yourself a journalist even if you do not have a job in a journalistic organization (i.e., “writing for the journals”). Discussions and debates over who should be considered a journalist (and what types of texts should be considered journalism) resurface continually in our digital, networked age, but Carr and Stevens remind us that such concerns

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are not new. In fact, “Journalism is an open profession, and such in all probability it must and will remain” (Carr & Stevens, 1931: 3). Journalism was always an attractive profession precisely because the formal barriers to entry were low to non-­existent. In reading Carr and Stevens’ remarks on the boundaries (or rather, the lack of them) of journalism, their text has a contemporary feel. In other key aspects, they are describing a journalistic world that no longer exists. “Don’t neglect handwriting” is a piece of advice for budding journalists (Carr & Stevens, 1931: 17) that seems less than useful in an era of ubiquitous laptops, tablets, and smartphones. On entering into the profession, they write “It is agreed – the opinion is held almost universally – that the best entrance to the profession of journalism is through the doorway of the provincial newspaper” (p.  3). In contemporary Britain, this “universal” career path is virtually closed, as there are hardly any provincial newspapers anymore. Those that do exist have skeletal staff and the majority of content is likely produced in a central office in London or elsewhere rather than in the “province” itself (Hamer, 2006; Williams, 2006). Carr and Stevens also devote a whole section to the technology of newspaper typesetting and printing (“Newspaper production: what the journalist should know,” pp. 154–187), information that no contemporary journalist needs in order to do his or her job. These are obvious points, but it is useful to remind ourselves that while the technical and economic conditions of journalistic production change—often profoundly—the fundamentally liminal, boundary-­less character of journalistic work and journalism as a profession, does not. Indeed the actual practices of journalistic work are somewhat harder to pin down in Carr and Stevens’ work. Their book is written as advice to those seeking to enter the profession of journalism but contains little concrete information of what the person, having entered the profession, is expected to do all day except “find news.” Reading between the lines, however, it is possible to learn a great deal about what journalistic work actually consists of. News is fact-­oriented and the job is to find, confirm, and disseminate these facts according to established principles. In this, Carr and Stevens’ work is typical of its time, as noted by Vos in his study of the construction of objectivity in early journalism education (Vos, 2012: 439f). Journalistic work consists of quickly and accurately taking notes, using shorthand and/or longhand (Carr & Stevens, 1931: 15f), finding information in reference books, catalogs and registers (p.  21f; p.  86), moving about the city and interacting with established sources/sites of news like police, courts, and other public buildings (p.  36; p.  129f), even memorizing key

Journalism as Work and Institution

3

faces and names (p. 120). An important part of the daily work is also meeting sources, interviewing them, and more generally cultivating them (p. 123f; p. 131): journalism is a social occupation. Then finally, these assembled facts need to be written up in an accessible fashion using a correct, simple and inviting style (p. 136f). Thus we can see that while many institutional aspects of journalism (e.g., market structures, career paths and career opportunities, and technological production) have changed a great deal since the 1930s, the basic nature of journalistic work has not. Most journalists today would agree that at heart, journalistic work as described by Carr and Stevens is not too different today. The need for note taking may be less thanks to digital recording technology and the sources of information may be found using Google rather than Whitaker’s Almanack, but news is still made mainly in interaction with various public organizations and by talking to sources. There is, however, a growing concern that as the institutional framework of journalism is changing, so too is the nature of journalistic practice. More content has to be produced using fewer resources, inevitably leading to changed or new practices like cut-­and-paste journalism, increases in single-­source news items, and so on. Yet as we have seen, many aspects of journalistic work are the same today as they were in 1931. The purpose of this book is to delve into and assess this tension between continuity and change in journalism, on the institutional level as well as on the level of working practice.

Definitions and historical starting points This is a book studying how journalism as work is affected by changes in journalism as an institution, using a comparative perspective (the nations under analysis are Britain, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Sweden). My use of the term institution merges aspects from political science and economics, i.e., an emphasis on formal organizations, as well as from sociology and history, i.e., an emphasis on organized, shared, and established patterns for action (for overviews on different definitions of the concept of institution, and how it is used in different disciplines, see for example Berger & Luckmann, 1966: 97f; Meyer & Rowan, 1977: 343f; Jepperson, 1991; Ryfe, 2006). I view journalism as an institution as the shared norms and routines of news production as created and maintained by a specific and historically contingent set of organizations (e.g., newspapers, news agencies, broadcasters, but also professional organizations like

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journalists’ unions and associations). Following a new institutionalist perspective, the path-­dependency and therefore the history of journalism as an institution are of key importance when analysing and attempting to understand the present (again, see Ryfe, 2006: 137f). By journalism-­as-work, I refer to the everyday practical activities undertaken by individuals who produce journalistic content. Commonly, this work takes place within the framework of some type of paid-­for contractual employment, be it permanent or temporary, but this is not absolutely necessary. In the modern era, some journalistic work is done without direct compensation and outside any contractual agreement between an employer and an employee. This distinction is important as I prefer to start from the notion that journalism is an activity, rather than a particular group of people. That is to say, journalism-­as-work can be performed (and often is performed) by people who are not employed by news organizations. Both of these definitions, the latter one in particular, make some reference to journalism as content or text. Both definitions thus beg the question of what it is, exactly, that these institutions are a framework for, and what it is, exactly, that journalists are thought to work on or with. These are fair questions. Many different activities fit under the conceptual umbrella “journalism”: long-­form reportage, op-­ed pieces, brief and almost purely informational news items (“nibs” or “news in brief ” in British parlance), sports news, entertainment news, features, news photography, literary criticism, and so on. For the purposes of this study, I equate journalism largely with newsgathering, and journalism-­as-text largely with news. Journalism-­as-work thus includes finding the news (i.e., consulting and checking relevant sources), selecting the news (i.e., deciding on what to present and not present to the news consumers), and presenting the news (i.e., the production of actual news items by writing, editing, filming, and recording, and so on). This definition of journalism-­asnewsgathering (and thus of journalism as the production of news) is broadly consistent with a large body of work on journalism as a profession where many studies view journalism as an occupation engaged in rule-­bound information gathering and presentation of said information (Chalaby, 1998; Elliott, 1978; Golding & Elliott, 1979; Schudson, 1978; Tuchman, 1978: 2f). This definition also resonates with self-­definitions among journalists: most journalists, when asked, state that gathering and presenting information is one of their key professional tasks (Weaver, 1998b; Weaver & Wilhoit, 1986). Returning to Carr and Stevens, it was self-­evident to them that journalism was equivalent to news gathering, and that this news gathering followed particular routines:

Journalism as Work and Institution

5

The man in the street doesn’t know it, but the unvarnished truth is that journalists do not happen by chance upon the news which is daily gathered together for the public edification. It has to be anticipated, prepared for, and followed up, and the greatest virtue of all in a newsman is anticipation. Carr & Stevens, 1931: 119

However, while I have mostly interviewed traditional newsgatherers and news editors as part of this project, I have also made sure to interview other types of journalists precisely in order to capture the multifaceted nature of journalistic work—my sample (on which more in Chapter 3) also includes sports journalists, feature specialists, a journalist specializing in news for children and young people, and a few columnists. So while the focus is on news and newsgathering, the scope of the study is such that a somewhat broader view is required. One of the ongoing changes in journalism-­as-work and in journalism-­as-institution is indeed that forms of journalism other than traditional “hard news” are expanding, and thus more and more journalists are engaged in producing journalism that does not conform to the “ideal” picture of what journalism is and should be. Continuing the institutionalist analysis, in which initial developments surrounding the formation of institutions are thought to have greater impact than later developments and events (Ryfe, 2006: 137), we can see that historically there used to be a clear link between journalism as an activity practiced by individuals, and a particular type of organization. Journalism was done in news organizations—daily papers, news agencies, broadcast organizations. Individuals engaged in a set of practices that took place within an organizational framework, and the practice as well as the organizations, were ascribed a societal role—a societal role that was often vague and ambiguous, but was generally understood to have something to do with democracy. In law as well as culture, journalism was enshrined as an institution that fulfilled a key function or set of functions in democratic society. Conferring upon journalism a democratic role gave journalism as an organized practice a measure of social status. This link, however, was and is historically contingent. It was not always in place, it emerged gradually over time, and now it seems like it is gradually disappearing. Most of the practices and ideas we associate with “journalism” as an occupation came into being, or began to come into being, in the era of the daily mass newspaper (i.e., the mid-­to-late nineteenth century). The daily mass newspaper relied on advertising revenue as much as or more than it did on circulation and thus needed a separate advertising department, organizationally separated from editorial, to handle the sales, placement, and administration of advertising. Journalism became embedded within a context of commercial content production for a mass market,

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and dependent on more complex and multi-­layered organizational forms. This is not to say that journalism became entirely subsumed under this context—indeed, one of the key goals of early drives to professionalize journalism through the creation of professional bodies and trade unions was to preserve the occupational independence or autonomy of journalists. Despite the fact that the daily mass newspaper was a commercial enterprise, the view was that journalists should to some extent be isolated and separated from commercial concerns—hence the emergent and vigorous defense of the separation between advertising and editorial departments, for example. The institutional base for journalism that took shape in the Industrial Age still forms the template for much of the common-­sense understanding of journalism as an activity—and for the self-­understanding of journalists. When broadcasting came along in the 1920s and 1930s, notions of what journalists should do and not do in Western democracies were already well-­developed. Schudson and others hold that what we see as the “modern” or even “high modern” view of the role of the journalist (i.e., the watchdog and purveyor of objective facts) was more or less fully developed around this time (Cronin, 1993; Schudson, 1978, 1995). The framework of professionalism developed within the context of the commercial press fit with broadcasting, too. The institutional base was strong and stable enough to accommodate new media forms without the basic work tasks and perceived societal role of journalism changing much. Broadcast journalists had to deal with a different set of format considerations than their print colleagues, but their professional role was not seen as fundamentally different. And there was notably no discussion of whether radio or television journalists were “real” journalists or whether what they were doing constituted “real” journalism.

Newswork in crisis? Today, this strong and stable institutional base does not exist anymore. Commercial news media, print as well as broadcast, have seen their advertising revenue fall and audiences dwindle. Charging for content online has proven to be at best a stop-­gap measure that works well only for a few, globally recognized news brands. In many countries there has been what can only be described as massive layoffs in the news industry, particularly in the wake of the global financial crisis in 2008–09. Though over the past 30 or 40 years newsrooms have not necessarily gotten smaller, they have had to produce more and more content

Journalism as Work and Institution

7

for more and more platforms. Outside the commercial sector, public service broadcasting has also seen resources diminish in the wake of long-­running deregulation programs and increased competition from commercial providers. Media provision in general has exploded across a range of platforms and the general media landscape of today can best be described as hyper-­competitive: alongside the traditional outlets of commercial daily newspaper and terrestrial broadcasting (public and private, radio and TV), there is now satellite broadcasting, cable networks, daily freesheets, and of course the many and varied news outlets available online. On the advertising market, news organizations now compete with companies outside the traditional media sector—and lose. According to 2010 estimates, Google’s share of the global online advertising market is 44 percent (Zenith OptiMedia, 2011). The institution of journalism is no longer by necessity tied to specific organizations, and nor can it rely on the business models that have sustained it in the past. Subsidy by advertisers (the business model of privately owned news organizations) is increasingly unstable and the subsidies available cannot cover costs. Subsidy by government (the model of public service broadcasting) is increasingly under question and by many viewed as politically unsustainable. All these developments have led observers to talk of a crisis in the news industry. The shift in the institutional base of journalism has certainly had consequences for journalism as an occupation. While journalism was often viewed as a bohemian occupation, most journalists could count on a relatively high degree of job and career security. Many journalists spent their entire professional life within one and the same news organization. In many countries, particularly in Western Europe, journalist unions and associations were strong and influential and helped guarantee a measure of professional stability and continuity. Again focusing on Western Europe, both commercial news organizations and public service broadcasters were strong actors with a great degree of autonomy from the state, often able to exert a strong influence over policymaking in the media field. Today, news is increasingly produced by freelancers and stringers (Walters, Warren, & Dobbie, 2006) and membership numbers in unions and associations are falling. Careers and jobs are uncertain and precarious rather than secure. Free labor at entry level to the profession is increasingly demanded. In many countries—the UK in particular—a traditional career path into journalism, where you would start at a small local newspaper at a young age and then work your way up to the national dailies or national broadcasting, has all but disappeared, as noted earlier in this chapter. Outsourcing, something that has

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always existed in the news industry (mainly in the shape of freelancing and various news and photo agencies), is now becoming increasingly extensive as news organizations move some content production overseas where labor is cheap—Journatic, a company which specializes in producing local content for many US newspapers, employs many writers and researchers based in the Philippines (Tarkov, 2012). The changes in the institutional base of journalism have not only led to extensive changes in the occupation of journalism as a whole but are also generally considered to have changed the nature and character of journalistic practice, i.e., the work of journalism. Scholars and practitioners alike have debated these changes extensively in recent years—the following is a non-­exhaustive list of concerns over changes in journalistic work commonly seen as directly caused by the aforementioned changes in the institutional base of journalism: l

l

l

l

l

l

l

the concern over decreasing spending on “hard news.” In the UK, the Daily Mirror did away with the post of foreign editor a few years ago (Brook, 2008), for example, and in general many news organizations no longer have the resources for in-­depth reporting (Currah, 2009: 129f). the rise of PR and its power over the news (Curtin, 1999; Davis, 2002, 2008; Lewis, Williams, & Franklin, 2008)—as newsroom resources dwindle, news organizations will be more dependent on PR material. the rise of so-­called “churnalism,” where journalists are required to produce more content with fewer resources and to repackage it for many different media platforms (Davies, 2008). the concern that journalists are being transformed into general “content providers” rather than active newsgatherers (Nygren, 2008; Ursell, 2004). the casualization of labor in journalism and rise of freelance journalism— where many journalists may produce news one day and PR material the next (Krašovec & Žagar, 2009; Storey, Salaman, & Platman, 2005; Walters, Warren, & Dobbie, 2006). the concern that in an online environment, amateurism pushes out professionalism, opinion pushes out facts and objectivity, insult and aggressiveness push out rational debate, and that “clickable” content pushes out quality journalism (Barton, 2005; Karlsson & Clerwall, 2013; Keen, 2007). the concern that the diminished resources of news organizations will effectively mean the end of investigative reporting and the watchdog

Journalism as Work and Institution

l

9

function performed by journalism (Currah, 2009; Downie & Schudson, 2009; Greenwald & Bernt, 2000). the concern that mobile and mobilizing technologies in fact seem to lead to an increase in “desk-­bound” journalism, where many journalists never leave the office in search for stories (Deuze & Fortunati, 2010; Paulussen, 2012).

And yet despite these concerns we are still left to wonder how much journalism has really changed. Hampton describes an obsession with time compression and a speed-­over-quality mindset in journalism stretching as far back as the late nineteenth century (Hampton, 2004). Rosten was concerned about the over-­ reliance on PR material among Washington journalists as early as the 1930s (Rosten, 1937). And journalism has to a large degree always been desk-­bound; the early mass press relied on clippings from other newspapers, assembled at the editor’s desk, a job not too dissimilar from the one done by David Manning White’s likewise desk-­bound wire editor Mr. Gates (White, 1950). And so on. In the end, the question of how journalistic work has changed is empirical rather than normative, and a lot of the data available is anecdotal rather than systematic. There is still a need of empirical data on journalistic work and work practices in the face of institutional change.

The case for cross-­national comparison Importantly, the studies cited in the list of concerns in the preceding section also come from different countries and therefore different media contexts and landscapes. The dismantling of the institutional base of journalism has arguably gone the farthest in the US (extrapolating from figures in the 2013 State of the News Media survey from Pew, US daily newspapers alone—not counting television, weeklies, and other news organizations—have lost about 30 percent of their workforce between 1989 and 2012; see Pew, 2013), and thus concerns over concomitant deterioration of journalistic working standards are often voiced much more strongly in the US debate. Few other countries are seeing the fast and wholesale disappearance of a particular news medium, the metropolitan daily newspaper. In other parts of the world, news organizations—in particular daily newspapers—are thriving. India is the world’s largest newspaper market in terms of circulation and also has the highest number of paid-­for daily newspapers (over 2,000) of any country in the world (WAN, 2011). In fact, newspaper markets in

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most so-­called BRIC or emerging market countries, e.g., Brazil, India, China, South Africa, and Indonesia, are growing (OECD, 2010). The trend of erosion of the institutional base of journalism is a largely Western one. Yet there is still plenty of variance even within the Western context. An example: Swedish and Finnish journalists and media observers have the same debates about the (economic) crisis of news organizations as in the UK, yet compared to the UK, things are not as gloomy. Both Sweden and Finland have seen an estimated drop in newspaper revenue: of 7 percent in the 2007–09 period, whereas the UK has experienced thrice that drop, or 21 percent (Nielsen & Levy, 2010: 6). As mentioned earlier, local and regional media, in particular daily newspapers, are weakening and even disappearing in the UK, but continue to exist (if not flourish) as important institutions of local and regional journalism in Scandinavia. In short, what is true about journalism as work and institution in one country may not necessarily be true in another. While many of the trends described here are transnational (casualization of labor, rise of cross-­platform production, decrease in “hard news,” etc.), they manifest differently in different national and regional contexts. This is only to be expected considering that the “institutional base” of journalism has been historically constituted in quite different ways across the world. The historical developments described in the preceding section (the emergence of journalism as a distinct occupation working within a particular normative framework and using a specific set of practices, all linked to the emergence of the mass press in the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries) are broadly “Western.” But as noted, there is considerable variation within “The West.” This book follows a recent spate of interest in comparative European studies of media in general and journalism in particular (for overviews of such research, see Örnebring, 2009, 2012) that more or less originated with Hallin & Mancini’s much-­quoted and influential work on comparing media systems in the Western European and North American context (Hallin & Mancini, 2004). When tracing the differences between media systems in these regions, Hallin and Mancini take the different historical trajectories of the nations under analysis as their starting point. While it is journalism as an institution that is the focus of Hallin and Mancini’s analysis, their findings also have implications for how changes in journalistic working practices should be interpreted. Briefly, Hallin and Mancini identify three distinct media systems in Western Europe and North America: an Anglo-American or Liberal system, a Northern European or Democratic-­corporatist system, and a Southern European or

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Polarized pluralist system (the following characterizations are based largely on Hallin & Mancini, 2004: 66–86). The Anglo-American system, with a focus on media competition, liberal ideology, and a strong focus on factual/objective reporting (see also Chalaby, 1998), is strongly linked to the early emergence of a vigorous, independent, and above all profitable mass press. The Northern European system is likewise based on an early, strong mass press, but where capitalist competition was tempered by likewise strong links between the press and other organized societal interests, notably political parties. This in turn led to a somewhat different understanding of the journalistic mission, i.e., a stronger emphasis on the societal responsibility of the journalist. The Southern European system, finally, is based on a relatively weak and late-­emerging mass press where news organizations, and therefore journalism, were to a great degree instrumentalized by political interests. While Northern European party papers could be and still are reasonably neutral in terms of news selection, within the polarized pluralist system there is a much higher acceptance of journalists as partisan actors. There are, of course, many more differences than these—Hallin and Mancini also point out, for example, that journalism in the Southern European tradition is much more of a literary and cultural profession than elsewhere, with an emphasis on the essay style and personal commentary rather than distanced reporting focused on factuality (Hallin & Mancini, 2004: 90–97; again, also see Chalaby, 1998). Based just on this simple tripartite ideal type model, we can therefore expect differences between “Western” countries in how journalism may be affected by the continued weakening of an institutional base where the mass market newspaper historically was the dominant organizational form. For example, in the Anglo-American system the institutional independence of journalism has historically been very strongly associated with being a successful actor on a competitive market. One possible difference may be that ideals and notions of independence become more difficult to sustain or even articulate as the market itself begins to collapse; whereas Northern European countries may be more insulated against this trend thanks to a construction of independence that more explicitly recognizes journalism as a political entity, part of a network of other political institutions rather than outside it. It may also be that concerns over an increase in desk-­bound journalism are less marked in countries where desk-­bound journalism (i.e., commentary, debate, editorials) historically has been more valued and more prominent than reporting, e.g., in Southern Europe. And so on.

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A comparative European study of newswork This book presents a comparative European perspective on contemporary newswork. Following Przeworski and Teune, the comparative strategy is thus a most-­similar systems design, i.e., one where the aim is to discover and analyze features and factors that are different among similar cases (Przeworski & Teune, 1970: 31f). Since the analytical concern is with how journalistic work has been affected by changes in the institutional base of journalism, it makes sense to select cases where the institutional base has followed similar historical trajectories, and where the political context in general terms is similar. Compared to the US or the BRICS countries, “Europe” may in these regards be viewed as a homogeneous entity, a region suitable for selection of cases for a most-­similar system design. If we further limit ourselves to the nations that are members of the EU (thus sharing an important transnational framework for cooperation and legislation), the basic political similarities become more obvious: all twenty-eight EU members are stable parliamentary democracies with far-­reaching media freedoms, often enshrined in the nations’ respective constitutions, where such exist. In terms of media institutions and media landscapes, the differences are greater but as a region, Europe also exhibits some key common features. Print media are organized according to free-­market principles and have great de jure as well as de facto freedom from state interference. Alongside the press and online offerings there are also (partly or fully) state-­funded public service broadcasters that historically have played a great role in defining journalism as a societal institution. This strong position of public service broadcasting differentiates Europe from the USA, where public broadcasting is marginal, and the BRICS countries, where it is either marginal and/or heavily compromised by direct state influence. Finally, it may also be argued that Europe shares a kind of “normative heritage” when it comes to defining the societal role of journalism. The idea that journalism “has something to do with democracy,” as I asserted earlier in this text, is a Western idea—a desirable one, perhaps, and one that holds currency far outside the part of the world where it originated, but one that has a specific geographical provenance nevertheless. In the bare-­bones version, this societal role consists of providing information to the citizenry, fulfilling some type of watchdog function, and also functioning as a kind of public arena for debate and discussion. While this conception of journalism’s societal role is arguably AngloAmerican (rather than generically “Western”) in origin, there is now ample evidence that demonstrates that this normative heritage is shared by journalists

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globally and by European journalists specifically (see for example Hanitzsch et al., 2011). It is true that in roughly half of Europe, journalism was largely a form of propaganda as late as 20 years ago. The impact of the shared normative heritage on post-­communist Europe is however clearly evident in media policy decisions during the transition years: the policy goal was to create a “Western” media system with a competitive press complemented by a state-­funded but formally independent public broadcaster. It may well be argued that this transition has been less than successful (as many have done, e.g., Balcytiene, 2012; DobekOstrowska, 2012; Jakubowicz, 2007), but the fact remains that policymakers by and large wished to be part of this Western shared normative heritage of journalism, and attempted to mold their media systems to fit it. In the end, six European nations have been selected for comparative analysis. These are, in alphabetical order, Britain, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Sweden. Using Hallin and Mancini’s terms, Britain represents the Anglo-American media system, Germany and Sweden the Northern European media system, and Italy the Southern European system. Estonia and Poland are Eastern European and thus were not included in Hallin & Mancini’s original model, but as I have argued, a most-­similar systems design based on contemporary Europe should also include post-­communist Europe. These nations are part of the same supranational political framework, they share the same basic system of democratic government, and the legislative framework for media is guided by similar normative principles. The six nations thus share key basic similarities in terms of political framework and media landscapes but, as noted, we may also expect some variance in the dimensions under analysis. Between them, the six countries represent North and South, East and West, large and small. They provide a rich and varied picture of the current state of the relationship between journalism-­as-work and journalism-­ as-institution in Europe.

Outline of the book This introduction has laid out the scope and thrust of the book, and presented the key issues to be investigated. The next chapter, Institution, Work, and Professionalism: An Analytical Framework, will present the four theoretical and empirical dimensions used to connect journalism-­as-institution to journalism-­aswork: technology, skill, autonomy, and professionalism. Chapter 3, Six Countries:

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Background and Empirical Data, provides an introduction to journalism and media landscapes in the six nations studied for the reader who may not be familiar with the media contexts of these countries. This chapter also contains a brief presentation of the empirical material on which the book is based. The following four chapters are empirical chapters that each describe and analyze a key aspect of the context of newswork. Chapter 4, on technology, deals with how information and communication technologies are used (and not used) in journalistic work and how journalists in different countries, different positions, and on different beats integrate technology in their working practices. Chapter 5 is on skill and analyzes the skill demands on journalists in a rapidly changing media landscape, as well as looking at the skills valued by journalists themselves and how these valued skills differ between countries. Chapter 6 tackles the issue of autonomy, focusing in particular on the processes of “politicization” and “commercialization,” the autonomy to select and cover the news, and on the issue of journalistic corruption. Chapter 7 focuses on professionalism and attempts to deconstruct journalistic accounts of professionalism by comparing quantitative findings on journalists’ perceptions of their professional role with qualitative findings on how the notion of “professional” is defined by journalists, among other things in relation to “citizen journalists” and other amateur producers of news material. Finally Chapter  8, the concluding chapter, draws on the findings from the previous four chapters to present some conclusions about the nature and character of the changes in journalistic work, and assess in which areas national differences are salient and in which areas they are not. At the end of the book, there is also a Methodological Appendix that presents in detail how the interviews and the email survey were conducted, along with a brief discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of a multi-­method approach.

2

Institution, Work, and Professionalism: An Analytical Framework Journalism-­as-institution, to reiterate, is the shared norms and routines of news production as created and maintained by a set of organizations, and journalism-­ as-work are the everyday practical activities undertaken by individuals who produce journalistic content. Using a quantitative terminology, I treat journalism-­ as-institution as my independent variable and journalism-­as-work as the dependent variable: it is the latter variable that is to be explained with reference to the former. The institutional side of journalism broadly refers to the social, economic, and cultural context in which journalistic work takes place. The social context in turn refers to the different established ways in which journalists are socialized as members of the institution (e.g., education, workplace socialization); the economic context refers to the financial–structural conditions under which the set of organizations that form journalism-­as-institution operate (i.e., a shared framework of capitalist production characterized by intense competition, but with some space and legitimacy for public funding models); and the cultural context refers to the shared norms regarding journalisms’ role in society and to the way in which journalists are represented in and through various cultural forms.

Linking institution and work When you are hired as a journalist by a news organization, you do not come into your new workplace “naked,” i.e., without any idea about what you are expected to do. Education, media representations, and previous experience have exposed every new employee to the established patterns of action and shared norms that constitute journalism-­as-institution, and these established patterns and shared norms may already have been naturalized. There is an expectation not only of what you are to do, but also of what you are expected to be (in relation to

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co-­workers, to management, to audiences, to society as a whole). This notion of institutionally bounded work is a key explanation for why journalists often report high workplace autonomy (see Weaver & Willnat, 2012 for some recent comparative examples), yet journalistic content ends up being so similar across different media outlets (see for example Jönsson, 2004). If journalists are allowed to do what they want at work, how come they all choose to do the same things? The explanation is of course that if journalism-­as-institution is strong, i.e., if there are strong established practices, norms, and routines, then journalists can be given a great degree of workplace autonomy because they can be trusted to “do the job”. They know the institutionalized routines and will not lightly act against existing norms or use wildly divergent practices. Key values (e.g., on what constitutes news) and routines (e.g., of fact checking through extensive reliance on official, bureaucratic sources) are shared. The new employee will (normally) not just disappear from the newsroom for six weeks in order to work on his or her dream story on corruption in the Guatemalan aviation sector but instead attend morning meetings, pitch stories that have at least a chance of being accepted by the editor, cover what he or she is told to cover as he or she agrees that it is news and therefore should be covered, and so on. The idea that journalism-­as-institution explains journalism-­as-work and not the other way around is well known and well grounded in research that stretches back decades (e.g., Bantz, 1985; Breed, 1955; Cottle & Ashton, 1999; Preston, 2009; Ryfe, 2006; Sigelman, 1973; Tuchman, 1978; Tunstall, 1971). The argument often advanced by practitioners as well as scholars is that institutional change in journalism also has led to changes in working practices (as exemplified by the list of concerns presented in Chapter 1). On a very basic level, this is of course true. For example, one key institutional change in journalism over the past 20 years is the introduction of various new technologies (e.g., Internet, mobile devices, highly portable digital recorders for audio and video), and journalists have had to learn how to use tools that simply did not exist before. This change is perceived by many—scholars and practitioners alike—to be perhaps the central challenge to professional journalism as traditionally understood. New technologies have changed the way news is distributed (Newman, 2011); changed the structure of the advertising market on which many news organizations relied for a large portion of their revenue (Picard, 2008); changed the way news products and individual news items are produced (Singer, 2004a), requiring journalists to be skilled in a variety of production technologies (Avilés, León, Sanders, & Harrison, 2004); created new affordances, possibilities and limitations for traditional journalistic work tasks

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such as research (Machill & Beiler, 2009); created entirely new work tasks and work areas in journalism (Bakker, 2014)—and so on. Note that I am talking here about the very pervasive perception that technology has fundamentally changed newswork in and of itself; such a view is highly deterministic and ignores all the social, cultural, and economic factors that affect technology adoption and use. But it is still clear that the introduction of new technologies is an institutional change affecting working practices in a very straightforward way: before, something did not exist (or at least was not widely diffused), and now, it does exist and journalists have to learn how to use it. In this sense there is no fundamental difference between the introduction of the Internet into the journalistic workplace and the introduction of the ballpoint pen or typewriter. But of course scholarship and debate goes beyond this basic level. The assumption is that the introduction of new technologies also alters the very nature of journalistic work in some way. Regardless of how we view and understand the role technology plays in relation to journalism-­as-institution and journalism-­as-work, we can agree that the notion of technology as a strong agent of change is widespread, and we will return to this notion later. In a similar fashion, another area where institutional change impacts on working practices in a very obvious way is the previously mentioned massive decrease in the number of people employed by news organizations on a full-­time permanent basis. Many of the organizations that make up the institution of journalism have experienced severe financial problems and therefore cut staff. The impact on working practices is immediate and obvious: there are fewer people being paid full-­time salaries doing journalistic work. And again, researchers and commentators see further implications: as fewer people are being paid full-­time salaries, so too are more people being paid tiny sums, often on a per-­item basis, to produce content that is packaged and sold as journalism (this is the business model of the US company Demand Media; for example, see Spangler, 2010; also Bakker, 2012; Deuze, 2009), leading in turn to the devaluation of journalistic work as a whole (Witschge & Nygren, 2009). The causal link between institutional change and changes in working practices in journalism is thus obvious—but also dubious. For example, a common trope in the analysis of these changes is the compression of time: that various institutional changes (notably the introduction of new technologies, but also the increased competition on the media market) have created more hectic working conditions, where journalists have to produce more content in less time than before. The work of Preston (2009) can be seen as typical in this regard: “The one aspect which was almost universally emphasized by our interviewees concerned

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the extent to which technology changes had contributed to a marked quickening in the pace of news gathering and dissemination, with some suggesting that this had changed almost beyond recognition in a relatively short period” (Preston, 2009: 69, see also p. 66, 166f). I do not suggest that we should doubt what these interviewees are saying, but it is also striking how this concern over technology leading to increased time pressures has always been a part of journalistic discourse (again, see for example Hampton, 2004: 90f on the late nineteenth century, or Schlesinger’s characterization of the “stopwatch culture” at the BBC in the 1970s and 1980s, Schlesinger 1987: 93). Indeed in a commentary on Hampton’s work, media historian Joel Wiener points out that the demand for speed largely has been internal to journalism-­as-institution rather than imposed by any external factor, technological or otherwise (Wiener in Hampton et  al., 2006: 81f); i.e., it was a demand that had more to do with how the institution viewed itself and how it worked to address its various audiences. Thus, while on some level it is obvious that institutional change causes changes in work practices, it is also true that there are many things described by journalism scholars as “drastic, all-­encompassing change” (cf. Preston, 2009) that would more accurately be described as “intensification (or slowing down) of long-­established patterns.” The time frame of comparison is in historical terms often rather short. Concern over cut-­and-paste practices in contemporary news production (as in Davies, 2008: 52f, based on Lewis, Williams & Franklin, 2008), legitimate though it is, also ignores that cutting and pasting from other sources for a long time simply was what journalists did (see for example Jarlbrink, 2009, 2015). Cutting and pasting from other sources was a practice that was once central to journalistic work, then gradually became less central (or perhaps just less transparent), and which is now coming to the fore again. These central interactions between the institutional and workplace levels of journalism—the evolution of professional training and professional socialization that ensures standardization and predictability; the role of technology as a mediator between these two levels; the impact of the collapse/weakening of established business models on industry employment structures; the institutionalized character of time pressures in the journalistic workplace—all converge in the concept of professionalism. What does it mean to be a professional (i.e., to work in a way that is considered “professional” by your peers and by the surrounding society) at a time when the institutional framework of the professional collective is shifting? The concept of professionalism links the institutional and workplace levels of journalism in several different ways and is the central organizing concept of this

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book. The notion of professionalism has indeed been one of the most popular and enduring in journalism research, and the following section will explicate its continued relevance but also attempt to critique and develop it.

The two professionalisms of journalism There is a wealth of literature on journalistic professionalism; in fact, the concept of “professionalism” (and related concepts such as “professionalization” and “professional roles”) has been one of the dominant ways in which journalism scholarship has made sense of its object of study (e.g., Bantz, 1985; Beam, 1990; Deuze, 2005; Donsbach & Patterson, 2004; Fishman, 1980; Johnstone, Slawski, & Bowman, 1976; Schiller, 1979; Schudson & Anderson, 2008; Sigelman, 1973; Singer, 2003; Soloski, 1989; Splichal & Sparks, 1994; Tuchman, 1978; Tumber & Prentoulis, 2005; Tunstall, 1971). Both professionalism and professionalization have commonly been used explicitly as concepts linking journalism-­asinstitution to journalism-­as-work; see in particular Beam (1990), Fishman (1980), Soloski (1989), and Tumber & Prentoulis (2005) for scholarship linking professionalization of journalism on the institutional and/or organizational level to working practices and individual/workplace behaviors and established patterns of action. Many historical works on journalism also share this basic analytical thrust, i.e., linking historical processes of professionalization to the emergence and reification of certain working practices and ways of organizing journalistic work (e.g., Baldasty, 1992; Cronin, 1993; Schudson, 1978; Elliott, 1978; Örnebring, 2007; Schiller, 1979). To call an occupation a “profession,” or to classify a certain set of established practices as “professional,” is to make both a descriptive and a normative judgment (Waisbord, 2013: 8). A key element of almost all studies of professions and professionalism (not just journalism) is the notion that a profession is “more than just a job,” i.e., that it has some kind of duty to the public, a duty that can (and should) sometimes trump the duty one might have to an employer— professions have some kind of public role or function, and professionalism means (in part) to fulfill this public role to the best of one’s ability (e.g., Abbott, 1988; Annandale, 1998; Burrage & Torstendahl, 1990; Freidson, 1994, 2001). This does not mean that professionalism research uncritically accepts the profession’s own notions, rather the opposite—many studies of journalism have highlighted the “mythological” character of journalistic professional ideology (Elliott, 1978) as well as how the process of professionalization of journalism can be seen as a

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conscious strategy of key actors to achieve and then control a privileged societal position, as well as a process for controlling and disciplining journalistic labor (e.g., Carey, 2000; Golding & Elliott, 1979; Hardt & Brennen, 1995; McChesney, 2005; Schudson, 2005). Depending on who is looking, professionalism can be a bulwark against both excessive partisanship and rampant commercialization, or a tool used to achieve societal power without accountability and to ensure a steady supply of docile employees. Sociologist Julia Evetts’ model of two competing forms of professionalism captures this dual nature of professionalism. Her perspective is particularly relevant for the study of journalism as it explicitly places professionalism within an overall changing context of work. Most journalism research conducted at least up until the late 1990s generally implicitly or explicitly assumes that journalistic work is done within the framework of large, centralized organizations and that those doing the work generally do so under stable, long-­term employment contracts. As noted in Chapter  1, this is simply not the case anymore: atypical, short-­term and casual labor is now widespread in journalism, and many do journalistic work without any expectation or hope of remuneration. Evetts specifically discusses the meaning of professionalism in a context of increased labor precarity (e.g., labor market deregulation, rise in short-­term contracts and project-­based work). She describes the two competing forms of professionalism at work in journalism and many other occupations as organizational professionalism and occupational professionalism (Evetts, 2003: 407ff, 2006: 140f): Organizational professionalism is a discourse of control used increasingly by managers in work organizations. It incorporates rational-­legal forms of decision-­ making, hierarchical structures of authority, the standardization of work practices, accountability, target-­setting and performance review and is based on occupational training and certification. In contrast, occupational professionalism is the more traditional, historical form. This involves a discourse constructed within professional groups themselves that involves discretionary decision-­ making in complex cases, collegial authority, the occupational control of the work and is based on trust in the practitioner by both clients and employers. It is operationalized and controlled by practitioners themselves and is based on shared education and training, a strong socialization process, work culture and occupational identity, and codes of ethics that are monitored and operationalized by professional institutes and associations. Evetts, 2006: 140–141

The key analytical point here is that within organizational settings (and therefore, in my definition, also in an institutional context), different actors or groups of

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actors start from different definitions of “professionalism.” Manager and managed very likely have different ideas about what professionalism means. For the manager, being professional may mean complying with regulations, accepting standardized work practices, hitting performance targets, and so on. For the managed, being professional may then even occasionally be in opposition to the notion of “being professional” espoused by managers, focusing instead on autonomy, compliance with a code of ethics decided on by professional groups or bodies rather than employers’ organizations, and so on. Applied to journalism, this view conjures up images of heroic journalists standing against bean-­counter managers to report the story regardless of attempts to control or quash them. Needless to say, the equation of organizational professionalism = bad, occupational professionalism = good, is a gross simplification. Evetts in fact can rather be placed in the “critical” tradition of professionalism research; in another piece she and Aldridge are very critical of elements of journalistic occupational professionalism, using the word “mythology” to describe it (Aldridge & Evetts, 2003: 561f). Occupational professionalism may have the positive effects described by some scholars, e.g., working against increased managerial surveillance, hierarchical structures, standardization of labor (again, see Annandale, 1998; Freidson, 2001), but it may also work in a conservative fashion, as highlighted by others. Breed showed that conformity and social control in the newsroom was the result of colleagues’ expectations rather than managerial decrees (Breed, 1955); Sigelman found that journalists were unusually conformist and complied with organizational goals to minimize conflict (Sigelman, 1973); and Soloski demonstrated how professional ideology also worked as a useful management tool to control the professional behavior of journalists (Soloski, 1989). Likewise, while organizational professionalism may have the negative effects of standardizing labor, increasing workplace surveillance, and edging out public duties in favor of organizational goals of profitability and efficient workplace organization, it may also increase workplace transparency and fairness, make professionals more accountable to the public, act as a check on group-­think type workplace behavior, and so on. Theoretically, it is clear that the two notions of professionalism compete on the institutional level, but the workplace-­level consequences of having one or the other discourse dominate must be studied empirically before they can be assessed normatively. It is also the case that while these two discourses of professionalism to some extent are mutually exclusive, in other regards there is great scope for “negotiation,” i.e., over time, values of organizational professionalism may be absorbed by and incorporated into occupational

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definitions of professionalism, and similarly aspects of occupational professionalism may over time become shared and defended by the organization as a whole. Incorporating the organizational imperative for speedy news dissemination as a key constituent of occupational ideology (as described in the previous chapter) is one example of such negotiation. The reverse causality may be seen in cases where news organizations decide to publish stories even if it would have been in the economic or political interests of the organization not to do so (for example when publishing a critical investigative story on a major advertiser). Table 2.1 clarifies the relationship between occupational and organizational professionalism on the one hand, and the relationship between journalism-­asinstitution and journalism-­as-work on the other. Functionalist and critical accounts of professionalism alike emphasize the needs fulfilled by professionalism—e.g., in the case of functionalism needs to maintain and ensure quality in professional work, and in the case of critical accounts needs to achieve professional closure and control entry to the profession—and this figure expresses the relationship between the two analytical dimensions in terms of what needs “professionalism” (of both the organizational and occupational variety) meets at the different analytical levels. As noted in Chapter  1, the institutional level consists both of (employer) news organizations (the main conduit of organizational professionalism) and of professional organizations like unions and associations as well as the occupational collective as a whole (the main conduit of occupational professionalism). On the institutional level, organizational professionalism primarily meets the need for predictability (of recruitment, of the legal framework of journalism, of Table 2.1  Needs met by organizational and occupational professionalism on different analytical levels FORM OF PROFESSIONALISM

Organizational

Occupational

• Need for predictability • Need for infrastructure • Need for employees who are . . . • skilled • replaceable • “autonomous enough”

• Need for societal status • Need for social legitimacy • Need for peer recognition •N  eed for practices that can maintain status and legitimacy

ANALYTICAL LEVEL Journalism-­as-institution Journalism-­as-work

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the market—to the extent the latter is possible) and infrastructure (i.e., making aspiring professionals accept the basic infrastructure of news production as centered on news being a good on a market, that it is possible to outsource production under certain circumstances, etc.); hence the emphasis (in Evetts’ characterization) on standardization and hierarchical control in this form of professionalism. On the same level, occupational professionalism addresses the need of the professional collective to achieve and maintain societal status and legitimacy (following Wilensky, 1964, and others); this need can be achieved both through laying claims to a particular expertise or expert skill and through the rhetorical construction of a societal duty for the profession (Sarfatti Larson, 1977). On the micro-­level of work, the need for standardization on the institutional level is expressed in organizational professionalism as the need for employees to meet certain characteristics. First, they should have a certain level and set of skills (ensuring that they can be immediately used by the organization and that minimal resources have to be devoted to training new employees). Second, they should be replaceable, i.e., there should be a steady supply of other potential employees who have the same skill set and share the same basic values and ideas about newswork, in case an employee leaves. Third, professionalism should create practitioners who are “autonomous enough,” i.e., so self-­directed that they can be trusted to do their work without much direct supervision and make reasonable work-­related decisions in the absence of such supervision, but not so self-­directed that they go against the basic values and ideas about newswork. Essentially, at this level and in this form of professionalism, being professional means being a good worker (this is very similar to the contention of Soloski, 1989). The occupational side of the equation conversely meets needs of peer recognition (and thus also peer socialization) that support professional identity formation and ensure some measure of control over/maintenance of professional values and norms; as well as more pragmatic needs for practices that can be seen as guaranteeing a level of quality of work and by extension maintaining societal status and legitimacy (e.g., practices of verification, fact checking, critical questioning of elite sources) and which also can function in a day-­to-day workplace setting.

Structure of the analysis The purpose of this book is thus to analyze the ways in which journalism-­asinstitution explains journalism-­as-work in a comparative context, using the

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conceptual pairing of organizational/occupational professionalism as the main analytical lens. How do these two forms of professionalism interact in the shaping of journalism-­as-work, which form is the dominant one, and are there salient differences between countries? These are the overarching questions of this book. Specifically, these questions will be addressed in four ways. First, the analysis will tackle the previously mentioned pervasive issue of the role of technology in newswork, particularly as it applies to organizational and occupational understandings of professionalism (Chapter  4). This chapter dissects how technology and technology use functions as a locus of contestation and negotiation between the two forms of professionalism, and how institutional frames shape how technology is adopted and used on the workplace level. The analysis will then turn to two key aspects of professionalism and the professional project: first, the notion of skill or expertise (Chapter 5) and second, the notion of autonomy (Chapter  6). In the literature on professionalism in general and journalistic professionalism in particular, three core elements of professionalism and its constitution can be found: expertise, autonomy, and duty (drawing mainly on the overviews by Aldridge & Evetts, 2003; Allison, 1986; Anderson, 2008; and Schudson, 1995 in the field of journalism studies and on the more general overviews of the sociology of professions found in Abbott, 1988; Burrage & Thorstendal, 1990; Evetts, 2003; Freidson, 1990, 2001; Sarfatti Larson, 1977; MacDonald, 1995; Sciulli, 2005; and Wilensky, 1964). Chapters  5 and 6 analyze the first two of these three aspects of professionalism. These two empirical chapters will then feed into the further analysis of professionalism (Chapter  7), particularly the notion of professional role or duty in journalism (i.e., the idea that journalism plays some kind of wider role in a democratic system), but also an analysis of what journalists actually mean when they talk about professionalism and when they attempt to draw borders between their own activities as professionals and the activities of “amateurs” or “non-­professionals” (i.e., citizen journalists). To that end, the analytical framework of the study must be further expanded by explaining how the three areas of technology, skill, and autonomy work as mediators between the institutional and workplace levels of journalism. This is followed by a return to the discussion of professionalism with specific reference to professional roles and the different ways in which practitioners actually understand the meaning of the concept.

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Professionalism and technology In journalists’ own accounts of changes in their work, technology occupies a central place—even the central place. Journalists in general view technology as an inevitable, impersonal force that directly causes many of the changes taking place within journalism. This is demonstrated in a number of studies of journalists and how they relate to change in general and technological change in particular (Avilés et  al., 2004; Deuze and Paulussen, 2002; Duhe et  al., 2004; Huang, 2006; Liu, 2006; Preston, 2009; Quinn, 2006). A big part of the explanation for the persistent tendency among journalists to attribute great power and independent agency to technology of course has to do with the proximity and integration of technology in the everyday working life of journalists. Many explanatory factors used by journalism scholars, such as “commercialization,” “professional socialization,” and “organizational structure,” are for most journalists abstract and it is often difficult to see how they translate into everyday working practice. But when the entire newsroom has to change to a new content management system, or when journalists are required to learn digital production techniques in order to create content for different media platforms, that represents tangible changes in their working lives, changes that are readily perceived as being “caused” by technology. Thus for journalists, the role of technology in the relationship between journalism-­as-institution and journalism-­as-work is clear: as an exogenous factor that directly affects, even controls, both institution and work. But even a cursory examination of the examples above demonstrates that it is more accurate to consider technology something that is introduced on the institutional level and then adopted and used on the level of work (Barnhurst & Nerone, 2001; Boczkowski, 2004; McKercher, 2002; Marjoribanks, 2000a, 2000b). A newsroom does not introduce a content management system simply because content management systems have been invented, but because an organizational decision is made that this system (rather than that one) will fit the needs of the organization better, be easier to use, cheaper, etc. Journalists are not required to learn digital production techniques simply because they exist but because their employers generally demand it—and certain techniques are viewed as more central to learn than others. New technologies are rarely if ever introduced into news organizations as grassroots initiatives, based on needs and demands from journalists, but rather imposed (often for the best of reasons) by owners and management—again reinforcing the perception that technological change is something that “just happens.”

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Information and communication technologies (ICTs)—defined as the combination of microelectronic and computing technologies with telecommunications to manipulate human information—have had an impact on virtually all occupations, skilled and unskilled. Journalists are far from unique in experiencing often wide-­ranging technological change in their everyday working lives. The impact of ICTs extends to many aspects of journalistic work: information gathering, content production and presentation, and not least distribution, i.e., how the end product of journalism is made available to audiences. However, it could be argued that the greatest impact of ICTs lies not in any individual aspect or area but rather in how technology has been used to integrate what has previously been treated as separate areas (Watson, 2003: 124f), or even in collapsing the distinction between manual and mental labor (Zuboff, 1988). Most sociologists of work as well as most analysts of the social aspects of technology agree that the impact of ICTs on work is dual: technologization has the potential both to routinize and eliminate jobs; to increase managerial control and surveillance; and to centralize the organizations in which work takes place, as well as the potential to enhance creative processes and the mental aspects of work; to increase worker control of the work process; and to create new, decentralized forms of work organizations (Boddy & Buchanan, 1986; Boddy & Gunson, 1997; Child, 1984; Deuze, 2007: 73f; Watson, 2003: 124ff; Woodfield, 2000). Thus technology adoption, diffusion and use do not take place in a vacuum. Previous research has shown that factors (“competitive effects”) within the technology consumer’s industry (in this case the media/news industry) such as competitive intensity, demand uncertainty, professionalism, and cosmopolitanism will impact the adoption and diffusion of technology on the industry/institutional level (Robertson & Gatignon, 1986)—using these criteria, the news industry would be predisposed towards quick and wholesale adoption of technologies as all these competitive effects are in place (the news industry is highly competitive, demand is uncertain, there is a high degree of both professionalism and cosmopolitanism). Yet research if anything demonstrates that the news industry has mostly been a reluctant late adopter of many new technologies (Nguyen, 2008; Singer et al., 2011). On the organizational level, many of the technologies used by news organizations (content management systems, indexing/archiving systems, search engine optimization tools, etc.) must fit within organizational routines and thus any individual’s use of technology will be circumscribed by larger organizational processes (Nelson & Winter, 1982). In summary, various

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institutional aspects will provide the framework for how technologies are adopted in the workplace and in the everyday working practices of those who use them (again, see Marjoribanks, 2000a; McKercher, 2002). Besides market/industry characteristics and organizational demands, culture is also an important institutional factor influencing the adoption of technology and how technologies are put to use. Institutional values and norms create templates for technology adoption: despite appearances to the contrary, technologies are usually not adopted in order to effect wholesale transformation of an institution but rather to help the institution carry out established practices “better” in some way (quicker, more effectively, with higher quality, etc.). In the case of journalism, one such template is the discourse of speed (a term derived from the work of Hampton, 2004): existing journalistic work practices have grown out of a culture where speed is both the main measure of competitive success in the news industry, and a key professional value (for historical studies on this phenomenon, see Read, 1992: 34f; Rydén & Gustafsson, 2001: 182; Winston, 1998: 28). “Productivity” in the case of news is taken to be synonymous with “more news faster” or even preferably “more news first.” Sommerville argues that the increased periodicity of the press as early as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries formed the first roots of this cultural obsession with speed—“A ‘news culture’ will tilt steeply in the direction of change for its own sake and maintain a periodical tempo that is literally mindless” (Sommerville, 1996: 10). This link between news, periodicity, and speed only became more marked in the interplay between technology and liberal capitalism that was the industrial revolution (Blondheim, 1994; Turner, 2002), more marked still with the emergence of broadcasting (Schlesinger, as noted, refers to it as “stopwatch culture,” 1987: 84) and accelerated even further with the introduction of online news provision (Avilés et al., 2004). Sanders and Bale (2000) describe the new 24-hour news cycle as one where time has always run out and everything must be broadcast immediately. In short, the discourse of speed, understood as both a capitalist logic of competition using technology to increase productivity, and a professional logic placing great value on the timely provision of news, is a wholly naturalized element of journalism and forms a template for how journalists understand new technologies: the prime function of any new technology is to speed up the news process (see also Karlsson, 2011: 286–289 for an overview of research on immediacy and speed in news). This template, while powerful, is not all-­encompassing. As noted earlier, new technologies can also be used to change institutional practices that may be considered ossified by certain institutional actors; technologies can be used as

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creative tools, making possible new practices and creating new cultural forms; technologies may be used by practitioners to increase autonomy and control over their own work; technologies—in particular network-­based digital technologies—may be used to disperse working practices and undermine hierarchical control, and so on. From the point of view of the autonomous, reflexive practitioner, new technologies will be viewed as “good” and “professional” if they can be used to: (a) support occupational autonomy and creativity on the group and individual level (for example by enabling new and “better” ways to tell news stories and engage the audience); and (b) rationalize the everyday working lives of individual journalists by reducing (or removing altogether) time spent on tasks that are not considered to be “core tasks” of the occupation, as well as helping journalists to deal with routine tasks (like information gathering and research) more efficiently.

Professionalism and skill Sarfatti Larson (1977) and others (e.g., Abbott, 1988; Abel 1988; Brint, 1994) note that one of the key elements of the professional project is defining, and maintaining control over, the core knowledge of the profession. The word expertise is also often used to refer to the domain of specialist, often technical, knowledge that is associated with a profession. Here, I have chosen the word skill rather than expertise because skill carries more explicit connotations of action and practical use; in journalism, as in most other occupations, knowing something in effect means being able to do something. Skill or expertise is generally seen as more straightforward in traditional professions such as medicine and law, whereas journalism has found it more difficult to lay claim to a unique and specific domain of knowledge. However, accounts of journalistic professionalization do point to the emergence of journalism schools and journalism programs at universities as evidence that there is some kind of body of specialist knowledge associated with journalism (Nolan, 2008; Folkerts, 2014; Vos, 2012), even though it is not as exclusive as that of doctors or lawyers. While expertise and skill are central to most definitions of professionalism and professionalization, journalism research accounts often begin and end with an assertion of how difficult it is to define a core knowledge or set of core skills for journalists. As such, skill has been surprisingly little investigated in journalism studies. It is mostly treated as a given that journalists today need to be multi-­ skilled, i.e., proficient in a variety of production technologies and multiplatform

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news production (Avilés et al., 2004; Chung, 2007; Cottle & Ashton, 1999; Deuze, 2007; Duhe et al., 2004; Lowery & Becker, 2001; Seelig, 2002; Singer, 2003, 2004a), with little in the way of critical examination of what “multi-­skilled” (or even “skilled”) is taken to mean in a sociological sense, or of who gets to define what this “multi-­skilling” should consist of. In contrast to the lack of definitions of core skills available in scholarly work on journalism, accreditation bodies have to have a very clear and explicit view on what the core skills of journalism should be. For example, the US Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC) has a list of twelve core “values and competencies” that educational programs must provide to their graduates if they want to be accredited, which range from writing skills (number 9) and numeracy skills (number 11) to understanding of and commitment to values of diversity and tolerance (numbers 3 and 4) (ACEJMC 2014: 14–15). The explicit link between values and skills in the US accreditation guidelines is in contrast to the much more strongly skill-­focused UK accreditation program National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ), which focuses on imparting skills in news interviewing, reporting (with both a strong emphasis on facticity, attribution, and source checking), media law, and reflexive practice (NCTJ 2015: 5–7) and does not address the issue of values explicitly at all. So even in the cases when explicit definitions of journalistic skills do exist, they differ between countries. Scholarly interest in journalistic skills to date has had a lot to do with a perceived change in skill demands where above all various technical/production skills are considered to be ever-­more important. As noted, these “new” skills are often contrasted with “old” or “traditional” journalistic skills without properly defining exactly what these skills would be. Studies of journalistic skills and changes in skill demands are also time-­sensitive and context-­dependent. A case in point is Lowery & Becker’s 2001 study, which found that skill with Web presentation software was the strongest predictor of success for journalism/ communication graduates applying for jobs (in the USA), more important than all other aspects of their education (Lowery & Becker, 2001). In hindsight, this of course says a lot about the changes taking place in journalism at that time, and how they were interpreted by and acted upon by employers. Presumably, skill with Web presentation software would not be as important a predictor of job application success in 2016. Fahmy’s 2008 study of current and future skill needs related to online journalism (based on a survey of online journalists) distinguished between “traditional” skills, “digital journalism” skills, and “Web-­ coding” skills (Fahmy, 2008: 31) and found that “digital journalism” skills (which

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included multimedia delivery, capturing audio/video, digital photography and image production, graphics and layout, animation/Flash, and podcasting) were perceived as of increasing importance, but “traditional” skills (e.g., “writing,” “spelling,” “interviewing,” and “research”) were still considered the most important and the more technical skills of coding were considered very important right now but likely of decreasing importance (Fahmy, 2008: 31–32). It is somewhat striking that skill has not been very comprehensively theorized in journalism studies, or indeed theorized at all. If skill is addressed in journalism research, it is usually from an industry or educator perspective, focusing on what skills employers need journalists to have. This is the case in Watson & Flintham’s (2008) UK industry survey funded by Skillset, a UK quasi-­governmental council set up to coordinate the various industry training councils in the creative industries (the study unsurprisingly found that radio presentation was ranked as more important among journalists who work in radio, and that feature writing was considered more important by magazine journalists) (Watson & Flintham, 2008: 5); and in d’Haenens, Opgenhaffen & Corten’s (2013) special issue of Journalism Practice devoted to the comparative analysis of views on journalistic skills in the digital age—the articles in this issue are still largely applied and descriptive in character. The research agenda is simply identifying what journalistic skill demands look like across a number of nations, now and in the future (with the exception of Fourie’s contribution to the same volume, where skill demands and debates on which skills journalists should have in South Africa are analyzed based on contexts of gender, race, identity, development, and democracy—see Fourie, 2013). In sociology (and the sociology of work in particular), by contrast, there is an extensive debate on how skill should be defined that draws upon diverse theoretical traditions, from Marxist to ethnographic (for overviews and key texts, see for example Attewell, 1990; Hilton, 2008; Schwalbe, 2010; Steiger, 1993; Steinberg, 1990). A key issue in this line of research (e.g., Steiger, 1993) is precisely the institutional framework of skill: how is skill constructed institutionally, who gets to define what the “core skills” of an occupation are, and what is actually required for an individual to be considered a “good” and “skilled” member of their occupation? A key issue from the sociological analysis of skill that has gained some traction in journalism studies is the notion of deskilling, as introduced by Braverman (1974). For Braverman, skill is envisaged as a kind of zero-­sum game where skills in technological production edge out traditional craft skills (Braverman himself was a welder and metalworker turned social scientist).

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Braverman’s notion of deskilling, i.e., that the capitalist drive to reduce labor costs leads to a systematic degeneration of craft skills in the workforce, is contradicted by empirical findings from large-­scale surveys: the general trend is upskilling, not deskilling, as skill demands in most jobs increase (Ashton et al., 1999; Gallie et  al., 1998). However, later developments of Braverman’s labor process theory have found evidence for increasing management control and fragmentation of work tasks (Burawoy, 1979, 1985; Frances, 1993; Knights & Wilmott, 1990). Other researchers claim that the deskilling/upskilling dichotomy is too simplified and that polarization of skill is a better description of what is occurring (Edgell, 2006: 68f): some groups are more likely to experience deskilling and some groups are more likely to experience upskilling (see also Gallie, 1991). Unsurprisingly, this polarization occurs along already-­existing lines of inequality: those already in poorly paid, relatively less skilled jobs are experiencing further deskilling, while a smaller, elite group of workers already highly skilled and with high job autonomy experience further upskilling (de Witte & Steijn, 2000; Milkman & Pullman, 1991; Reich, 1991). A gender-­based difference has also been observed: men are more likely to experience upskilling than women (Gallie, 1991; Gallie et al., 1998). Regardless of the actual view of deskilling per se, this research taken together demonstrates that skill, like technology, bridges institutional values and everyday work experience. A common trope in current debate and research on journalism is that new skill demands are making “traditional” skills of journalism less valued. Technology in particular takes time from the “real” journalism (for examples, see Bromley, 1997; Huang, 2006; Liu, 2006; MacGregor, 1997; Nygren, 2008). New skill demands, like the demand for familiarity with cross-­platform production, make journalism into a more factory-­type job, where the emphasis is on churning out a lot of content quickly. However, if the overall empirical contention is that most occupations have experienced a general upskilling in the past decades, this begs the question of why journalism should be the only exception to this trend.

Professionalism and autonomy Autonomy, like skill, is viewed as a key element of professionalism, and professionalization processes are often characterized as struggles for autonomy (again, see Sarfatti Larson, 1977; Wilensky, 1964). The concept itself refers to the degree of self-­governance within a profession, and the extent to which the

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profession is independent of other societal institutions, primarily the state and the market. In a functionalist account, autonomy is closely linked to duty or altruism, as self-­determination and self-­governance are viewed as the best guarantees that professionals will be able to fulfill their duties. Critical accounts instead focus on autonomy as power: independence from other institutions means that the profession can control entry and exclusion much more effectively, and it also maintains the societal status of the profession. Autonomy has been central to the understanding of the societal role of journalism. In order to fulfill its democratic functions (however defined), it has been viewed as central that journalism-­as-institution should be independent from other institutions, notably the state and the market (see for example Bourdieu, 2005; Glasser & Gunther, 2005; Hampton, 2010; Merrill, 1989; Schudson, 2005; Waisbord, 2013). Empirical research has conclusively demonstrated that this normative ideal rarely is borne out in reality. There is a rich vein of research examining the limits of journalistic autonomy on the institutional level, in particular the limits imposed by the market (e.g., Curran & Seaton, 2003; Murdock, 1983; McManus, 1994; Underwood, 1993) and the state and other bureaucratic organizations (e.g., Bennet, Lawrence, & Livingston, 2007; Fishman, 1980; Sigal, 1973; Soloski, 1989). Nevertheless, the ideal remains a forceful one—many of the concerns voiced about journalism in the contemporary era are in essence concerns about the declining autonomy of journalism vis-à-­vis other institutions, as exemplified by for example debates on journalism’s increasing reliance on PR material (Gandy, 1982; Lewis, Williams, & Franklin, 2008) or even, in some contexts, the functional merging of journalism and PR (Erjavec & Kovačič, 2010; Krašovec & Žagar, 2009). Furthermore, a lot of the research cited earlier specifically deals with how the lack of institutional autonomy translates into an effective lack of workplace autonomy (e.g., Murdock, 1983; McManus, 1994; Fishman, 1980; Sigal, 1973; Soloski, 1989). In this body of research, we can see how many, even most, observers of journalism see autonomy on the institutional level being reflected in the individual workplace autonomy of journalists, i.e., autonomy is viewed as a concept bridging the institutional and individual/workplace levels of journalism. In light of most sociology of work, it is indeed to be expected that workplace autonomy should in some way be linked to institutional autonomy. But returning to an earlier observation, it is then somewhat surprising that while many if not most contemporary studies of journalism so strongly emphasize the decrease of institutional autonomy in journalism, in particular vis-à-­vis market forces (see

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for example Boczkowski, 2010; Davies, 2008; Fenton, 2010; Hallin & Mancini, 2004; Lee-Wright, Phillips & Witschge, 2012; Preston, 2009), in surveys journalists generally report a relatively high degree of workplace autonomy (e.g., Löfgren Nilsson, 2007; Weaver, 1998b; Weaver & Willnat, 2012). We clearly need to look a bit closer at how journalists themselves understand workplace autonomy. One of the surveys quoted in the previous section (on Swedish journalists) provides more detail. In the period 1989–2007, Swedish journalists overall agree that journalism in general has become more stressful, but they also agree that their own job has not become more stressful (Löfgren Nilsson, 2007: 77). Swedish journalists also agree that management control has increased in journalism overall, but the share of journalists reporting a very low degree of workplace autonomy (i.e., little control over which stories to work on and high direct management influence) is relatively low (between 5 and 10 percent depending on media type) and near-­constant over the time period (Löfgren Nilsson, 2007: 73). There is clearly a third-­person effect at work here: decreased workplace autonomy is something that happens to other journalists but not to me. The observation that perceived workplace autonomy varies by media type (the journalists in the Swedish study who report the lowest perceived workplace autonomy are those working for tabloid newspapers and for public service television) is also borne out in the UK context, where a recent study provides numerous examples of how journalists on tabloid newspapers are kept on a short leash using short-­term employment contracts and very authoritarian management strategies (Phillips, Couldry, & Freedman, 2010: 56f). It may well be that surveys and interview studies alike self-­select journalists who do in fact have a higher degree of workplace autonomy; those with a low degree of workplace autonomy may not even be allowed to respond to surveys or participate in interviews (for example, the author experienced great difficulty in booking interviews with any British tabloid newspaper journalist, even on strict conditions of anonymity—there are no British tabloid journalists in the interview respondent sample of this present study). What Phillips, Couldry, & Freedman describe is a very active strategy (using both the stick and the carrot) on the part of editorial management to get journalists to accept the rules of the game: Each time they [i.e., young journalists; author’s note] move in the wrong direction they can be restrained so that, in the end, in order to gain a measure of employment protection, journalists are expected to “internalize” the requirements

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Newsworkers of the newsroom and produce news according to the style and political inflection of the newspaper. Phillips, Couldry, & Freedman, 2010: 56

While most journalistic workplaces may not be as nakedly authoritarian as British tabloid newspapers (see also the account of Peppiatt, 2011), there are clearly also socialization factors at work when journalists assess workplace autonomy. From the vantage point of journalism scholars, the fact that news values and news selection criteria are so widely shared among journalists (and also accord with commercial imperatives) is a clear limit on workplace autonomy, but working journalists do not see it as such: it is simply the way the job is done, where norms, values, and practices have been internalized through education as well as work. As discussed in the first part of this chapter, obvious violations of institutional norms (e.g., a journalist wanting to work on a story that does not at all fit with accepted news values and news selection criteria) are in fact rare and thus excessive workplace control is not necessary. Thus paraphrasing Herbert Simon’s well-­known concept of bounded rationality (Simon, 1957), journalists work under a regime of “bounded autonomy.” Within the bounds of autonomy, journalists are generally given great freedom to select stories and choose how they want to work on them, but they also know—and to a great extent have internalized—the limits of this freedom. There is no point in selecting a story you feel sure the desk editor will say no to, you cannot work on a single story for too long because it will take time from all the other stories you have to work on, you cannot use up too many organizational resources working on a single story because that will be difficult for your immediate superior to justify to his/her immediate superiors, and so on (see Schudson, 2003; Soloski, 1989). We thus know fairly well what these boundaries of autonomy are (as expressed for example in shared news values, norms about journalism’s societal role, and accepted practices of news production), but what remains is the question of what institutional factors determine them. The most popular (and well-­ supported) explanation, as already noted, is that journalism-­as-institution particularly lacks autonomy in relation to the market/commercial forces. However, another important determinant of autonomy boundaries seems to be the sphere of politics: not in the sense of direct state or political control but more as agreements on what constitutes politics, how politics should be conducted, and on how politics should be reported (see for example Cook, 1998; Kaplan, 2006). The contention in this strand of research is that journalism generally

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accepts the framings of processes and events that are provided by political power holders, and that journalism also has to play by the “rules of politics” as it is itself a political actor (e.g., Cook, 1998; Gans, 2011; Schudson, 2007; Sparrow, 1999). It is worth noting that most of this research is based on the US case, though of course Bourdieu also considers lack of autonomy from the political sphere a characteristic of the journalism he studied, i.e., French journalism (Bourdieu, 2005). While market forces work in more or less the same way everywhere, politics is different (in particular meta-­notions on what politics is and should be) and thus we may expect to see national differences in journalistic autonomy depending on what the political system in the nations in question is. This is, of course, one of the central tenets of Hallin & Mancini’s influential comparative work: political system differences have a direct causal link to differences in journalistic autonomy (e.g., Hallin & Mancini, 2004: 113f, 176, 222f).

Professionalism and duty: Professional roles Despite the popularity and influence of the concept, journalism has proven to be a problematic case of “professionalism” and “professionalization.” There has always been a strong strand of anti-­professionalism within journalism where many journalists prefer the term “trade” or “craft” when describing their occupation (Kimball, 1965; Josephi, 2009; Tumber & Prentoulis, 2005: 58). The sociology of professions uses the term semi-­profession (Etzioni, 1969) to describe those occupations that may have realized parts but not their entire “professional project” (e.g., nurses, teachers), and that term (or something similar to it) frequently has been applied to journalism (Schiller, 1979; Tumber & Prentoulis, 2005; Tunstall, 1971). Still, besides skill and autonomy, another key element of professionalism is that of duty or societal role, i.e., the idea that the profession is more than just a job (as pointed out in Chapter 1), but also fulfills some kind of normative societal function and that practitioners of the profession have a duty to uphold this societal function (e.g., Abbott, 1988; Burrage & Thorstendal, 1990; Freidson, 1990, 2001; Sarfatti Larson, 1977; MacDonald, 1995; Sciulli, 2005). Using a different but related concept, practitioners have a particular professional role that goes beyond just doing their job. In the case of journalism, there is a rich field of research on the professional roles of journalists, particularly from a

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comparative perspective (e.g., Donsbach & Patterson, 2004; Hanitzsch; 2011; Hanitzsch et  al., 2011; Weaver & Willnat, 2012). The notion of duty is central to professional self-­understanding, as demonstrated by this large body of research on journalistic role perceptions. There is always a debate to be had about the gap between ideal and reality, but the notion of a societal duty, whatever it may be, is very much alive in contemporary debates about journalism and media, as well as central to professional self-­understanding. A discourse of duty, societal role, and professionalism is also increasingly mobilized by journalists and media organizations in order to differentiate themselves from citizen journalists and citizen participation in the news (Örnebring, 2013)—despite the fact that citizen journalists rarely fulfill the same societal functions as legacy journalists (Karlsson & Holt, 2014). Though there may be some antipathy among journalists towards the notion of journalism as a profession, most journalists would agree that they aspire to a level of professionalism in their everyday work (Aldridge & Evetts, 2003), and duty or adherence to a professional role is commonly seen as the most important element of this professionalism. However, most studies of journalists’ professional roles are based on surveys that ask journalists to rate or rank a set of predefined possible duties. It is entirely possible that professional roles and duties in fact might not at all be the first thing that comes to journalists’ minds when asked about what constitutes professionalism, and a key part of this present study is therefore to look at how the practitioners themselves define professionalism, what they think “acting professionally” means, and in general what they think constitutes “good journalism” and “good journalists.”

Research questions The theoretical framework presented here thus proposes to address the overarching question of how journalism-­as-work is affected by changes in journalism-­asinstitution, using the dual concepts of organizational and occupational professionalism as the key heuristic to understand ongoing negotiations, conflicts, and transformation. More specifically, in relation to technology and technology use, the main questions are: l

l

How are technologies used? Why are they used in certain ways and not in others?

Institution, Work, and Professionalism l

l

37

How do existing templates for technology use influence the ways in which various technologies are integrated into the everyday practices of journalists? What templates are dominant, and why?

In relation to skill and expertise, the main questions are: l

l

l

l

l

What do you need to know in order to be a journalist? What skills do you need to have if you want to be a good journalist? Who gets to define what these “good journalism skills” are? What institutional purpose do they serve? How come that what on the face of it looks like a massive institutional upskilling process (journalists learning about new production and presentation technologies that they previously did not know about) is described by many as de facto deskilling?

Regarding autonomy, the main questions are: l

l

l

How is workplace autonomy perceived and constituted in different countries? What is the nature and character of the “bounded autonomy” under which journalists work? To what extent are the boundaries of autonomy internalized, and to what extent are they questioned and/or renegotiated?

Finally, on the issue of professional roles and professionalism in general, the main questions are: l

l

l

l

What do European journalists see as their key societal roles and duties? How do they define what “professionalism” is, which manner of definition is dominant, and why? What is the balance between organizational and occupational professionalism in contemporary European journalism? Why does this balance look the way it looks?

And, as this is a comparative study, all these questions are also comparative, meaning that the analysis will also attempt to define and explain salient national differences, where such exist. Background on the six nations, including identifying possible sources and explanations of difference in the four parts of the analysis, follows in the next chapter, along with a brief discussion of the empirical material on which the study is based.

3

Six Countries: Background and Empirical Data As noted in Chapter 1, this study draws upon a most-­similar systems comparative design: the countries included are all stable European parliamentary democracies where media freedoms are enshrined in law and journalists and news organizations are accorded strong legal privileges. In terms of media landscapes, all six countries have a national broadsheet or “quality” daily press as well as a set of more tabloid-­style newspapers (or “popular” press) which taken together consists of five to ten major titles. Alongside the commercial press all six countries also have an important public service broadcast organization taking a central position in the media landscape. While all public service broadcasters in these six countries do not command the same resources, in terms of audience shares they are all the most important or second most important broadcast outlet in their respective country. There is also, in each country, a commercial broadcasting sector consisting of a handful of players. All countries have a well-­developed Internet infrastructure and all major media organizations (print and broadcast, public and private) engage in online news provision as a matter of course. These similarities may at first seem superficial but it is worth noting that many countries do not really have national daily newspapers of the European type (e.g., the USA), and nor do all countries have strong public service broadcasters (again, the USA would be the prime example, but the same holds true for many Latin American countries). This type of media landscape, i.e., essentially free and democratic, and where a strong commercial press exists alongside a likewise strong, often dominant, public broadcaster, could in international comparison be considered typically (Western) European. That said, there are of course notable differences between the countries in this study. Population size, for example, is an important determinant of market size and as such to a great extent determines the overall size of the media landscape: the 62 million inhabitants of the UK can support twelve national-­circulation paid-­for dailies, whereas Estonia’s 1.3 million can sustain four. Similarly,

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according to estimates, there are about 40,000 journalists working in the UK and around 1,000 in Estonia, which of course creates very different conditions for specialist correspondents, among other things—Estonia has one person working more or less full time as a science journalist (Örnebring & Lauk, 2010), whereas the UK can sustain a 250-member Association of British Science Writers (ABSW, 2013). Of course, as these figures hint, size is not all—the UK has roughly forty-­seven times the population of Estonia, but only three times the number of national paid-­for dailies. Clearly Estonians are a more newspaper-­ reading people than Britons. Still, by the simple measure of number of outlets, the media landscapes in populous nations like Germany, the UK, Italy, and Poland are much more diverse than those in Sweden and Estonia. A note must also be made about the time frame of the country presentations and the empirical data. The interviews were conducted from October 2008 to June 2009, and the survey was in the field July to August, 2009 (more on the empirical data can be found at the end of this chapter and in the Methodological Appendix at the end of the book). Few things date more quickly than media landscape overviews, as media outlets close and merge and new ones open (and then close and merge). In the following country presentations, I have attempted to focus on general characteristics of the media landscape as well as those characteristics that stand out in international comparison; the ambition has not been to present a totally up-­to-date overview of the news media landscape. The presentations also mostly focus on what the landscape looked like in 2008–09, at the time of the empirical data gathering (with some exceptions where the only relevant data available was either older or newer). This means, for example, that there is no comparative background data on social media use and penetration in the country presentations, since social media was not the key facet of journalism-­as-institution and journalism-­as-work six-­odd years ago that it is today. It also means that the data was gathered in the aftermath of the global financial crisis in 2007–08, something that conceivably could have influenced the tenor and content of responses. However, as it turned out, in almost all of the countries studied the news industry had at that point either not yet been hit by the financial crisis (as in Sweden, for example), or was already in a perceived crisis well before the global financial crisis (as in the UK). The only country where respondents even mentioned news industry layoffs and news outlet closures as part of their everyday context of work was Estonia. In this aspect both the survey and the interviews were less context-­dependent than expected. In the following sections, the media landscapes of the six nations studied are presented, with a particular focus on what characterizes the respective media

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landscape in comparative perspective. The chapter then presents a brief comparative overview of current research and other data on the six nations relevant for the four parts of the empirical analysis, and ends with a short presentation of the empirical data that the study is based on.

Britain Britain is arguably the birthplace of journalism as an industrial enterprise: in the mid-­nineteenth century, when most European newspapers were “one-­man bands” or had at most about ten to twenty employees and reached relatively small urban elite groups (with circulations in the thousands), The Times of London had a daily circulation almost ten times its nearest competitor (60,000 to the Morning Advertiser’s 6,600, see Herd, 1952: 153) and employed somewhere between 100 and 150 people (estimate based on Hunt, 1850: 196–204). Other London newspapers were nowhere near as big as the The Times but still larger and more technologically advanced than the much smaller operations that were the norm in continental Europe. This legacy of early industrialization of the press marks Britain’s media landscape and its journalists to this day. The early emergence of a mass press meant an early emergence of journalism (focused on news gathering in particular) as a distinct occupation (e.g., Chalaby, 1996; Lee, 1976; King & Plunkett, 2004), and also forged strong links between newspapers, industrial capitalism, and political liberalism (Clark, 1994: 35; Curran & Seaton, 2003; Hallin & Mancini, 2004: 199f). Where other countries have debated the commercialization of newspapers in the past 20 to 30 years, it is fair to say that market logic has been the guiding principle of British newspapers since the late nineteenth century. Just as British newspapers for a long time were Europe’s market leaders and organizations that editors and newspaper owners in other countries looked to for inspiration, so too has British public service broadcasting become an international (European in particular) benchmark. The BBC, founded in 1922, is the world’s first public service broadcast organization and served as a model for many other nations setting up their own public broadcasting systems. Even though Curran’s influential and critical account of the history of the BBC places “The fall of the BBC” as early as the 1950s when commercial television was introduced in Britain (Curran & Seaton, 2003: 159f), there can be no doubt that in a comparative perspective, the power and influence of the BBC in the British media landscape continued to be extraordinary even after the launch of

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Independent Television (later ITV) in 1955. However, it is likewise true that the BBC has lost its unique position in the British media landscape (as have most European public service broadcasters) in the postwar era, and while “deregulation” of broadcasting is often seen as a process that started in earnest in the 1980s (e.g., McNair, 2003; Negrine, 1998), the introduction of a public service/commercial “duopoly” in 1955 was the de facto start of broadcast deregulation in Britain— meaning that Britain can be seen as the European leader in mass press development, in the development of public service, and in the subsequent deregulation of said public service. Still, again comparing the position of the BBC in Britain to the position of public service broadcasters elsewhere in Europe, it is worth noting that the BBC is still the most trusted news provider in the UK and has a well-­developed provision of online news. In international comparison, the British media landscape is characterized by a very competitive national daily newspaper market with a clear division between quality and popular newspapers (though note that in UK, the newspapers Daily Mail, Daily Express and Evening Standard are considered “mid-­market,” a kind of quality/popular hybrid). Sunday newspapers (effectively a kind of weekly) linked to the daily newspapers are popular but historically have a branding that is somewhat different from their “mother” paper. The popularity of the Sunday newspapers is one of the reasons weekly news magazines have not as a rule played an important role in the British media landscape (with the exception of The Economist, which is also highly successful internationally). The position of regional newspapers has significantly weakened in the past 10 to 15 years. Many regional newspapers have either ceased publication or merged production so that most of the content is produced in London and/or a single regional production center—the Express and Star in Wolverhampton is also unique in that it is independently owned (by the Graham family through their company Midland News Association) and not part of any of the big newspaper chains that dominate regional newspaper publishing. The commercial broadcasters (notably ITV and satellite rolling news channel Sky News) are also important providers of news and current affairs. There are no major pure player online news providers (i.e., news outlets that only exist online with no print or broadcasting counterpart) in the UK, though all major news outlets have, like the BBC, very well-­developed online presences and most are in effect global rather than national news brands. In 2009, the web page of the Daily Mail, MailOnline, received 73 percent of its traffic from outside the UK, more than the 67 percent of the more strongly internationally branded FT.com, the web page of the Financial Times (Smith, 2009).

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Table 3.1  Britain—Media landscape at a glance National paid-­for dailies (p = popular, q = quality, m = mid-­market) Freesheets Major regional newspapers Major weeklies Public service broadcasting Commercial broadcasting Online-­only News agencies Estimated # of journalists

The Sun (p), Daily Mail (m), Daily Mirror (p), Daily Star (p), Telegraph (q), Daily Express (m), Times (q), Financial Times (q), Guardian (q), Independent (q), i (m) Metro, Evening Standard Express & Star (Wolverhampton) is the only regional newspaper with a circulation over 100,000 copies. The Economist BBC1, Channel 4 ITV, 5, BSkyB (Sky News) N/A Press Association (PA); Thomson Reuters 60,000–70,000 (Spilsbury, 2002), 40,000 (Nel, 2010); Nel’s estimate is probably the more accurate one

Estonia Estonia has 1.34 million inhabitants (Statistics Estonia, 2010), of which roughly 25 percent is of ethnic Russian origin or is Russian-­speaking. The Russian minority has been a key issue on the political agenda in Estonia since transition (Linz & Stepan, 1996: 415f; Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2009), but the ethnic division of Estonia is not well reflected in the media landscape, which is dominated by Estonian-­language programming. Immediately following transition the Baltic media landscape was characterized by great volatility, rapid development, and near-­instant deregulation (Jõesaar, 2009: 44). Estonia has overall been seen as the most liberal, most deregulated economy in Central and Eastern Europe, and there is a broad political consensus around liberal, free-­market reform, and light-­touch regulation, tempered by a nationalistic or quasi-­nationalistic drive to protect and retain Estonian culture and the Estonian language—something that also extends to media policy (Örnebring, 2011). Estonia exhibits an essentially unregulated print and broadcast media landscape with a weak public service broadcaster and a small set of government-­owned and -operated weeklies and monthlies focused on culture, elite op-­ed style material, and reviews. The media market is dominated by two main owners, Eesti Meedia/the Postimees Group and the Ekspress Grupp. Eesti Meedia was acquired by the Norwegian media company Schibsted in 1998. Despite the sizeable Russian-­speaking minority in

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Estonia, there are no major Russian media companies active in the country. Two of the major Russian-­language dailies in Estonia, Molodjozh Estonii and Vesti Dnja, went bankrupt in late 2008/early 2009. Currently the only national Russian-­ language daily is the Russian edition of Postimees, although there are still a few regional or local dailies, and one major weekly, published in Russian. While Russian television channels are popular among the Russian-­speaking audience, none of these channels is based in Estonia. They broadcast from the Russian Federation, and the few “Russian” media companies based in Estonia have found it increasingly difficult to compete with them (Pettai & Mölder, 2010: 205). Estonia enjoys a strong tradition of print media going back to the late nineteenth century, when Estonia was part of the Russian empire. Thanks to a historical legacy of literacy (partial literacy rates were relatively high as early as the mid-­eighteenth century and over 95 percent by 1881; Raun, 1979: 122), levels of newspaper readership and reach in Estonia are much higher than they are in other Eastern European nations. Newspaper daily reach was over 62 percent in 2009—compared, for example, to 34 percent in Latvia, 49 percent in Lithuania, 82 percent in Sweden, 32 percent in Britain, and 55 percent in Poland (World Association of Newspapers, 2010a). In Estonia, there is also a well-­developed weekly newspaper market, dominated by the Ekspress Grupp and by news, current affairs, and cultural titles. The two major weeklies in Estonia are Eesti Ekspress and Maahlet (Agricultural News). Despite the strong position of newspapers in Estonia, the press market has been severely affected by the global recession. In the 2008–10 period, staff cuts of up to 30 percent, voluntary pay cuts, decreases in the number of pages, and decreased periodicity have been elements of the crisis management of the Estonian press (Örnebring, 2011: 13). The public service broadcaster Eesti Rahvusringhääling (ERR) is a good illustration of the Estonian media policy based on a free-­market model tempered by concerns over national culture and language. ERR is a weak organization, funded solely from the state budget on a year-­by-year basis (prior to 2002 ERR also carried advertising but a change in the broadcast law took away that funding stream; see Örnebring, 2011: 9), which has also experienced staff cuts in the wake of the financial crisis. At the same time, wholly deregulating ERR is viewed as a political impossibility as it is still considered to play a vital role in supporting the Estonian language and Estonian culture (Örnebring, 2011: 14). In terms of Internet media, Estonia is far ahead of its neighbors and indeed most of Europe, and is sometimes jokingly referred to as “E-stonia.” The country is often considered to be an international example of ICT integration in schools, e-­voting, and e-­government (Runnel et  al., 2009). Of the six nations studied,

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Table 3.2  Estonia—Media landscape at a glance National paid-­for dailies

Freesheets Major regional newspapers Major weeklies Public service broadcasting Commercial broadcasting Online-­only News agencies Estimated # of journalists

Postimees (q), Öhtuleht (p), Eesti Päevaleht (p), Äripäev (q), Postimees vene keeles (Russian-­language edition of Postimees) Linnaleht Pärnu Postimees Eesti Ekspress, Maaleht ETV, ETV2 Kanal 2, TV3 Delfi.ee Baltic News Service (BNS) 1,000 (Harro-Loit & Saks, 2006), 1,200 (Örnebring & Lauk, 2010)

Estonia is the only country to have a significant (in terms of audience share and reach) online-­only “pure player” news provider, Delfi.ee (which also exists in the other two Baltic states and the Ukraine).

Germany Germany is the most populous nation in Europe (Russia excepted) with its roughly 82 million inhabitants. German media conglomerates like Bertelsmann and Axel Springer AG are global media players, and several other German media companies—notably the WAZ-Mediengruppe (centered on Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung)—have holdings across Europe. Many other nations, in particular in post-­communist Europe, perceive a strong German influence over their media landscape. Considering that modern German media law and media structure were essentially set down by other nations, this rise of Germany as a European media superpower is all the more striking. Germany has experienced (at least) two important “breaks” in its modern media history: the re-­introduction of press freedom in 1945 following the years of Nazi rule, and then later German reunification in 1990. Effectively 1945 became a new start for German media, as the occupying powers of Britain, US, and France controlled media policy and structure, and saw this structural reform as an essential tool for the (re) democratization of Germany (Kaase, 2000: 376). Since 1990, most media companies and the major news organizations have been headquartered in Germany and Berlin (Kleinstuber & Thomass, 2007: 111).

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The German media landscape is characterized by a high degree of regionalization. This regionalization mirrors the strong political federalization of Germany; i.e., many government functions are decentralized to the regional level and the level of regional self-­governance is high by European standards—a key feature of the German constitution is the regulation of the relationship between the Federal government and the Länder (regional government units) (Bulmer & Paterson, 1987; Goetz, 1992). Broadcast as well as press laws are predominantly on the Länder level rather than on the federal (national) level. When West and East Germany were reunited in 1990, the East Germany media system was incorporated into the Western system—the broadcast system was “Westernized” whereas the print media sector retained its regional character in that the major newspaper titles that were influential in the East prior to reunification continued to be so after it (Hagen, 1997). All of the daily quality newspapers that today are considered national started as mainly regional/metropolitan area newspapers (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Frankfurter Rundschau, Süddeutsche Zeitung in Munich, Tagesspiegel in Berlin, and Die Welt in Hamburg—the latter founded in 1946 by the British occupying forces using The Times as a model). Compared to most other European countries (with the possible exception of Scandinavia), German local newspapers are exceptionally strong—Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung has a daily circulation of around 395,000 copies, and several German regional papers have daily circulations in excess of 200,000 copies. In Germany, the organizational template for daily newswork has been the regional newspaper rather than the national newspaper headquartered in the capital (as has been the case in Britain and many other countries, see Esser, 1998a, 1998b); indeed, a national German press is a relatively late invention. BILD-Zeitung, a tabloid, is the highest-­circulation national newspaper. Germany also has several important weekly newspapers, notably Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, and Focus. Die Zeit and Der Spiegel in particular occupy a cultural position similar to that of The Times or The Economist in Britain; i.e., they are largely aimed at an educated, elite audience and often feature investigative journalism and more in-­depth analysis of current events. These weekly newspapers are also national rather than regional/local in character. This regionalization also applies to broadcast media, public service broadcasting in particular. As noted, the regional character of public broadcasting is enshrined in the German constitution: responsibility for broadcasting lies with the Länder, with the exception of Deutschlandfunk and Deutsche Welle, whose primary function is news provision from Germany to foreign countries, and who

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Table 3.3  Germany—Media landscape at a glance National paid-­for dailies

Freesheets Major regional newspapers

Major weeklies Public service broadcasting Commercial broadcasting

Online-­only News agencies Estimated # of journalists

Bild (p), Süddeutsche Zeitung (q), Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (q), Welt (q), Frankfurter Rundschau (q), Tagesspiegel (q) N/A Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, Augsburger Allgemeine, Hamburger Abendblatt (these are just a few examples of the most successful ones— there are many more regional German newspapers with circulations over 200,000) Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, Der Stern, Focus ARD, ZDF Sat 1, Pro 7, N24, Kabel 1, 9live (all part of the ProSieben group), RTL, RTL II, Super RTL, VOX, n-­tv (all RTL Group) Netzeitung.de Deutsche Pressagentur (DPA) 48,000 (Weischenberg, Malik, & Scholl, 2012; estimate from 2005)

therefore are regulated on a federal level. However, the de facto organization of German public broadcasting is to a great degree national (if not federal), as the two main broadcasters ARD and ZDF are formed as conglomerates or cooperative umbrella organizations for the Länder-­level broadcast organizations (Kleinstuber & Thomass, 2007: 114f). Like Britain, Germany has a dual system where the influential public broadcast networks share the market with commercial providers. Two commercial networks dominate the market, ProSieben SAT 1 Media AG and RTL Group, each controlling a number of individual TV channels. Regional commercial television mainly exists in the larger cities, e.g., Hamburg and Berlin.

Italy In contrast to Britain and Germany, a mass press developed late in Italy—if at all. In most countries journalism started out being a literary and/or political vocation, but as the commercial press grew stronger, the literary/political aspects of journalism weakened in favor of a focus on news and reporting of interest to mass audiences. In Italy—as in most of Southern Europe—these older roots of

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journalism remained strong as a commercial mass press never really appeared (Hallin & Mancini, 2004: 93f). During the Risorgimenti period (1815–70; i.e., roughly the same time period in which the commercial mass press emerged and consolidated in Britain), political figures/activists engaged in Italian unification (notably Camillo Benso, the Count Cavor, and Giuseppe Manzini) were also active journalists/publicists and many intellectuals of the period insisted on a pedagogical role of the press and thought it necessary to prevent undue mass influence on newspapers lest it would lead to factionalism or a dictatorship of the majority (Isabella, 2012). In short, the ideals of the press and journalism in Italy were far from the liberal/industrial capitalist principles that guided the rise of the mass press in Britain. This notion that journalism should be subsumed under political interests—what Hallin & Mancini term instrumentalization (Hallin & Mancini, 2004: 56f, 113)—thus has deep historical roots in Italy. The most prominent example of this instrumentalization in the postwar era is of course Silvio Berlusconi, who began to use his media conglomerate Mediaset (controlling the three major commercial TV channels in Italy) as a political tool when he stood in the 1994 elections, and who was simultaneously Prime Minister and head of Mediaset 2001–06 (Giomi, 2012). Newspaper readership and reach figures are low in Italy and daily newspapers, while having circulations in the 4 to 5 hundred thousands (Il Corriere della sera and La Repubblica are the largest-­circulation quality dailies), are still aimed more at a societal, urban elite rather than at a mass audience: the Italian journalist Forcella used the term “Millecinquecento lettori” (“Fifteen hundred readers”) in 1959 to designate the elite political, cultural, and civil society agenda setters that the political press really aimed to reach (Forcella, 1959, quoted in Hallin & Mancini, 2004: 96). The exceptions to this are the much more popular sports newspapers like La Gazzetta dello Sport and Corriere dello Sport – Stadio—Italy lacks any true tabloid-­style popular newspapers focused on entertainment; this cultural position is instead held by commercial television (again, see Giomi, 2012 as well as Hallin & Mancini, 2004). Overall, television—which has a duopoly structure in Italy—is the main medium in the Italian media landscape. Political parallelism, i.e., that the political interests and parties represented in the political system are mirrored in the media system through the party loyalties of newspapers and TV channels, is likewise strong in Italy. Most daily newspapers are loyal to a particular political party or at the very least have a clear right/left orientation. This political parallelism has also been institutionalized in public service broadcasting through a system known as lottizzazione (“allotment,”

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“allocation,” or “spoils”). The lottizzazione system existed on at least two levels. First, the macro-­level of governance, where members of the RAI (the Italian public broadcasters) Board as well as the parliamentary committee tasked with its oversight were appointed in such a way as to ensure that the major parties had direct influence on policy decisions, with “winning” parties getting the most appointments or “spoils.” Second, the system also worked on the micro-­ level, in particular in the area of news and current affairs programming: certain individual journalists and/or editorial managers were seen as “belonging to,” or being loyal to, particular politicians—essentially a form of clientelism with direct impact on the political slant of journalism (see Hibberd, 1999: 124f). I have used the past tense in describing the lottizzazione system because after a series of reforms in the 1990s there has been less direct political interference in public service broadcasting and the system is largely considered to have come to an end, even though, as Hibberd points out, there are still residual elements left as “[M]any of those working within the company have grown accustomed to a culture of political interference. Many politicians have become used to treating broadcasting as a political hired-­hand” (Hibberd, 1999: 203). In Hallin & Mancini’s view, public service broadcasting in Italy remains politicized to a great degree, on the macro- as well as micro-­levels (Hallin & Mancini, 2004: 109). Another peculiarity of the Italian media system is the fact that journalism is essentially a “closed shop”: entry into the profession is guarded by the Ordine dei Giornalisti (Order of Journalists, ODG); the following account of ODG is based on Conte, 2011. The ODG is not a trade union but rather a professional association or “corporation,” founded in 1963 but with roots back to Fascist Italy. In Italy there are many similar corporations (for doctors, lawyers, and other educated professions, e.g., architects) who regulate entry into the profession: in order to be able to work in a particular profession, you need to have approval from the corporation. In the case of ODG, for example, you need to take an oral and written exam before you can be approved as a journalist, making Italy the only European democracy where you need to pass a test in order to become a journalist (up until 2009 the written exam had to be taken on a typewriter; after 2009 laptop computers were also allowed). Conte further notes that while the ODG has around 110,000 members, a majority (about 75 percent) of those members are in fact not primarily working as journalists (or indeed working as journalists at all) but instead have sought membership in order to get other associated benefits, e.g., free entry to museums (Conte, 2011).

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Table 3.4  Italy—Media landscape at a glance National paid-­for dailies

Freesheets Major regional newspapers Major weeklies Public service broadcasting Commercial broadcasting Online-­only News agencies Estimated # of journalists

La Gazzetta dello Sport (sports daily), Corriere della sera (q), La Repubblica (q), La Stampa (q), Il Messaggero (q), Il Sole 24 Ore (q), Corriere dello Sport (sports daily) Leggo, City, E-Polis, Metro Il Giornale, Italia Oggi, L’Avvenire, Libero N/A Rai Uno, Rai Due, Rai Tre Rete 4, Canale 5, Italia 1, La 7 N/A Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA) 27,500 (Conte, 2011; the Ordine dei Giornalisti has 110,000 members but only about 25 percent of members are actually practicing journalists, even part-­time)

Poland Poland is the largest of the Central and Eastern European post-­communist democracies with a population of 38 million in 2008. The country is homogeneous in national, linguistic, and cultural terms: 96.7 percent of the population is ethnically and linguistically Polish and 90 percent of the population is Roman Catholic (about 75 percent practicing; WAN, 2010b; Lara, 2010; Hume, 2011). Like Estonia and the rest of post-­communist Europe, the media landscape in Poland mostly has its starting point in 1989 and follows a familiar post-­communist pattern: reform of media laws, deregulation of print media, transformation of state broadcasting organizations to public service broadcasting organizations, and foreign investment in the media sector (in Poland’s case mostly from Germany—in the early transition years French company Hersant was also an important actor on the Polish media market, but they later sold their assets to a German company; see Bajomi-Lázár et  al., 2011: 8). Parts of the media landscape of course have earlier roots: print media have a tradition of at least partial freedom as Poland was one of the few communist countries with an active samizdat press (i.e., dissident press) (the Catholic Church also had the right to publish its own newspapers). After the introduction of martial law on December 13, 1981, there were over one thousand

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uncensored journals produced on a regular or occasional basis (Curry, 2003; Sparks, 2008). The creation of what is arguably the national newspaper of record, Gazeta wyborcza, stands as an example of how tied the media landscape is to the fall of communism and the introduction of democracy: the paper was founded in 1989 to be the Solidarity movement’s newspaper in the run-­up to the first semi-­free elections in 1989 (Gazeta wyborcza = Electoral Gazette). Besides Agora SA (founders/owners of Gazeta wyborcza), the print media market in Poland is dominated by German companies, mainly Axel Springer, Verlagsgruppe Passau, and H. Bauer. In terms of local and regional newspapers, Poland has had a relatively strong and diverse regional newspaper market but this market has weakened in recent years and the number of local/regional titles has gone down (Lara, 2010); Gazeta wyborcza competes with many regional newspapers by publishing local editions. Another peculiarity of the Polish media system is that the state is an active media owner. The news agency Polish Press Agency, traditionally controlled by the Office of the Prime Minister, was turned into a joint stock company in 1997 with the state owning 51 percent of the stock. The government thus can exercise a certain degree of political control over the news agency (Jakubowicz, 2003). Likewise, the government is co-­owner of the daily Rzeczpospolita with a 49 percent share (though that has not necessarily been reflected in the editorial profile as Rzeczpospolita at times has had an anti-­government orientation; see Bajomi-Lázár et al., 2011: 10). In terms of broadcasting, the public service broadcaster TVP (with two national channels, a network of regional channels, and four satellite/cable channels) has a very strong position—in Europe it is only in Denmark, Britain, and Germany that public service broadcasters have a higher audience share (EAO, 2009). In contrast to the print media market, the commercial broadcasting sector is dominated by domestic owners: the two largest commercial TV companies, Polsat and TVN, both have Polish owners. The Catholic Church has a privileged position in the media sector: the Church has legal status as a so-­called “social broadcaster,” meaning it does not have to pay for a broadcast license (although it still needs to hold one). The Catholic Church is mainly involved in the local/regional radio market: by 1997 the Church owned fifty-­nine local and regional radio stations throughout Poland (Klimkiewicz, 2004; Filas & Płaneta, 2009; Lara, 2010). As in Italy, the Polish media landscape is considered by most observers and scholars to be, in comparison, highly politicized (e.g., Bajomi-Lázár et al., 2011; Filas & Płaneta, 2009; Jakubowicz, 2003; Sparks, 2008). Appointments at the public

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Table 3.5  Poland—Media landscape at a glance National paid-­for dailies

Freesheets Major regional newspapers Major weeklies Public service broadcasting Commercial broadcasting Online-­only News agencies Estimated # of journalists

Fakt (p), Gazeta wyborcza (q), Super Express (p), Rzeczpospolita (q), Dziennik Gazeta Prawna (q), Futbol News (sports daily), Przeglad Sportowy (sports daily) Metro Polska Dziennik Zachodni, Gazeta Pomorska Polityka, Wprost, Newsweek Polska TVP1, TVP2 TVN, TVN24, Polsat N/A Polish Press Agency (PAP), Catholic Information Agency (KAI) 18,000–20,000 (Bajomi-Lázár et al., 2011: 20)

service broadcaster TVP at all levels are motivated by political considerations (Filas & Płaneta, 2009)—in 2009 alone, TVP’s president was replaced four times (Hume, 2011). Consecutive governments of all political colors have attempted to retain direct influence over TVP (Bajomi-Lázár et al., 2011: 17f). Catholic media, in particular arch-­conservative network Radio Maryja, have largely been engaged on the right/conservative side of Polish politics (Bajomi-Lázár et al., 2011: 13). Whereas there is little in the way of direct party–press parallelism (i.e., that political parties directly own, control or subsidize newspapers), the major broadsheets and weeklies overtly associate themselves with the various political forces. The journalism community is also divided along political lines. There are around ten journalists’ unions/associations in Poland with different ideological, social, and generational loyalties, making it difficult for Polish journalists to collectively defend their interests (Filas & Płaneta, 2009; Hume, 2011). The three main journalists’ associations, Journalists’ Association of the Republic of Poland (SDRP), the Polish Journalists’ Association (SDP), and the Catholic Journalists’ Association (KSD) all have their separate ethical codes and charters and their own “honor courts” of self-­regulation (Bajomi-Lázár et al., 2011: 20).

Sweden Sweden boasts a long history of press freedom: press freedom has been enshrined in the constitution since 1766 (the first press freedom law in the world). It is less

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53

known that the Press Freedom Act of 1766 was repealed in 1772, then introduced again in 1792, gradually modernized until a new Press Freedom Act was passed in 1809, which was in turn weakened and diluted in the 1830s and 1840s, until the last serious attempt by the monarchy to limit press freedom using the strict French press laws as a model was voted down by the Swedish parliament in 1856 (Nordmark, 2001: 111). Still, even though the history of press freedom in Sweden is a bit more checkered than is normally presented, in international comparison Sweden’s legal commitment to press freedom as an essential part of liberal democracy is strong and long-­standing. Sweden is a typical example of what Hallin & Mancini (2004) describe as a democratic-­corporatist system, where political parties and traditional interest organizations like trade unions have historically been strong and important. Like in Germany, but unlike the UK, there has been a strong party–press tradition in Sweden, and journalists are highly unionized. Likewise, newspaper readership in general is high—75 percent of Sweden’s adult population (total population about 9 million) read a newspaper on an average day, making Sweden one of the most newspaper-­reading countries in the world (Weibull et al., 2010). A key feature of the Swedish media landscape in comparative perspective is the direct press subsidy system, though while this has been an important feature affecting the structure of the Swedish media landscape (allowing many local/regional papers that would otherwise not have been financially viable to survive for longer), the subsidy system does not play an important role today as many of the newspapers that relied on it have been closed or merged with other newspapers (Weibull et al., 2010). In summary, the Swedish newspaper and printed press markets have been very strong in international comparison, with many local and regional papers, high circulation and reach, and high profitability. Even though the newspaper market has declined in recent years due to falling advertising revenues, the daily newspaper sector’s share of total advertising revenue is still very high by international standards at 27 percent in 2008 (Weibull et al., 2010). In terms of broadcasting, Sweden is like most other European countries, a duopoly with a strong public service broadcaster and one strong commercial competitor (TV4). However, it is worth noting that Swedish broadcasting deregulation did not begin until 1987 (when the first Swedish satellite channel TV3 started broadcasting from London) and did not become an integral feature of the media landscape until 1992, when TV4, the first commercial terrestrial and national broadcaster, started operations. In European comparison, this is a late start of broadcasting deregulation, and SVT and SR (the public service television and radio broadcasters respectively) remain dominant players on the

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Swedish market. The public service influence and ethos is strong as even TV4 can be considered a “hybrid” public service/commercial channel, as its broadcast license comes with numerous public service obligations including news and current affairs provision, obligations to carry children’s programming, and cultural programming, etc. (Hadenius et  al., 2008: 199f). Currently Swedish media conglomerate Bonniers (which also has interests in numerous Central and Eastern European media outlets) is the majority owner of TV4; Bonniers also owns the major quality daily Dagens Nyheter, one of the two national tabloids Expressen, dominant business newspaper Dagens Industri, and important regional daily Sydsvenska Dagbladet—and also has interests in book and magazine publishing and online media. Thus concentration of ownership is periodically debated in Sweden but so far there has been no political impetus (from either the political left or right) to limit Bonniers’ dominant role (Hadenius et al., 2008: 217f). As noted, Hallin & Mancini identify Sweden as a typical example of a democratic-­corporatist media system. However, it is important to point out that the consensus among historians of the Swedish press is that during the twentieth century in particular, Sweden has been much more influenced by, and sought influences from, the UK and the USA rather than continental Europe (Gustafsson & Rydén, 2002). Anglo-American-­style “newsrooms” (i.e., open-­plan offices where most members of the editorial team work together) have been the norm in

Table 3.6  Sweden—Media system at a glance National paid-­for dailies Freesheets Major regional newspapers

Major weeklies Public service broadcasting Commercial broadcasting Online-­only News agencies Estimated # of journalists

Aftonbladet (p), Expressen/GT (p), Dagens Nyheter (q), Svenska Dagbladet (q), Dagens Industri (q) Metro Göteborgs-Posten, Sydsvenska Dagbladet, Helsingborgs Dagblad, Dalarnas Tidningar, Nerikes Allehanda N/A SVT1, SVT2 TV4, TV3, 5 N/A Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå (TT) 19,000 (estimates based on union membership figures from Andersson, 2012 and unionization rate figures from Nygren, 2010: 20)

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Sweden at least since the late 1800s. Aftonbladet moved their offices from Gamla Stan to Klara in Stockholm in 1888, moving into the first modern-­style “media building” collecting the editorial staff in one place, and Anders Jeurling, owner of Stockholms-Tidningen, followed a few years later to fill an entire city block with his editorial team and printing operation (Petersson, 2001: 246f, 317)—this in contrast to neighboring Norway, where newsrooms did not become the norm until well into the twentieth century (Høyer, 2003). A recent survey furthermore found very strong support for “Anglo-American” values (e.g., watchdog journalism, objective/neutral reporting) among Swedish journalists (Wiik, 2007).

Comparative dimensions: Technology, skill, autonomy, and professionalism in six countries In addition to the overview of the media landscapes of the six European nations studied, it is also necessary to provide some context for the following chapters on technology, skill, autonomy, and professionalism, based on existing research. The previous sections looked at the nations one by one, whereas this section will take a more explicit comparative perspective and contextualize these four parts of the empirical study across the six nations.

Technology Technology—in particular digital networked technology like the Internet and related technologies—is normally viewed as something of a global constant in studies of journalism and convergence. Indeed, there is plenty of evidence that technological convergence, particularly on the organizational level, has very similar consequences across nations (Allan, 2006; Deuze et al., 2004; Avilés et al., 2004; Singer et  al., 2011). In contrast, researchers looking at different news organizations within the same country (e.g., Avilés & Carvajal, 2008; Singer, 2004b) have found considerable organization-­level variation in how technological convergence is diffused. Since national-­level factors have not explicitly been compared with organizational-­level factors in these or other studies, it is still unclear whether differences in “newsroom convergence,” the technologization of journalism, or whatever one chooses to call it, are actually more down to organizational factors than national ones, or whether it is simply the case that the organizational comparisons largely ignore the national context. The preceding overview hints at nation-­level factors at work in newsroom technology

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diffusion: compare e-­voting in Estonia with Italian journalists having to do their professional entry exam using a typewriter until 2009, for example. It seems reasonable to assume that the degree of newswork technologization in a given country will have something to do with the general level of ICT diffusion in that same country. Table 3.7 summarizes some of these differences using the proxy measures of daily Internet use (Eurobarometer, 2012: 10), household Internet access, individuals never having used the Internet, and individuals having used the Internet to interact with public authorities (Eurostat, 2012). All of these are considered to be among the key performance indicators in the area of digitalization by the EU (Eurostat, 2012), and the latter measure (use of Internet to interact with public authorities) is the one most closely related to what could (loosely) be described as journalistic activity. Looking at these measures, we can see that regardless of the proxy indicator used, Sweden is the most “technologized” country and Italy the least. Estonia scores high in relation to other post-­communist and Southern European nations (not just the ones included here), but somewhat lower than many Western European nations—Estonian regular Internet use is higher than in Germany, as is use of the Internet for e-­government access, but overall household Internet Table 3.7  Proxy measures of convergence across the six investigated nations All figures are percent, all figures from 2012

UK

EE

DE

IT

PL

SE

EU27

Individuals regularly using the Internet1 Household Internet access2 Individuals never having used the Internet3 Individuals having used the Internet to interact with public authorities4

64

64

53

45

45

83

54

87

75

85

63

70

92

76

10

19

15

37

32

5

22

43

55

51

19

32

78

44

1  Individuals reporting the use of the Internet “Every day/Almost every day,” percentage of the population. 2  Percentage of all households. 3  Percentage of the population. 4  Interaction at least once in the past 12 months; using at least one of the following e-­government services: obtaining services from public authorities’ websites, downloading official forms, sending filled-­in forms.

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access is lower, for example. Poland is roughly on the same (comparatively low) level as Italy except when it comes to using the Internet to access e-­government services. Overall, Sweden, Estonia, and Germany are above the EU27 average when it comes to accessing e-­government services, and Britain, Poland, and Italy fall below. Based on these figures we could expect Sweden to be the most highly technologized and Italy the least, with Britain, Germany, and possibly Estonia exhibiting a higher degree of technologization and Poland a lower degree.

Skill Like technology, skill is often viewed as a constant in journalism, and journalistic skill demands are generally assumed to be the same across national boundaries (or more correctly: there is no thought at all given to comparative perspectives on journalistic skill). In an early study of online journalism, Deuze also points out the general scarcity of sources on any kind of more theoretically informed discussion of what skills are considered necessary in order to produce “good journalism” (Deuze, 1999: 379f). Very little has changed since Deuze’s study. The concept of multi-­skilling, for example, is solely used to refer to skill in multiple production technologies, rather than for example skill in writing to different genres, or skill in using many different journalistic formats (Avilés et al., 2004; Chung, 2007; Huang, 2006; Nygren, 2008; Singer, 2004b). These same studies also seem to indicate that issues of multi-­skilling/ deskilling/reskilling are similar across a number of different nations. However, looking at other comparative studies and also in particular comparing national histories of journalism, one may at least infer or extrapolate certain potential national differences in how journalistic skills are conceptualized and valued. As noted in Chapter 2, there is historical evidence for (at least) two different functional roles in journalism, each associated with a different skill set: an editorial or desk role, and a reporter or field role. In view of the fact that the reporter role is primarily Anglo-American in origin (Chalaby, 1996, 1998; Hampton, 2004; see also King & Plunkett, 2004), we could therefore expect skills associated with this field-­oriented role of journalism (e.g., techniques for information gathering, interacting with sources, working independently) to be more valued in Anglo-American nations. Conversely, the stronger the editorial role has been historically in a given nation, the stronger the emphasis on editorial skills (e.g., editing the texts of others, leadership/management skills, knowledge of production technologies) in that nation may be. We may also possibly expect that nations with a strong literary tradition in journalism would emphasize a slightly different skill set. Hallin and Mancini

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note that the literary tradition of journalism was much stronger in the Mediterranean countries than elsewhere (Hallin & Mancini, 2004: 90ff, also supported by Chalaby, 1996 and Neveu, 2001), and other researchers have noted the importance of the literary journalism tradition in many Central and Eastern European countries (e.g., Hadamik, 2005: 212f; Høyer et  al., 1993). Again following Hallin and Mancini, we may also expect that journalists in nations that are characterized by a high level of clientelism may need a slightly different skill set: if your societal position to a great degree is determined by your place in and relation to various clientelistic networks then networking skills and other social skills may de facto be very important in order to advance in journalism. All this is essentially speculation, however, as there simply are no empirical studies or theoretical texts discussing how journalistic skills may differ between nations, and how even the very concept of “journalistic skill” may be understood differently in different countries. In this area, the need for empirical data on the comparative level is particularly pressing.

Autonomy In contrast to skill, there is quite a bit of comparative research examining how journalistic autonomy is perceived in different countries, as well as on how different factors both internal and external to journalism impact on the autonomy of journalism—on the institutional as well as the workplace level. Hallin and Mancini’s work falls in this category, as do recent comparative studies by Hanitzsch and colleagues (Hallin & Mancini, 2004; Hanitzsch et  al., 2010; Hanitzsch & Mellado, 2011; see also Zhu et al., 1997). Following Hanitzsch and Mellado (2011), who have synthesized much of the earlier research in addition to doing an extensive cross-­national comparison, we can distinguish between six levels of influence on journalistic work, i.e., six levels of constraints on journalistic autonomy: political influences, economic influences, organizational influences, procedural influences, professional influences, and reference groups (the latter encompassing a diverse selection of actor groups including for example colleagues, audiences, and family and friends; see Hanitzsch & Mellado, 2011: 407). They then found that political influences were given considerably more weight in nations that were authoritarian/semi-­authoritarian or who had a recent history of authoritarian rule (e.g., China, Turkey, Uganda, Chile, Egypt, and Russia; Hanitzsch & Mellado, 2011: 415). Contrary to their expectation, they did not find economic influences to be stronger in countries with the highest degree of economic/market freedom (due to a supposed greater degree of

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competition and commercialization in such nations), but rather stronger in the economically least-­free countries (Hanitzsch & Mellado, 2011: 416). However, the overall finding is still that political and economic influences are rated as relatively low across all the eighteen nations investigated by Hanitzsch and his team, and instead the greatest influence is attributed to organizational and procedural influences, leading Hanitzsch and Mellado to state: This may come as a surprise, but in everyday news work, not every journalist may become subject to direct political or economic influence. To most journalists, these influences might rather appear as organizational and procedural limits [. . .]. Furthermore, journalists may have internalized these influences through professional socialization even to the extent that they do not appear as external forces any longer but as “natural” aspects of journalistic work. Hanitzsch & Mellado, 2011: 416f; see also Hanitzsch et al., 2010

In other words, while much of the scholarly literature is concerned with the external (i.e., political and economic) limits on journalistic autonomy, for journalists themselves—across all nations—the influences most keenly felt are those closest to their everyday working life, i.e., the demands of the organization, professional values and routines, and their reputation among their peers. Following these results, we may not expect to see such great differences in how journalistic autonomy is assessed in the six nations studied. All six are essentially democratic countries with high levels of economic freedom, and thus the expectation based on Hanitzsch and colleagues’ comparative study is that perception of autonomy will not differ much between countries, at least not on the political and economic level. This to some extent contradicts Hallin and Mancini’s assertion that there are clear differences between media systems in this regard: political influence is asserted to be much stronger in their so-­called polarized pluralist or Mediterranean system (Hallin & Mancini, 2004: 113f), whereas the economic influences mark the liberal or Anglo-American system and are furthermore spreading across Western Europe (“commercialization-­as-homogenization”; Hallin & Mancini, 2004: 251f; evidence for the latter assertion is also found in among others Fenton, 2010; Lee-Wright et al., 2012; Preston, 2009; Witschge & Nygren, 2009).

Professionalism As noted, professionalism has been subjected to extensive cross-­national comparative analysis, particularly on the issue of professional roles or role-­ conceptions. Research on this topic has in fact been one of the dominant strands

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of comparative journalism research (Örnebring, 2012). Comparative analysis of journalists’ professional roles is an important element of the global comparative studies conducted by Weaver and associates (Weaver, 1996, 1998a, 1998b; Weaver & Willnat, 2012); their first study encompassed twenty-­one countries, the second (2012) study thirty-­one. Examination of journalistic professional roles is also a key part of the previously mentioned global eighteen-­nation comparative study by Hanitzsch (Hanitzsch, 2011). Smaller-­scale comparative studies of journalistic professionalism also abound, e.g., Köcher’s comparison of British and German journalists (Köcher, 1986); Patterson and Donsbach’s comparison of news decisions (closely associated with professional values and roles) in Britain, Germany, the USA, Italy, and Sweden (Patterson & Donsbach, 1996); and Deuze’s study of Dutch, German, British, Australian, and US journalists (Deuze, 2002). Extracting information on our six nations from these studies, the expectation would be to find British journalists more likely to define journalistic professionalism as being a neutral observer and a watchdog, German journalists more oriented towards a teacher/explainer role, Swedish journalists supporting a social responsibility role, and Italian journalists more likely to take on a partisan advocate role. Other studies of journalists in post-­communist Europe would lead us to expect more support for an activist/agent-­of-change-­type professional role in Poland and Estonia, grounded in a historical heritage where (independent/samizdat) journalism had an oppositional or counter-­hegemonic role (Gross, 2002: 164f; Lauk, 1996). However, we should also note that one of Hanitzsch’s key conclusions in this regard is that while different journalistic roles may be given different weight across countries, the four core roles he found (Populist Disseminators, Detached Watchdogs, Critical Change Agents, and Opportunist Facilitators; see Hanitzsch, 2011) were also present across all nations; i.e., journalists in any one country may take up a number of different professional roles even though some of them may be dominant. Professional role is not the only element of professionalism, however. Professional roles deal with the normative aspect of professionalism, but professionalism also has a descriptive dimension that has to do with professional entry, formation, competence, and formal requirements. What education is needed to qualify for the profession? Is the profession consolidated into associations and/or unions? What do career paths and career progression in the profession look like? And so on. In Terzis’ (2009) collection of texts on journalism education in Europe we find, for example, that in Germany and Italy various forms of in-­house training and internship programs are still an important entryway into the profession (called Volontariat in Germany; see Fröhlich & Holz-Bacha, 2009; for Italy see Agostini,

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2009). This used to be important in Britain and Sweden as well but such training programs are now virtually non-­existent (Williams, 2006). In Italy, as noted previously, entry into the profession is highly controlled, and in Poland there has been recurring debate about further regulating the profession by adding a legal definition of who should be allowed to call themselves a journalist (Bajomi-Lázár et  al., 2011)—whereas in most countries, regulating entry into the profession in this way would likely be seen as non- or even anti-­ democratic. In terms of professional associations, Poland and Estonia are more fragmented—in Estonia, the two self-­regulating bodies in journalism are even rivals (Lauk, 2009: 73f)—and unions generally weak (Bajomi-Lázár et  al., 2011; Örnebring, 2011). Union weakness is also a feature in Britain, where the National Union of Journalists has battled de-­recognition as well as falling memberships. In Sweden, in contrast, unionization rates are high but as elsewhere, the Swedish Union of Journalists grapples with falling membership numbers (Nygren, 2010). Professionalism is thus an area where we would expect to see a lot of differences between the six nations studied, both in terms of professional roles and values, and in terms of professional formation and professional requirements. In the latter case, we could for example expect Italian and Polish journalists to be more vocal in maintaining the status and uniqueness of professional journalism vis-à-­vis citizen journalism and other amateur initiatives, as these countries have either maintained a high level of professional closure (Italy) or had the issue of professional closure on the political agenda (Poland). On the other hand, journalists in countries with more fragmented professional associations (Poland, Estonia, and to some extent Britain) could perhaps be expected to be less unified in their views on what constitutes professionalism and demonstrate more diversity of opinion on this issue.

The empirical material Note: This section contains a very brief presentation of the empirical material used for the study. Sampling and other methodological issues are discussed in considerably more detail in the Methodological Appendix; this appendix also includes the full set of survey questions and the interview manual. This study is based on two data sets. First, an email survey of journalists in the six countries with 2,238 respondents (n for UK = 707; Italy = 380; Germany =

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349; Sweden = 394; Poland = 131; Estonia = 277). Second, a set of sixty-­three qualitative interviews with about ten respondents in each of the six countries. The survey was translated into the language of the respective nations, and each translation was double-­checked by a native-­speaker academic specializing in the field of media and journalism research. Many of the survey questions were statements where the respondents were asked to indicate agreement or disagreement on a 7-point Likert scale, where 1 = Disagrees completely, and 7 = Agrees completely. Also, 7-point Likert scales were used for other types of questions, e.g., indicating the importance of a particular skill, where 1 = Not important at all, and 7 = Absolutely essential. The overall reply rate was low (averaging between 4 and 5 percent), in part due to the large and relatively unspecific sample base (commercially available lists of journalists); this was still the best sample base available given the time frame and resources of the project. However, when analysing the final sample composition it turned out the national samples more or less matched key demographic data as found in other surveys, i.e., these samples had roughly the same proportion of women/men, different educational levels, etc., among the respondents as found in other representative national surveys. The overall sample over-­represents newspaper/print journalists and under-­represents journalists working in broadcasting and online-­only environments, so the results need to be interpreted in this light (i.e., the results found mostly apply to newspaper/print journalists). The final sample also includes freelance journalists, which few national representative surveys do (Germany excepted). The interviews were all conducted in the native language of the respondents by either the author (Sweden and the UK) or native-­speaker research assistants. All interviews were transcribed and all Estonian, German, Italian, and Polish interview transcriptions were translated into English. About one-­third of the journalists from each country were early-­career journalists (less than five years in the occupation), one-­third mid-­career (five to fifteen years), and one-­third late-­career (more than fifteen years). In a similar fashion, roughly one-­third of journalists from each country worked mainly in print media, one-­third in broadcast media, and one-­third in Internet/online media (this included journalists who worked for the online version of a newspaper or broadcast news show). At least two journalists from each country (from the mid- and late-­career categories) were freelancers, i.e., not permanently employed by any media organization. The focus was on journalists who were involved in day-­to-day “traditional” newsgathering (as opposed to, say, op-­ed writers or cultural reviewers), but some effort was also made to include people with other types of

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63

journalistic experience and different specialisms; overall, one or two journalists from each country fit that category (which included for example a specialist on news for young people and children, two sports journalists, and two cultural journalists). In the analysis, quotes from journalists are anonymized and respondents are only identified using the (Career stage, Primary medium, Country) designation, i.e., “Early-­career, online, Poland” or “Mid-­career, print, UK.” Gender has been randomly changed across the material in order to further anonymize respondents. Finally, a few words on the age of the data. The data was gathered in 2008–09 and thus in some sense this study is already a historical one. At the time of the study, real-­time Web audience metrics, multiplatform content management systems, and search engine optimization were the key technological innovations and changes news organizations were coping with. Social media and social networking sites were not yet on the agenda for many news organizations, or at least they were much lower down on the agenda than they are today. As such, this study can only offer a snapshot of processes of change, but as we shall see (and here I allow myself to “retrospectively anticipate” the results of the analysis), one of the most striking results of this study is the stability of existing institutional and workplace patterns. Many respondents describe their industry and their workplace as being in constant flux, yet their working routines and uses of technology are remarkably similar to how journalists have been working and adopting new technologies before (Usher highlights similar issues in her study of the New York Times, where she did her data gathering in 2010 and the study was published in 2014; see Usher, 2014: 216f). Furthermore, real-­time Web audience metrics and search engine optimization have not become less important in the years that have passed since the data was gathered; in fact the use of such technologies is now entirely naturalized in many news organizations. Similarly, content management systems have become more sophisticated, not less, and continue to guide and frame everyday journalistic work in subtle and not-­sosubtle ways. In this sense, this study still does exactly what it set out to do: to capture the ways in which the institutional framework of journalism shapes the everyday working lives of journalists. The analysis presented here can hopefully still provide relevant and important insights into how journalistic practices that in 2015–16 seem like “the way we have always done things” were in fact considered novel and in some cases even problematic in 2008–09.

4

Technology /. . ./ I mean I’ll tell you the thing that I think you have to be aware of now as a journalist is you can’t just be a good editor. You have to be able to edit and write and be able to write online and be able to do blogs or podcasts or video. And even if it’s not you physically doing them you have to understand them and have an awareness of them all the time. Early-­career, print, UK

Introduction This chapter will examine three key technologies (or rather, three sets of technologies) of contemporary newswork: multiplatform content production, content management systems, and real-­time Web audience metrics. Given that journalists themselves attribute strong explanatory power to technology, the starting point of this chapter is to simply look at how widespread multiplatform news production—generally considered a key feature of modern newswork—actually is, and whether it varies across countries. The analysis will then start from a discussion of how journalists perceive technology and technological change on the level of everyday working practice. Then the analysis will turn to the institutional level of journalism, looking at how the technology use of individual journalists is bound by organizational needs and organizational factors, as exemplified by the technologies of content management systems and real-­time Web audience metrics. Finally, the analysis will turn to examples of how technologies can be and are used to create new, creative, and innovative ways to do newswork.

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Technology and the news process We already know, through numerous studies, that technologies have affected traditional division-­of-labor patterns in news production. Following Domingo et al. (2008) and Hermida (2011), we can distinguish between five stages of the news production process: (1) Discovery (or access, or observation), when the reporter “finds” news in the first place and gathers the initial data that form the source material of the story; (2) Selection/Filtering (or gatekeeping), when the decision about what to publish and not to publish is made; (3) Processing (or production, or editing), which is when the actual story or item is created and edited for publication; (4) Distribution, where the story/item is distributed and made available to the audience, across one or more platforms; and finally (5) Interpretation (or feedback), when the story that has been distributed is also made available for comment and discussion. Historically, journalists worked on steps 1 and 2 of this process, and to some extent step 3. Steps 3 and 4 were the domain of specialized technical staff like printers, graphic designers, page designers, cameramen, and editors. Possibilities for feedback (step 5) were limited, except for letters to the editor and call-­ins on radio and TV. Today, journalists are often involved in all of these production steps. News production processes have become more integrated. There may well be little practical difference between processing and distribution as content can be distributed automatically as it is being processed, and processing can continue even after content has been distributed. Feedback opportunities are ubiquitous and happen in real time. These changes have been made possible through the affordances of a set of likewise integrated technologies: the Internet, portable computing devices, mobile communication devices, and database processing. Or at least that is the received wisdom. We actually know relatively little of how all-­encompassing multiplatform production is, at least not in a comparative sense. The first step of the investigation of how technology mediates between the institutional and workplace levels of journalism must then be to find out if there are any significant national differences in how common multiplatform production is, and what can explain those differences—if any.

How converged is news production? It is an established truth of contemporary journalism research that converged news production is the norm. Most journalists are routinely required to produce

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content for more than one platform. Typically, this means producing online content in addition to print or broadcast, but we should note that “online content” in itself is multifaceted and can include texts, still images, graphics, video content, and recorded sound. The survey data in this study describe the spread of multiplatform production as it was in the six studied nations in 2009—see Table 4.1. Across the whole sample just under a third (31 percent) of journalists stated that they had to produce content for more than one platform every day or every other day (i.e., “Often”). However, roughly one in ten journalists never had to engage in multiplatform production, and for a further 10 percent of respondents, the question of multiplatform production was “not applicable” (because the media outlet they work for only produces content for one platform, for example). Since we do not have longitudinal comparative data it is difficult to say whether these numbers are high, low, or just what is to be expected. Assuming that a necessary criterion for multiplatform production to be the norm is that more than half of the population does it with some regularity, then by this criterion it was the norm in 2009 as a total of 63 percent of journalists across the sample produced content for more than one platform at least once or twice a month. Cross-­platform production on a regular basis was common, but there were still many journalists (20 percent) who did not do it at all, and a further 17 percent who did it only rarely. Clearly multiplatform production was Table 4.1  Cross-­platform production in six nations How often do you produce content for more than one platform? (percent)

UK

EE

DE

IT

PL

SE

Avg.

Never Rarely Sometimes Often Not applicable N

7 15 33 38 8 668

13 22 34 22 8 276

7 21 34 27 11 340

25 18 28 25 5 376

2 19 32 25 21 126

10 12 32 38 8 387

11 17 32 31 9 2173

The survey question was: How often do you produce content to be used for more than one media (e.g. for online, print; for broadcast, online)? The alternatives were: Not applicable/Never/Two or three times a year at most/Once or twice a quarter/Once or twice a month/Once or twice a week/Every other day/Every day. In the “Rarely” row, the alternatives “Two or three times a year at most” and “Once or twice a quarter” were added together. “Sometimes” adds together “Once or twice a month” and “Once or twice a week.”“Often” adds together “Every day” and “Every other day.”

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not as all-­encompassing as was assumed even in 2009, as more than a third of the journalists studied had little or no experience of it in their current place of work. There are also important national differences. Cross-­platform production was most common in the UK and Sweden, and least common in Italy. Estonia actually had a lower percentage of journalists engaging in cross-­platform production “often” than did Italy, but Italy had nearly twice as high a percentage of journalists who “never” produced across platforms, compared to Estonia. The differences are not very surprising as they by and large conform to a European pattern of ICT development as described in Chapter 3, i.e., Sweden and Britain on top and Italy at the bottom, with Germany and Estonia at an “upper middle” tier and Poland at a “lower middle” tier. In terms of multiplatform journalistic production Estonia was somewhat behind Germany, whereas Estonia in general would be ahead of Germany in terms of general ICT development, but the differences were relatively small. While the overall pattern of technology use was similar in all six countries (i.e., having to engage in multiplatform production was more common than not having to do it), it is also clear that the countries were at different points on a technological continuum, where newsroom convergence was more prevalent in the Northern and Western European nations (i.e., Britain, Germany, Sweden) and less prevalent in the Southern and Eastern nations (i.e., Estonia, Italy, Poland). This was also borne out by the qualitative data. British, Swedish, and German journalists described a context where the technological tools for cross-­ platform production (e.g., content management systems, digital recording devices and editing tools, mobile devices) were fully integrated into the work process and used in a largely non-­reflexive fashion, whereas Italian, Polish, and Estonian journalists described a context where many of these same tools were novelties: either introduced to the workplace relatively recently, or in the process of being introduced. For example, Italian, Polish, and Estonian journalists often saw the need to explain to the interviewer how particular content management systems and multimedia editing tools worked, whereas British, Swedish, and German journalists never did. Interviewed journalists from the latter nations always assumed the interviewer was familiar with the tools of multiplatform production, whereas the journalists from the former nations did not. Newsroom integration and digitalization of production was definitely progressing more slowly and was less widespread in Italy than elsewhere, and the interviews indicate that Poland and Estonia were, in 2009, in the middle of a digital transition that had already taken place in the UK, Sweden, and Germany.

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This is in line with similar research on Internet integration in EU newsrooms (Sarrica et al., 2010), though that study did not include Germany or Poland in the sample. The speed and reach of digitalization and newsroom integration is also dependent on the medium and the type of media organization—weekly and monthly magazines are still unlikely to have as significant a Web presence as daily media, for example. Looking to the qualitative data, we can see that some journalists—in particular younger ones—take quite a critical view of what they see as increasing and even excessive demands for multiplatform production. It is perceived to increase the pressure to take on new work tasks and learn new skills: /. . ./ But all the editing and processing of news, absolutely everything is done on computers. From this autumn onwards even the picture editing should be done solely on computers, not from one cassette to another. For the editor, it means an increase in . . . I wouldn’t even say workload, but in range, he has to deal more and more with something that used to be the film editor’s or director’s job. The number of tasks of a television journalist increases. Not even just the tasks, but the skills he has to have. Mid-­career, broadcast, Estonia

The demand to produce more content for different platforms is sometimes viewed with suspicion and considered to be something that comes from the top of the organization, as the following quote illustrates: INT: And in your field, is it common for journalists to write blogs, some extra texts on the Internet? RESP: More and more. Blogs, I suspect, are mostly inspired by employers. In some cases it will be own initiative, but it is partly inspired by editors. Maybe not required, but inspired . . . It’s welcome if a well-­known journalist—he obviously has to be well known—writes that he is a journalist for this particular title. They see it as promotion of their paper, their publishing house. Late-­career, online (freelance), Poland

It should be noted that while these pressures to produce more content faster were widespread, it was (in 2009) still possible for journalists in some countries to escape them, often by simply ignoring organizational demands altogether (this is likely linked to the overall prevalence of multiplatform production in that country): INT: Is it in any way related to the Internet site? Do you write anything for the [Radio Station] website?

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Newsworkers RESP: I should, but unfortunately I don’t really have time, and sometimes I just don’t feel like doing it. Actually, we have so-­called audio blogs. So reporters from all around the country have a sort of an Internet site where, theoretically, they should publish all their information. However, it’s only theoretically because unfortunately sometimes we are working so hard . . . Not to mention the fact that it’s not just a question of uploading something there, which would take only 30 seconds. You have to write it, you have to. Of course I’m not going to dupe you by saying it’s one hour of work because it’s not. But they push us hard. So I suspect that soon we will have to start being more dutiful in this area. Early-­career, broadcast, Poland

There are thus perceived downsides to the rationalization of everyday work. Multiplatform production effectively means “making it possible to produce more”; however, this increased pressure is not uniform among all journalists but to some extent media-­dependent as well as career-stage-­dependent. As we can see, some journalists also consciously decided to ignore these production pressures and opt out of technologization. As late as 2009 that was still an option in some organizations, though it was perceived that opting out will become increasingly untenable. Returning to the technological continuum mentioned earlier, the interviews also support the general timeline of technologization of newswork mentioned earlier: multiplatform production and many other aspects of technologization were well established in the UK, Sweden, and Germany; well on their way to becoming integrated in Poland and Estonia; and still being integrated (or even far from being integrated) in Italy. Consider, for example, the following quote on the use of user-­generated content in one Italian case: [INT and RESP are discussing user-­generated content, audience-­submitted videos in particular] RESP: Well, apart from the editing and selection process, since no video is good enough to be broadcast the way it is . . . we did that only once, it was a video on homeless people, and we had problems with the trade union. This happened because they saw the fact that we broadcast an entire video made by the audience as a challenge to professional journalists: “Why did they broadcast a video produced by users and why didn’t they ask a professional journalist to do that instead?” to sum up the whole thing. So we were harshly criticized because of this. Late-­career, online, Italy

It is difficult to imagine that journalist trade unions would have the clout (or indeed even an interest in) protesting against the use of user-­generated content in any of the other countries studied.

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Overall, we can say that multiplatform production was by-­and-large an integrated part of the everyday working life of journalists, more so in Britain, Sweden, and Germany than in Estonia, Italy, and Poland—but likewise also more naturalized and uncritically accepted in the former nations, and more readily perceived as a top-­down, management-­controlled process in the latter.

Technology and everyday working practices We will begin by looking at how journalists understand technological change on the most basic, everyday level. One of the key questions that the respondents were asked was about change over the course of the interviewee’s career— “What is the biggest change you have seen in journalism during your time as a journalist?” The interview manual had “change” as a general line of questioning, with three prompts/specifications: [Question 2] (For mid- and late-­career journalists only) Change over the course of your career. [Prompts] • What is the biggest change you have seen in journalism during your time as a journalist (technology? political change? changes in how you work? etc.)? • How have these changes impacted your own work/job? Examples? • Have there been any changes in the skills/knowledges/competences you need as a journalist?

In the interviews, the first option was the most-­used initial prompt in this area. The sub-­prompt “technology?” was only occasionally used as the majority of the interviewees raised technology as an area of change without prompting (commonly it was the first thing they mentioned). A noticeable pattern of response from journalists from all six nations was that technology was cited as the first and foremost factor—and cause—of change, entirely in line with what was discussed in Chapter 2. Part of this pattern was also that journalists generally explained the importance of technology by making reference to how technology had impacted on everyday working practices. While some scholars, practitioners, and commentators may be preoccupied by the potential of interactivity and how journalism is transforming into a “conversation” (Gillmor, 2004; King, 2008; Schaffer, 2007), working journalists are most impressed by how the Internet has made research work much easier,

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and how digitalization has streamlined production. The following quote is typical: Oh, it is very, very different. For instance, if you wanted to do something international back then in 1991 it was very difficult to find information. It was a trouble—you needed to call newspapers; ask colleagues to send you papers; fax an article; where do you get the phone number; you know? Everything was very difficult. Now with the Web everything has changed which obviously creates a big danger but we will talk about that later. So in that sense it has changed a lot. Information is just very easy to access. You can find anywhere and anybody in the world in 2–3 minutes— you just need to Google it and probably you will find it. /. . ./ Mid-­career, broadcast, UK

Sentiments like this were echoed in one way or another by almost all interviewees from all countries. Many interviewees specifically mentioned Google as a game-­ changing invention for journalists: comments along the lines of “I can just Google it,” as in the previous quote, were near-­ubiquitous. “Today I don’t have any bulky notebooks because it takes me three seconds to Google someone,” said one mid-­career Polish news agency journalist. Thus the first thing most journalists with five or more years of experience thought of when asked about change in general was how technology had made their work easier, primarily the work of research: finding information, finding people and contacting them, and so on (again, similar sentiments were found in Sarrica et al., 2010). This increased convenience was also experienced in other aspects of work besides research and information gathering, as the following quote demonstrates (again, this interviewee was not the only one making such references): INT: And what about the way you work? RESP: It has changed for sure. When it comes to the way we work it has to be much quicker now. But it also results from the fact that we all have Internet access, we all have mobile phones. The fact that we all have digital Dictaphones, on one hand, makes our work easier, but on the other hand, my employer, giving me a telephone, a digital Dictaphone, a mobile and a laptop, doesn’t just expect me to have a walk with all this equipment across the city, but to be able to report what I have to report right from the location, so that it all can take much less time. Before, when I used to go somewhere to make a material, let’s say 150 kilometers from Wrocław, I would go there, come back, sit down and write. Nowadays I go there. While I’m still there it’s best to send some short report while the thing is still going on, and afterwards I quickly write and send

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information from there. So actually when I come back [excuse me] the material has already been made. Mid-­career, news agency, Poland

This journalist describes an everyday working life that is thoroughly digitized and fully mobile. Information can be accessed everywhere and at all times, and content can be produced and sent back to the newsroom while the journalist is traveling. The same journalist later gave a concrete example of how new technologies are incorporated into the work process: she was covering the Dalai Lama’s visit to Poland and was able to report his meeting with his followers while it was taking place, using her laptop (to write) and her wireless Internet access (to send the items on to the main editorial office). She also used her mobile phone to dictate text to the teletypist in the editorial office. This journalist describes a way of working with technology that would be recognized and even considered mundane by many newsgathering journalists, in Europe and elsewhere. Laptops, mobile phones, wireless access, digital recording devices, and related software are now everyday working tools for reporters working in the field, and in this sense these quotes are representative of the wider context of news production. Even if you are not engaged in multiplatform production (20 percent of journalists in the survey were not, after all), you still use a multitude of technological tools and platforms when gathering information and doing research. However, while the emphasis of journalists was commonly on the impact of technology on research and information gathering, this was not the only area discussed. Particularly broadcast journalists also mentioned how the production process itself had become easier: Also in the field of television media there are lots of technical changes, for example better cameras, you don’t need as much light anymore, that is a real benefit as before you needed to carry huge light packages everywhere . . . /. . ./ Before you often needed three people, a cameraman, someone for the sound and the editor, now you only need two or even less, you save the cameraman and the editor has to do it by himself. Late-­career, broadcast, Germany

Not-­so-fond memories of bulky television equipment, particularly for live outside broadcasts, were mentioned by several interviewees with a broadcasting background. In terms of the model for stages of news production from Domingo et  al. (2008) and Hermida (2011), when it comes to everyday working practices

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journalists across all nations focused on how technology had changed the discovery/access phase, in particular initial information gathering and basic research. Most journalists were positive about this development, in particular those journalists with working experience of a time before ubiquitous Internet access and widespread mobile technologies. To a somewhat lesser degree, they also mentioned how the processing phase had become easier—in particular for broadcast journalists. Again, these were technological changes that were welcomed and viewed in a positive light. Thus on an everyday working life level, technologies are mainly used to make production more efficient: research is quicker, production is quicker, contact with the editorial office is easier and more convenient, etc. The time-­saving allowed by new technologies was mentioned by many other journalists across all countries, e.g.: I think it’s really great that I don’t have to spend so much time researching things like whether Richard Nixon said something in 1964 or 1965 or when he was born and died and when he had an illness. /. . ./ On the other side the speed is also increased by which information is going around the world. Now you can send a message from every point in the world via satellite phone. You just have to hit the button and then it goes to Berlin, Paris, or Washington or wherever you need it. Late-­career, news agency, Germany On my computer today, at any time, I can go in and look at the entirety of our digitized archives. I can look at pictures, old news items, from my computer in my office. This is an enormous difference from earlier, when I had to literally locate the tape and then find a machine that could play it, much more complicated. It is much easier to work today, also with the Internet and the possibilities of search, it has made my work a lot easier. Late-­career, broadcast, Sweden /. . ./ it [technology, author’s note] sets requirements for the professionalism of journalists, to shorten things, to be faster. If we talk about news, something has disappeared with this rushing: faster, more, and so on. Mid-­career, broadcast (freelance), Estonia

Exactly as predicted, technologies are used primarily to allow faster production and dissemination of news. The Polish journalist quoted earlier described how she wrote her article(s) on her laptop as the press conference was taking place, and immediately sent it (sometimes via email, sometimes by dictating via mobile phone) to the newsroom, where it was more or less instantly processed, published, and made available to audiences. The fact that this journalist worked for a news

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agency is relevant, as previous research indicates that among all types of news organizations, news agencies are under the most pressure to produce news quickly and continuously (Ursell, 2004). Thus the extreme focus on on-­site coverage and reporting the news as it happens of this particular journalist may not be representative, but the general account of how technologies are typically used in an everyday working context certainly is. Time when a journalist is “unproductive” (e.g., while traveling from one assignment to another) can be minimized or eliminated altogether. Journalists clearly appreciate this kind of rationalization of labor, as it allows them to use what previously would have been “dead time” for production. The Internet and new search technologies mean that they no longer have to spend inordinate amounts of time just finding and accessing background information and contact details, and streamlined production and mobile communication mean it is also easier and faster to create content (in particular audiovisual content) and to communicate with colleagues and sources. In the quotes presented here and indeed in most of the interviews from all six nations, technology is largely employed in the service of speed. The reorganization of the labor process is done with the express purpose of making it faster. However, only a few of the journalists interviewed suggested that technology could be used in the service of accuracy, for example (e.g., the Internet makes it easier to quickly verify information or to find out how it can be verified), and fewer still suggested that technology can be used to make news more interactive. Those who did mention the potential for interactivity, audience involvement, and making new voices heard were both positive and negative in equal measure: However, quite often, looking at the Internet sites of those hotheads who just go somewhere and take pictures, I really appreciate their involvement. And it really doesn’t make a difference to me that these pictures are completely unprofessional and have broken all the rules of framing, editing, and everything else. It doesn’t matter at all. If someone enjoys describing what they see around them, noticing things that others don’t see, playing with what they saw and showing it to others, then this is what journalism is all about. Mid-­career, broadcast, Poland I think this is a great development, great fun. I really enjoy it when bloggers stick it to journalists, shows when they are wrong, or when they question journalists and point to reporting errors and bad journalism, because that’s something that didn’t exist before. They [bloggers] are outsiders, they can question journalism, something we don’t dare to do ourselves. Early-­career, online/broadcast, Sweden

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Newsworkers As long as it doesn’t turn into something like Inno’s and Irja’s blog [a gossip/ tabloid-­style blog that at the time of the interview had a notorious reputation in Estonia], they can do as they please. /. . ./ What Inno and Irja do, what their phenomenon is about is to insult everybody, to degrade, to lie . . . and you can’t do anything about it. It should be closed down. Early-­career, print, Estonia

The primary everyday use of most new technologies is then to create more news faster—rather than creating, say, more accurate news or more interactive news. As ICTs have the potential to do all of these things there is nothing necessary about the focus on speed, at least not from a technological point of view. From an institutional point of view, however, the focus on using technology for speed is both natural and appropriate. Speed has long been the primary benchmark of competitive success in the news industry, as noted in Chapter 2. I do not want to overstate the case and say that journalists and the organizations they work for are only interested in using technology to increase speed and thus gain a competitive advantage. This is emphatically not true: the interviews indicate that many media organizations are trying to think creatively about how to integrate new technologies (social media, online collaboration tools, e-­commerce platforms, and so on). But when asked about change in general and technological change in particular, the first thing that comes to mind for most journalists is how it has impacted on their everyday working lives—and more specifically, how it has impacted on their ability to do the things they have always done in a more effective, timely fashion. The fact that new technologies may also be put to uses that can potentially redefine the institutional frame of journalism (as discussed in Chapter 2) is not foremost on journalists’ minds. Interactivity is not perceived as immediately helpful to the work of individual journalists in the way that mobile phones and Internet search tools are. The use of technology is fantastic (particularly if you have occupational experience of pre-­networked, pre-­digital, pre-­mobile times) and mundane at the same time. The use of new technologies is described as helpful but also natural. One interviewee even considers the fact that you have to learn to cope with new technology as entirely banal: RESP: /. . ./ I will not even talk about all such banalities like the fact that I’ve learnt to use a computer, browse the Internet, and so on. Because it’s obvious that if there are some new technologies yet to come, we are going to learn how to use them, and I don’t see it as development.

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INT: Simply a necessity? RESP: A necessity. /. . ./ Late-­career, press, Poland

Summing up, we see that (unsurprisingly, perhaps) technology is viewed as good and useful because it makes your everyday working life more efficient. The professional value placed on speedy dissemination of news serves both organizational interest and occupational justification simultaneously: speed is a marker of “professional” and “good” journalism in an occupational sense, as well as being a marker of competitive success in an organizational sense. Journalists may find the constant use of technology to speed up the news process as stressful, but they do not, in general, see it as imposed from above. In contrast, using technology for speed is a natural part of the working life. When it comes to the working realities of multiplatform production, however, journalists are more likely to perceive this as a top-­down demand that impacts negatively on occupational professionalism. This was particularly true of journalists in countries where multiplatform production had yet to be fully naturalized, i.e., Estonia, Poland, and Italy. In those nations, production technologies had (in 2009 at least) simply not yet been rendered invisible.

Technology, standardization, and control As noted in Chapter 2, an analysis of the role of technology in journalism must acknowledge that the individual’s use of technology will be circumscribed by larger organizational (and institutional) processes. The first section of this chapter hinted at how the integration of multimedia production technologies into the workplace is perceived by journalists as largely a top-­down process, where newsroom convergence serves organizational demands of competitiveness and efficient production rather than professional values and standards. Technologies are perceived as being used to achieve a higher degree of standardization and control over the working process rather than being tools to enhance creativity and to encourage individual-­level innovation. This section continues this analysis by looking particularly at what are perhaps the two key re-­organizing technologies of the modern newsroom (more so than multimedia production technologies): the Content Management System (CMS) and the use of real-­time online audience data, the so-­called “clickstream.”

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Content Management Systems as standardization tools Content management systems (CMSs) have largely escaped notice and critical analysis, even though such systems are now integrated parts of the everyday working life of almost all journalists working within larger media organizations. Indeed, CMSs of various types are integrated features of almost any type of online content production: not only journalists but also amateur media producers are acquainted with CMSs like WordPress or Blogger. For most media producers, professional and amateur alike, CMSs are perceived akin to how an earlier generation of media content producers would have perceived word processing software, the typewriter, or perhaps even the pen and notepad: it is simply the key tool of the trade of this era of journalism and as such not reflected upon. However, these systems have allowed for a large degree of rationalization and multimedia integration in modern newsrooms—and they have done so because one of their key functions is increasing control of the news making process as well as ensuring a measure of predictability in an industry that is by its nature unpredictable. The increasingly important role of CMSs in standardizing and rationalizing media work has been noted by a few other researchers, notably Deuze (the following quote also provides a brief definition of the term): In the daily work environment and practices in the media, technology plays a crucial part in the creative process. A significant concern regarding this trend is the standardization of work practices implied by an omnipresence of technologies. In order to facilitate technological convergence and the corresponding managerial expectation of a synergy between different practices and processes, media companies increasingly rely on content management systems (CMS), which are sophisticated software packages generally acquired on the commercial market, further developed using open source applications and finally customized in-­house. As different media formats – audio, moving and still images, text – become increasingly standardized, regarding their translation to the digital, the exchange, and repurposing or “windowing” of multimedia content becomes more manageable. Deuze, 2007: 68–69.

Today, all news organizations use CMSs, and to the extent that journalists have a view of them, it is as more or less as a natural part of everyday working life. However, they also function as tools of organizational rationalization, streamlining production in different ways: by coordinating production across a range of products, by eliminating staff previously needed to deal with subediting

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and design, and by standardizing content formats. Let us consider the following quotes—they describe, in a very everyday fashion, how CMSs are used and experienced within the modern news organization: We have quite an interesting editing process in our newspaper, as the texts aren’t created in Word or as .txt files, nor in any other text editor. Instead, we have this system which, after you start your computer, shows you all the newspapers in Poland that belong to us, as they are being created in real time. Someone writes something and saves it and you can open it immediately. You simply write your texts directly on the page. Therefore, at around 12:00 or 11:00 a.m. you already know how much space you are going to have for your text because you have it in front of you and you type it onto the page. The average opening page, containing the main text of that particular section, will count around four thousand signs, maybe 4.5, plus some infographics, plus other elements. If you write a bigger, one-­page-long text, most of the time someone will be assigned to help you, e.g., to collect the data. Most often it’s one of the interns, after whom you will have to verify the data anyway, but at least there is someone to assist you. You also know that this text is what you’re supposed to write and there is also a second smaller one, somewhere on the front pages. It gives you a chance to see the page as it’s going to appear in print. If the deadline is earlier—you will start working on it in the first place. When it’s not—then you leave it for later. You often pass the work on to someone else, like the researchers or some interns. Mid-­career, press, Poland So the biggest change, felt not only by me, but also by all other journalists, was when all these editing systems were introduced into the pressrooms, which automated some editorial processes. They create templates for particular texts, with fixed volume, font size, title which has to consist of a fixed number of characters. So it would be a technical change which has significantly affected, maybe not the content itself, not the subject matter, but the way of writing. It was the biggest change which has started a few years ago and is still progressing. Nowadays all pressrooms have their editing systems, which require a completely different mode of work. They also replace people, i.e., editors, who would normally be working on the texts, or they move a lot of this work onto a journalist, who has to amend the text so that it matches the template. So that it doesn’t exceed the frames. So it’s a crucial organizational change. /. . ./ Late-­career, online (freelance), Poland And when the stories are done, they are uploaded to the content management system and connected to picture, sub-­heading, info-­box, links, and things like that and that takes another one or two hours for that besides the text. And then

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Newsworkers within the department, sorry within the group of editors we read them and check the stories and they are first edited within the system . . . Early-­career, online, Germany [My newspaper] is very systematized. We have an environment where stories are uploaded, at [competing newspaper] they still do it via email. With us the editor can do the editing in a certain environment, then sends the article on to the designer who can take it up from there. Very convenient. Early-­career, print, Estonia

CMSs also increasingly feature integration of e-­commerce platforms, with direct consequences for the commercialization of journalistic content, as described by this interviewee: /. . ./ But I have to say it started [commercialization; author’s note] once we got a content management system for e-­commerce. So you have to think about to what extent the content of the article is compatible with other topics on eBay or Amazon and to give bullet points so that they can find the article and that they offer products for those who have read the article. It wasn’t like that before. Early-­career, online, Germany

Hanitzsch and Mellado noted that most journalists do not in their everyday working life experience direct influence of economic forces (Hanitzsch & Mellado, 2011, see Chapter 3); the preceding quote would then be an exceptional example of such direct influence. Having to adapt your writing to the e-­commerce demands of the organizations is a very concrete example of the otherwise often nebulous and ill-­defined process of “commercialization.” These descriptions of how CMSs work are very matter-­of-fact yet reveal volumes about how these systems are used to rationalize and standardize news production. The features described by these journalists are common to all CMSs—features such as: l

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templates that dictate the length and placement of news articles/items elimination of much of the work previously done by page designers and graphic designers (either by automating this work or by shifting it on to journalists) elimination of subediting and editing (at least in part), either through the use of templates or by shifting this work on to journalists real-­time coordination of production across media outlets belonging to the same conglomerate/owner

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gathering and analysis of production metrics used by management to implement further rationalizations (also described in Media Alliance, 2008: 24; Media Alliance, 2010) integration with e-­commerce platforms.

CMSs were for most journalists simply “the way journalism is produced” nowadays. Yet their impact on the organization of newswork has been just as great as was once the pen and notepad (which allowed journalists a greater degree of mobility and decreased the reliance on already-­produced material) and the typewriter (which linked the journalist more closely to his/her desk and thus to the newsroom). CMSs are used to coordinate and rationalize production and to increase predictability in newswork. Their use also removes a lot of discretionary decision-­making about the length/volume of certain types of content from the journalist and from the editor. Yet making production more efficient can also free journalists from technical labor that was previously considered a waste of time. This journalist succinctly described the advantages of digital content management systems in television production (for example by linking the CMS to a digital archive): I’ll upload the material, I’ll digitize it, we still use tapes, little DV tapes that you have to transfer onto the system, but it’s a good system, I just put the tape in my player, hook it up to my computer and then I can watch it on my computer, I don’t even have to wait for it to download . . . I can watch everything with a 15-second delay, tops. Late-­career, broadcast, Sweden

Not having to engage in the often elaborate technological production processes of the analog era was perceived by many journalists as liberating: more time can instead be spent on “proper” journalistic tasks like doing research, or creating a good story. While the typical attitude to CMSs is one of embeddedness and naturalization, some journalists do note that CMS integration is or has been management-­ driven, with an explicit goal to reduce staff (thus also expressing the view that technologization comes from above, as outlined in the preceding section): In my job, they did this, I always say it was one of the stupidest things done in the Swedish press recently, they were rationalizing the organization and they bought this new content management system, to make editing and page design easier, and the editor-­in-chief thought that you could just throw a page together, that’s what he said. So they let a number of subeditors and designers go, and all the

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Newsworkers reporters had to design their own pages, I think in the end there were only two page designers left and that’s all. And the night shift editor also did some page designs. And the worst part was, that those designers, their professional pride was just crushed, and you can understand that they were very bitter about it and didn’t enjoy their jobs anymore. Early-­career, print, Sweden

This experience was echoed by some other interviewees; only one interviewee described (slightly) more democratic workplace processes for the introduction of a new CMS: So I do the more overall things like we have to introduce a new CMS and relaunch that this year and there is a lot we have to vote about and also to look through all the offers and think about the functions we want to have, which resources do we want to have in the future and all sorts of things. Mid-­career, online, Germany

The introduction of a CMS, or the changing of one CMS to another, was described by almost all journalists who mention it as top-­down initiatives, rather than driven by journalistic needs and principles. However, despite this the use of CMSs was not viewed in a particularly negative or critical light. Only a few (one or two) journalists across the whole sample even hinted that CMSs could lead to standardization and primacy of form over content, as the CMSs place limitations and demands on format: /. . ./ And at the [newspaper online division where resp. previously worked] we were also really bound because we had uploaded the stories for the print area for the online page. So like writing a teaser, the headline and some lines underneath and then the text had to be adjusted to the Web obviously. Early-­career, online, Germany

Overall, the use of content management systems was not viewed as “good” or “bad,” it just is. It is a technology that has seamlessly been integrated into the everyday working life of journalists, and as such is not questioned or reflected on. Again, the pace of technological change was not the same everywhere. I have described the use of CMSs as universal, but there are exceptions: for example, the interviews indicated that RAI, the Italian broadcaster, did not have a standard CMS as late as 2009: RAI is trying to understand what the best system to invest in is. They talk about cameras with USB sticks, so every journalist will have a hard disk, and the images recorded will be transferred onto a RAI server. Others say we’ll stick to

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mini-DV . . . you see, it’s a moment of transition. Trade unions, at the meetings we regularly arrange, justify this lateness in terms of technology . . . new technologies are very much feared. Mid-­career, broadcast, Italy

Other interviewees also indicated that the introduction of a CMS was a fairly recent or even ongoing event: RESP: From this autumn onwards we will only use file-­based production, which means that everything has changed. Cutting and editing, everything has changed. New cassettes, new cameras. Everything has changed during the time I have been working, since 1989. INT: What does “file-­based production” mean? RESP: I’m not very good at explaining this, but it should mean that you come from the set, you have a cassette somebody else uploads on the computer, then you edit on the computer. At the moment when we come from the set, we go through the material in players, then we go to the film editor and together with him we put the picture, but after that everybody does things on their own. It will probably feel rather complicated in the beginning. And it will leave some people without work. Many people have changed in any case. Late-­career, broadcast, Estonia

As already mentioned, many of these quotes also express a need to explain to the interviewer how a CMS works, which hints at a recent introduction. By contrast, almost no references to the exact workings of CMS were made by Swedish and UK journalists.

Real-­time Web audience metrics: following the clickstream In contrast to the perception of CMS as natural and largely unproblematic, the journalistic view of the so-­called “clickstream” is more critical. Real-­time Web audience metrics is a technology that is fast becoming essential to the online divisions of news organizations. In most contemporary newsrooms, journalists can now instantly see how popular (in terms of number of clicks) their articles are and how audience interest goes up or down in real time (Currah, 2009; Media Alliance, 2008, 2010). Real-­time Web metric provision is also often integrated into the CMS, making it possible to generate detailed data that is immediately made available to the editorial staff. One of the reasons for the more obvious resistance to the use of Web audience metrics is that the existing journalistic cultural template for understanding

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audience feedback and audience data is to simply ignore it. Audience numbers and advertising sales have historically been the domain of management and the marketing and advertising departments of news organizations—and the division between editorial and marketing/advertising departments has likewise been strictly maintained historically, in order to maintain journalistic professional independence. Unlike technologies that increase speed of discovery and delivery, audience measurement technologies originate in a different occupational context, that of the marketing/advertising professional. Several interviewees thus noted that the organization they work for, or organizations they have worked for, now display click rates prominently in the newsroom so that you instantly can see which online articles and stories were the most popular—and they did not like it: So from this point of view there is a technical, economic one for the finances but I also see a journalistic change—like the audience, the reader that wants to have longer texts is not really addressed anymore by all of us and all the project also in television as that is all highly influenced by the Internet, where short texts are dominant, pictures, Twitter, so most of the content is short and a flood of rankings, which really annoys me and to be a bit emotional now, what do these rankings actually say? What does it mean to be the best out of the ten bests? The ten most annoying, the ten most successful? From my point of view that is the removal of actual thinking. And I have become a journalist because I like that thought process and to share that process and although we write for the people that want to read us, so we also have to change with them but sometimes I am resistant. Late-­career, print (freelance), Germany RESP: The “click-­factory” is at work. Stupid people enjoy eating filth. For some reason it attracts them like flies. And should they come flying to the filth, it means more clicks. Get clicks, clicks are money. /. . ./ INT: Do you feel the pressure of clicks in your work? RESP: Well, of course it is nice to see that your story titled “How to turn a student’s life to hell” is the second-­most read article in [newspaper] with 31,000 clicks. But you see that you can do nothing against the man who killed four people in a car accident in Virumaa, that one has 34,000 clicks. /. . ./ Late-­career, print, Estonia /. . ./ All onlines compare themselves to each other on the basis of clicks, in order to get advertising. There were 100,000 clicks on my page, my page got 200,000 clicks. But the number of clicks doesn’t show you if your story was ever actually read. The click doesn’t show whether the reader read the first

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word, the first paragraph, the entire story or just looked at the picture. It doesn’t give any objective overview about what was consumed of this—excuse me— blather. Mid-­career, broadcast (freelance) Estonia Well we get emails three times a day telling us what the biggest searches have been on Google and on our website, so I’ll get one at 9.30 a.m. when I get in, I’ll get one at lunchtime and one at the end of the day so that we can gear our Web offerings to what is coming out as SEO [Search Engine Optimizer/Optimization, author’s note] terms. Mid-­career, print, UK

One journalist explicitly mentioned how the clickstream was perceived as a tool of management control—clicks were used to judge journalistic performance. Another journalist voiced concern that an undue focus on the clickstream would change the focus of public service broadcasting: INT: Who counts these clicks? RESP: We do, the owners do; then the marketing department shows them to the clients. INT: Can you feel the pressure of the clicks yourself? RESP: It is the only unit our work is measured by. Because they make it clear what people are interested in and what they want to read. Our own personal values are something totally different. But, he who pays the piper may call the tune. Mid-­career, online, Estonia INT: Talking about the commercialization of journalism, have you noticed any changes in the public broadcasting or in radio news? RESP: There have been some signals indicating that being cited and the number of clicks is important; on the other hand, there have been signals indicating that credibility is more important. These two things are sometimes in conflict. Our aim is to keep up our credibility. Not to think so much about the clicks. I don’t even know which is better. Early-­career, broadcast, Estonia

A few journalists treated the clickstream as they would any other workplace technology, i.e., as a natural and fully embedded part of journalistic work. It is notable that these journalists (a total of three in the entire interview sample) were all in editorial management positions, i.e., they were holding jobs that traditionally would require more knowledge about audience data. The following quote is representative of this attitude:

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Newsworkers You also have to give the people sometimes what they want as you need to get some clicks as well as at that time it was about five million or not even four or 3.8 million clicks per months as page impression, that is so small on the market that no one will notice that. So I said we have to get onto five million, then eight and finally ten. We have to meet some targets and you don’t necessarily get there with good contents. So you have to find some compromise such as when Madonna turns fifty then you should do a photo series about it, that’s very easy with 40 or 30 pictures as that makes a lot of clicks. And on the other side then you can add also some qualitatively good texts as well, which don’t make as many clicks, so I am trying to combine the best of the two worlds now. We also put up texts that are not so popular and we know that we won’t get a whole lot of clicks for that but we know that these topics just deserve to be on the page and on the other side we have also more popular stuff for the click rate, which are maybe not as sophisticated. Mid-­career, online, Germany

Not all journalists commented on the role of the clickstream, or the related issue of search engine optimization, but those who did were uniformly negative and critical. Focus on the clickstream was—again—perceived as a top-­down organizational influence and something that generally goes against professional culture. Valuing the clickstream and its ability to provide detailed, real-­time data about the audience—and by extension about the audience appeal of individual journalists—is clearly an organizational and institutional demand. At the workplace level, a discourse of occupational professionalism was mobilized to voice concern about dumbing-­down and similar things—but not to mount direct resistance nor to encourage opting out, at least not among the journalists interviewed in this study. You may not like the game, but you have to play it.

Creativity and innovation So far the picture of the impact of new technologies on journalistic work and workplaces has been rather negative. While new technologies are valued because they make work easier, many other aspects of technological change are perceived as imposed from above, and CMSs and real-­time Web audience metrics function as tools of standardization and control. But journalism is part of the so-­called “creative industries.” There are also examples of innovation that is more bottom-­up

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in character, using technology to create new and different forms of journalism, and to place creative autonomy in the hands of working journalists. For example, a Swedish journalist mentioned a special editorial team within public service broadcasting dealing specifically with climate change and presenting various forms of multimedia content and interactive options online. This editorial team consisted of a small number of journalists using technology to coordinate work done on climate change across the whole organization, as well as to distribute content produced by the team to other parts of the organization. The focus was clearly on journalism (i.e., news reporting, analysis, interviews, and so on) rather than producing general educational content (which public service broadcasters often do). The initiative was described in very positive terms precisely because it was perceived as journalistic and driven by the core values of journalism, rather than having been imposed from above. A UK journalist similarly mentioned some initiatives from public service broadcasting: using new technologies and real-­time data to provide new types of election coverage online, and putting up a dedicated website covering the then-­recent G20 meeting in London using location/mapping software to track where protests were taking place, and opening channels for audience members to send in video and images—as well as commissioning “regular” stories and analytical pieces from journalists working in the field. Again, these initiatives were described as positive and creative mergers of traditional journalism (“traditional” both in terms of work tasks and in terms of professional values) with new technologies. An Italian journalist, likewise discussing public service broadcasting, described an experiment in user-­generated content where viewers were asked to contribute videos and images of how they celebrated Valentine’s Day. This falls within the realm of “soft news,” but was still described with admiration as a creative initiative to engage more with regular audience members, and it was also viewed as an initiative that was at heart journalistic—the Valentine’s Day videos and images were viewed as a kind of engaging and interactive feature material. These are all the specific examples referred to in the interviews, but there are undoubtedly more—The Guardian (UK) experiment in using crowdsourcing for investigative journalism occurred after the interviews were conducted, for example (Rogers, 2009). That there are few examples given of technology use perceived as creative and allowing journalists to work in new, different ways of course is partly due to the fact that interviewees were not specifically asked about such examples. However, we should note that the interviewees that

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provided the previous examples were all journalists within public service broadcasting. This is often the only type of organization that can afford to experiment with new ways of working and using technologies in innovative ways based on journalistic needs and principles. All the previous examples were also from respondents with editorial/managerial responsibilities rather than field reporters. While this could be interpreted as creativity in some sense also being imposed from above, a more likely explanation is that only more senior journalists have the organizational clout to be involved in or create technology initiatives like these, and also simply that the responsibility for developing new technology innovations lies higher up in the organization—i.e., a kind of division of innovative labor within the organization.

Summary The technological saturation of journalism has limits: as late as 2009 about one-­fifth of European journalists did not have to deal with multiplatform news production at all, whereas about a third did it on a daily or near-­daily basis. This indicates some level of polarization, where converged news production is actually not something that is integrated across all organizations and all media, but rather something you either have to do as a matter of course (if you are a journalist in a major legacy news organization, for example), or not deal with at all (if you work in magazine journalism or specialist press journalism). Multiplatform production was, however, by most journalists considered to be an integrated facet of contemporary journalism and as such normally not questioned or reflected upon—except in the nations where it was not yet a fully integrated part of newswork (i.e., Estonia, Italy, Poland). This is a powerful illustration of the gradual naturalization of newsroom technologies: once integrated, never questioned. Multiplatform production, content management systems, and to a greater extent real-­time Web audience metrics, are all in the institutional context of journalism mainly used to increase standardization and organizational control over work. This process was largely taking place without any overt conflict or organized protest from journalists. One of the most well-­known examples of using the introduction of technology to increase management control was the so-­called Wapping conflict in the UK in 1986 (Rupert Murdoch’s News International moved their newspaper production from Fleet Street to Wapping and replaced hot metal typesetting with computerized typesetting systems; see

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Marjoribanks, 2000a: 184, 2000b; McNair, 2003: 164f; Tunstall, 1996: 18ff). This conflict mostly mattered for typesetters rather than journalists, but News International also introduced new digital pre-­press production systems at the same time which also placed new demands on journalists working in the organization (Marjoribanks, 2000b). Contemporary technological transformations of journalism do not at all take on the same dimension of conflict as Wapping did, presumably because few of the changes described here have been as sudden as Wapping. While interviewees did describe situations where for example new content management systems are introduced, with little staff consultation but to lots of staff consternation, such changes were still perceived as something that “just happens” and that could not be resisted on the individual level. Lack of overt conflict does not mean wholly uncritical acceptance, however. There was in fact a strong reaction against a perceived “factorization” of journalism from many journalists and editors, at least on the rhetorical level. To some extent, this strong reaction can be explained by the fact that journalism started out as an occupation that was significantly more bohemian and disorganized than other occupations, and that any attempt to make it more standardized/rationalized/predictable will be perceived as in contrast with existing occupational mythologies (cf. Aldridge, 1998). The use of real-­time audience data in particular was perceived as anathema to occupational journalistic professionalism. In comparative terms, Italy is the outlier on the European continuum of technologization: there, a strong union and relatively low Internet and broadband penetration have combined to slow down convergence processes. It is far too simplistic to hail this as an Italian heroic resistance to corporate-­led media commercialization, as there are also plenty of indicators that innovations guided by journalistic principles (e.g., new forms of storytelling, new ways of addressing and engaging with the audience) are resisted as stubbornly as organizational efforts to control and standardize labor. Technologization was an ongoing process in Poland and Estonia: most early-­career journalists there had experienced extensive technological change even over the course of their own brief careers, whereas early-­career journalists in the UK, Sweden, and to some extent Germany had no or limited experience of non-­integrated, non-­digitized news production environments. Whereas older journalists and journalists with more stable positions in the news industry still could opt out of technologization, young journalists did not have that option. The viability of opting out was also related to the national pace and extent of technologization: it was relatively easy to opt out in Italy, increasingly

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difficult in Germany, Poland, and Estonia, and virtually impossible in the UK and Sweden. Summing up, the results indicate that rather than being an influence on newswork in and of itself, technology is rather a conduit for primarily economic and organizational influences. Technology has also rapidly created new procedural influences, i.e., demands of organizing work in a particular way have largely become naturalized (using the terminology of Hanitzsch et  al., 2011). The survey and interviews support Marjoribanks’ conclusion that technology becomes a “management Trojan horse” (Marjoribanks, 2000b), i.e., that technologies are introduced in order to make production more efficient and create room for staff cuts.

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/. . ./ It’s a poisoned chalice becoming more skilled, it means that you can then be employed as the word suggests, in a range of activities. So I can now shoot, edit. I can shoot, I can edit, I can do the online side of things, and I can look after the multimedia aspect. But quite often, because I am one of the few people who can do all of those things, I might get asked to do those things ahead of getting asked to do the journalism. Early-­career, broadcast, UK

Introduction This chapter is dedicated to untangling the debate on the changing skill demands placed on journalists—is journalism as an institution experiencing a general deskilling or upskilling? Or is it more an issue of reskilling, or skill polarization? How does the process of so-­called “multi-­skilling” look on the ground, at the level of everyday work practices? Do journalists view multi-­skilling as a threat or an opportunity? However, as the debate on skill in journalism generally assumes that the “core skills” of journalism are weakening without explicitly and clearly defining what those skills may be, the first task here is to simply get a picture of what skills journalists in different countries view as important (and less important). These views are also important because they may tell us something about what kind of occupation journalism is; not primarily on the normative level of its societal role (which will be discussed more in detail in Chapter 7), but on the descriptive level of everyday working practices. Is it, for example, viewed as more important to produce your own content or to be able to edit/process the content of others? Is journalism viewed as a loner’s occupation, or is it something you do together with others? Is journalism, as has been suggested, “the new knowledge profession”

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(Donsbach, 2010), or is a deskilling process making it into more of a lower-­skilled information processing job? Such questions about the fundamental nature of the occupation on a more descriptive level are surprisingly rarely asked in journalism research—even though the possible empirical changes described certainly have normative implications (which we will return to in Chapter 7). As noted in Chapter 2, there is also reason to believe that different countries and cultures carry a different historical baggage in terms of how journalism is viewed as an occupation: is the central role that of the reporter or the editor, for example? Is journalism viewed more as a cultural or literary occupation, or is it seen more as a trade or craft? We can also identify a potential contradiction on the institutional level pertaining to the skill demands placed on journalists. On the one hand, journalism-­as-institution is perceived as having some kind of wider societal role (broadly speaking contributing to the functioning of liberal democracy), yet journalism-­as-institution also exists in a framework of organizations that need particular skills from their employees. It is not a given that the skills that enable journalists to contribute to democratic society are the same skills that make them employable, though one may of course wish this to be the case. Thus there is a tension on the institutional level that individual journalists have to resolve on the level of everyday work, i.e., to what extent is being a “good journalist” (as defined according to occupational professionalism) synonymous with being a “good employee” (as defined according to organizational professionalism)? Which skill demands come to the fore on the level of journalism-­ as-work, and who gets to define what constitutes the “core skills” of a journalist? This chapter is structured in a similar way to the previous one: first, a quantitative and comparative overview is presented, showing the relative importance of different skills in different countries, and analyzing the patterns found. This is followed by a qualitative analysis of how journalists themselves construct and define what the “core skills” of the occupation are, and how they perceive that these are changing. Particular attention is given to how multi-­skilling is experienced by journalists on an individual and workplace level. Finally, these findings are related to the debate on deskilling/upskilling/reskilling.

What are the valued skills of journalism? In the survey, journalists were asked the following question: “In order to be a good journalist, how important would you say the following skills are? Please provide each with a score out of 7, where 7 = absolutely essential and 1 = not

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required.” The respondents were asked to rate twelve skills: writing; editing/ subediting; interviewing; research techniques; multimedia production skills; design/ layout skills; time management skills; knowledge of law; networking skills; teamwork skills; management skills; ability to work independently. The goal of this particular list/division of skills was to be as generic as possible and ask journalists to grade only skills that (presumably) are important to any and all journalists, regardless of which medium they work in or what beat they cover. Some of these categories require a bit of further explanation. Multimedia production skills mainly refers to skill in producing content for multiple technological platforms as well as integrating different media forms on the same platform (e.g., video and sound on the Web; this was how the concept “multimedia production” was mainly used around 2008–09). Design/layout skills are related to graphic design and visual design and mainly involve the presentation of content on a page (printed or Web). Time management skill refers to the ability to plan your work to fit in with deadlines and the allotted work time. Networking skills refers mainly to interpersonal skills related to interacting with and cultivating sources, but also cultivating a professional network that may aid your career, provide advice, and provide future employment opportunities (in post-2008–09 literature, “Network journalism” is sometimes used to refer to both the converged nature of news production, and the increased role of social and other online networks in the production and dissemination of news—as in Beckett, 2010, or Van der Haak, Parks & Castells, 2012, for example—but this is not the sense in which I use the word “networking” here). Finally, management skills refers to the skill set required to lead others and manage people and processes in the workplace setting. Other surveys of journalists’ skills (e.g., Watson & Flintham, 2008) have used more specific lists of skills, for example skills particular to different types of writing (e.g., “feature writing” as a skill), and skills particular to different media (e.g., “radio presentation” and “audio skills—recording and editing”). “Management skills” may be considered more specific to an organizational position, but as it is a common career path for journalists to proceed from reporter/writer to editor, it was considered relevant to include as a general skill. Similarly, “knowledge of law” is presumably also more important for particular beat areas, but a general working knowledge of for example freedom of information laws, intellectual property rights, source protection laws, and libel laws can be considered important for most journalists. “Design/layout skills” may have been a more position-­specific skill in the 1980s and 1990s, but later studies (e.g., McKercher, 2002; Singer et  al., 2011) indicate that all journalists

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more and more have to be proficient in basic design skills. The same goes for “multimedia production skills.” This overview of the perceived importance of different skills by country is based on comparative means; i.e., the average number on the scale from 1–7 assigned to each skill in each country. Table  5.1 presents this information in numerical format (comparative means), including overall mean and standard deviations. However, it might be difficult to get an overview of key country similarities and differences from Table  5.1, which is why the results are also presented in spider diagram format (Figure  5.1); this visualizes similarities and differences between countries and makes clearer where there is greater and lesser agreement on the importance of particular skills. The greatest agreement on importance is found in the skills of writing, ability to work independently, interviewing skills, and research technique skills. These are the four skills with the highest average rankings across all countries, and these are also the skills where the standard deviations from the mean are lowest (indicating a high degree of agreement). The skills that are ranked as least important overall, multimedia, management, and design/layout, also have relatively high standard deviations, indicating that while these skills are generally considered less important (in most cases considerably so) than the first four mentioned, there is also a greater country-­by-country variation in how important these skills are considered Table 5.1  Value placed on different skills by country (comparative means) Skills/Country

UK

SE

PL

EE

DE

IT

Mean

SD

Writing Editing/subediting Interviewing Research Multimedia Design/layout Time management Law Networking Teamwork Management Work independently N

6.54 5.22 6.25 5.97 4.14 3.39 5.86 5.00 5.73 4.81 3.97 6.36 668

6.45 5.42 6.32 6.02 4.07 3.49 5.53 3.81 5.53 4.93 3.29 6.44 389

6.46 5.27 6.02 6.09 3.68 5.22 5.83 4.65 6.37 5.02 3.44 6.58 130

6.50 5.53 6.48 6.17 4.08 3.16 6.18 5.27 6.45 5.81 4.11 6.62 274

6.56 5.74 5.90 6.25 4.24 3.72 5.68 4.70 5.27 5.41 4.36 6.03 343

6.47 5.30 6.07 5.92 4.87 3.69 5.90 4.81 6.18 5.33 3.43 5.94 377

6.5 5.39 6.20 6.05 4.23 3.59 5.82 4.72 5.83 5.15 3.80 6.30 2181

0.88 1.42 1.10 1.12 1.62 1.63 1.22 1.51 1.29 1.58 1.64 1.03 –

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Figure 5.1  Value placed on different skills by country (comparative means)—spider diagram. For the original color version of this diagram please go to: http://www. bloomsbury.com/us/newsworkers-9781780931838/.

to be. As we can see, design/layout skills are considered notably more important in Poland than elsewhere; multimedia production skills are considered more important in Italy than elsewhere; and there is a higher than 1-point difference in the importance ascribed to management skills between the country where the importance of this skill is ranked the highest (Germany) and the country where it’s ranked the lowest (Sweden). Country differences in the importance of management skills persist even when controlling for the managerial responsibilities and role of the respondents. Differences are also notable in the perceived importance of the knowledge of law; this is considered less important in Sweden than elsewhere. There are also, relatively speaking, noticeable differences in the perceived importance of networking and teamwork skills, with Italy, Poland, and Estonia ranking networking skills highly and Italy, Estonia, and Germany ranking teamwork skills higher than the other countries. Broadly, the top right-­hand side of the diagram (including the skills of ability to work independently, writing, editing/subediting, interviewing, and research) captures what seems to be considered the core skills of journalism across all the six nations studied. These are mostly skills that (broadly) can be seen as connected

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to the reporter or field role of journalism, i.e., working independently outside the newsroom to gather facts by doing research and conducting interviews, and then writing the results up in an accessible and coherent fashion. Overall, we can also note that standard deviations are relatively high (more than 1 step on the 7-point scale in all cases but one, writing), which means a lesser degree of agreement among journalists on the relative importance of these skills (which in turn may indicate that different journalists have understood these terms to mean somewhat different things). High standard deviations plus a relatively low average score indicates that assessments may vary depending on the work tasks of the respondents, i.e., those who have management responsibilities place higher value on management skills than those journalists who do not have such responsibilities. Given the non-­random nature of the sample, these numbers were extensively controlled against a number of other variables. Management skills would presumably be considered more important if you actually have managerial duties. Controlling for that (question 14 in the survey: “Do you supervise any other employees in your current job?” with possible responses being Yes, usually; Sometimes; No) shows that those who usually or sometimes supervise other employees indeed rate management skills higher than those who do not, but the national differences demonstrated in Table 5.1 and Figure 5.1 persist, with some small exceptions—while management skills are overall valued lowest in Sweden, Swedish journalists who do not supervise other employees rate management skills as slightly more important than their Polish and Italian counterparts. Multimedia production skills can conceivably be related to the type of medium one works for; those who work for online media may rate this skill higher than others. It would also presumably be related to work tasks; if you regularly work producing content for different platforms you will rate skill in multimedia production higher than if you don’t. Again, national differences persist when controlling for medium type and work tasks; in general, print journalists rate multimedia production skills less important and online journalists rate them more important, but differences between countries stay the same. The fact that Polish journalists rank design/layout skills so highly is in part a result of the fact that people who state that their primary duty at work is “reporter” make up a big part of the Polish sample (20 out of 130 respondents; the second-­largest category after “editorial management”), and that reporters in Poland rate design/layout skills very highly (mean: 6.00). The interviews indicate that Poland at the time of this study was in the middle of the process of transforming production using digital content management systems, thus

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making reporters more responsible for design and layout; this was also clearly indicated in the interviews and also described in Chapter 4. Knowledge of law may, as noted, also be associated with particular beats—for example, it is likely to be considered more important by journalists who work with investigative journalism, or by journalists covering the crime/court/police beat. The n numbers of these categories in almost all countries are too small to allow for any definite conclusions on this; those who consider themselves “general reporters” (i.e., who do not have a specific beat) in all countries rank knowledge of law higher than most other journalists, suggesting that knowledge of law is a generalist as well as a specialist skill, but one that is not considered very important compared to other skills. Another way of visualizing country similarities and differences in perceived importance of different skills is to use the comparative mean scores to create a ranking list for each country, where the skill with the highest mean score comes in at number 1, the second highest at number 2, and so on. This ranking can be seen in Table 5.2. While Table  5.2 does present a comparative overview, it can also be a bit misleading. Table 5.1 shows that the differences in mean scores are often quite small; the difference between one spot on the ranking list can be (and sometimes is) as little as 0.01. It is, for example, not the case that networking is considered four “steps” more important in Italy than in the UK (it is the second highest-­ ranked skill in Italy and the sixth highest in the UK), but rather that networking is valued about one-­third of a standard deviation higher in Italy than in the UK (mean score of 6.18 and 5.73, respectively). It is more the case that this way of representing perceived importance of different skills in different countries further highlights the overall patterns found in Table 5.1 and Figure 5.1: writing skills and the ability to work independently are considered very important in all countries; management skills, multimedia production skills, and design/layout skills are considered least important in all countries (with the exception of the perceived importance of design/layout skills in Poland); and Poland, Estonia, and Italy seem to value networking skills higher than in other countries. Looking at the preceding tables and figures, we also see that there seems to be no evidence that writing and editing/subediting would be valued more in countries where the literary tradition is strong in journalism (i.e., Italy). Writing is in fact highly valued everywhere, and editing/subediting is not particularly highly valued anywhere—there are no big differences between countries at all. However, the validity of this measure has limitations.“Writing” could conceivably be considered a core skill in a craft tradition of journalism (as in the UK, see

Table 5.2  Ranking of different skills by country Rank

UK

SE

PL

EE

DE

IT

Overall

 1  2  3  4  5

Writing Work indep. Interviewing Research Time mgmt.

Work indep. Writing Networking Research Interviewing

Work indep. Writing Interviewing Networking Time mgmt.

Writing Research Work indep. Interviewing Edit/subedit

Writing Networking Interviewing Work indep. Research

Writing Work indep. Interviewing Research Networking

 6  7  8  9 10 11 12

Networking Edit/subedit Law Teamwork Multimedia Management Design/layout

Writing Work indep. Interviewing Research Time mgmt./ Networking – Edit/subedit Teamwork Multimedia Law Design/layout Management

Time mgmt. Edit/subedit Design/layout Teamwork Law Multimedia Management

Research Teamwork Edit/subedit Law Management Multimedia Design/layout

Time mgmt. Teamwork Networking Law Management Multimedia Design/layout

Time mgmt. Teamwork Edit/subedit Multimedia Law Design/layout Management

Time mgmt. Edit/subedit Teamwork Law Multimedia Management Design/layout

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Chalaby, 1998) as well as in the literary tradition. If we want to comprehensively assess differences in how writing skill is valued in different countries we would need more fine-­grained categories rather than just the catch-­all “writing.” We probably need to differentiate not only between types and genres of writing but also between ways of approaching the writing process. The next section will deal in more detail with what journalists actually mean when they talk about “writing skill.” It does seem to be the case that networking skill is more highly valued in Italy, Poland, and Estonia than in the other three countries. The expectation was that skills that allow you to find information and do your job in a clientelistic environment—i.e., networking skills—would be considered more important in countries where the media system has strong clientelistic features. Who you know is more important than what you know, at least for the purpose of gathering information, finding the right person to talk to, getting them to talk, and so on.

Key skills, skill change, and skill demands: A qualitative overview The cross-­national agreement on core skills for journalists found in the quantitative analysis is supported by the qualitative data as well, though the picture becomes more complex. Almost all journalists interviewed agreed that there are a limited set of core skills that journalists need, and that these have not fundamentally changed despite wide-­ranging changes to the institutional context of work. Interestingly, there is no exact agreement on what these core skills are, but there are strong commonalities across national borders. Individual journalists—like all of us—tend to think that the skills they have are the ones that are the absolutely necessary, basic competences of the occupation. There are many examples in the interviews of general reporters stating that it is of the utmost importance that you are a generalist in terms of skills and subject matters, and specialist reporters maintaining that you cannot become a good and successful journalist unless you have some kind of specialist knowledge. Young journalists who are skilled in cross-­platform production (more on them later) think this is absolutely important, whereas older journalists who have worked within the same organization for a long time say that technological skills really are not that important and what matters is basic writing skill. So there is an element of case-­of-one reasoning and generalizing using one’s own experience here, as can only be expected from this type of qualitative

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interview data. But that is far from the only pattern in the material. There is, for example, broad agreement across national borders on one key aspect of the “skill core” of journalism.

Storytelling Something mentioned by almost all journalists as a core skill, even though they may use slightly different words to describe it, is skill in storytelling. This means something more than skills in written and spoken language (even though those are important elements of it, as many interviewees also mention): here we go behind the category of “Writing” in the quantitative skills survey and find out more exactly what kind of writing it is that is valued by journalists. Storytelling involves an ability to understand that you write in a particular genre, a sense of your audience, and an ability to extract the essential elements from large materials and complex contexts. The following quotes illustrate what this storytelling skill consists of: Of course you need to be able to express yourself using language, but above all, you need to be able to see, where’s the story? You have a big issue, a big context, and then find the core or whatever. That’s important, to be able to peel away, to get at essentials . . . like, this person who I’ve been talking to for an hour, what’s he really saying? /. . ./ That’s the key skill, to see the story, pure and simple. Mid-­career, print (freelance), Sweden So I just think the skill of telling the story once and finding a way of presenting it so that it’s remembered is just something I simply like. Late-­career, broadcast, UK INT: What characterizes a professional journalist? RESP: First of all, the skill to see a story. The skill to find what is most important in a topic, because there are many aspects, you have to choose what to report and what is irrelevant. To see the society as a whole, to see one topic in the context of society. Late-­career, broadcast, Estonia To me, a good journalist is someone who knows their subject, who can engage interest, and who can tell a story that attracts me as a viewer or listener or reader. Late-­career, broadcast, Sweden A good journalist is able to tell a story, but staying outside the story, being objective, I mean this is the basic rule. Late-­career, online, Italy

Skill

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Obviously you would think being a good writer but actually I think just being a good storyteller. And the most important thing as a journalist is to know a good story. Early-­career, print, UK

Since a key part of storytelling skill is the ability to “find the story”—which mostly means being able to condense and shape the reporting of an event so that it fits with narrative demands—storytelling skill is also closely related to what we could call editorial judgment. This is in essence the ability to decide on behalf of the audience what is important and what they should know. Note that journalists base this decision on behalf of the audience not on any formalized, scientific knowledge of audience preferences (in fact, journalists routinely deride audience research as either too abstract or a commercial tool used to dumb down the news). The journalist’s knowledge of the audience is rather framed as almost instinctual: you “just know” how to select and tell a story so that it will be relevant for and also please your audience. Thus we can see that storytelling not only involves the skill in framing events, but also the skill of selecting which events to report in the first place, as these quotes demonstrate: Well a good journalist needs to be totally up-­to-date, he needs to have all the current news and should be able to judge them, not only to judge what the people might already know but also what is important for them to know, I think that is very exciting as you as a journalist can explain the world to them a bit and that also might shape their world which is an aspect of responsibility. So this being up-­to-date and the responsible treatment of such is the fundament I think. And if you look to the print journalism then it’s also important that you are able to convey the information to the people as well. So it needs to have a rational approach but also needs to have a sensitive, emotional component. That you try and tell the story in a way that it gets to the reader not only to the head but also to a certain extent emotionally. Early-­career, print (freelance), Germany

This focus on storytelling—involving both elements of skill in constructing a narrative, and the skill of knowing what events can usefully be made into narratives—is well known in the literature on journalistic work (Barkin, 1984; Berkowitz, 1992; Tuchman, 1978), as is the insistence of journalists that this knowledge resides in their gut and thus is inaccessible to critical analysis (Richards, 2009: 307; Schultz, 2007). Based on earlier studies, the emphasis on storytelling and editorial judgment as key journalistic skills across national borders comes as no surprise.

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Journalists frequently explain storytelling with reference to the audience: being a good storyteller is being able to explain, inform, and entertain an audience all at once. Journalists know that they produce goods on a market. This applies to journalists in public service media as well: public service media may not be active on the advertising market, but they are active on the “attention market.” Defining the ability to attract and engage with the audience as a key journalistic skill has its roots in the commercial imperatives of the mass press, but has long since become wholly integrated into occupational discourse. Good storytelling is good journalism because it is viewed as necessary for fulfilling several of the key public functions of journalism: good storytelling attracts audience attention, helps explain complex issues, and presents important information in an easily accessible manner. Storytelling skill serves the demands of both the organization and the occupational collective, something which is also evident from the way in which many journalists view the skill of writing (an important element of storytelling skill). Writing, as we learned from the survey results, is considered essential whether you work in print, broadcast, or online. And more importantly, many journalists view their writing skill as their core transferable skill, one that will be useful no matter what job within journalism they have, and that can also be developed and strengthened by working for different media and different types of organizations: INT: And is your experience of working in the press in any way reflected in your current work, or not really? RESP: Maybe in the way that, when I first came here, I found it much easier to write some long texts than people who started with portals. It wasn’t a problem for me at all, but it happens that people who start by writing some news reports, short messages, have a problem and they have to learn to write longer form texts later on. Therefore, the experience in printed press—and in my case especially since I had worked at a weekly and at a monthly, for both of which I used to write some longer texts—gave me this ability to write more extensive materials than is usually the case on the Internet, while here you sometimes have to do it as well /. . ./ Early-­career, online, Poland

Being a good writer/storyteller makes you employable, and is something that you can use regardless of the type of journalistic job you have. Organizationally, this meets the need for predictability, as a broadly and deeply shared valuation of storytelling skill among journalists ensures a reliable supply of professionals who understand and can work to meet the organizational demand of attracting

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and keeping audiences. Occupationally, being a good storyteller is necessary in order to perform the public functions of journalism, and storytelling skill is also a source of collegiate appreciation and recognition: a good storyteller is universally recognized by his/her peers as a good journalist. Placing storytelling skill at the center of what journalism is clearly represents a long-­standing and very strong integration of organizational and occupational professionalism.

Technical skills and multi-­skilling The previous chapter noted that many uses of technology (e.g., writing/editing on laptops, using mobile devices, and doing research online) are so naturalized that they are hardly considered “skilled” by journalists. Other uses of technology, on the other hand (e.g., more specific skills in multiplatform production such as video/sound editing or graphic design), are perceived as new and potentially disruptive and seen as indications of wider changes within the occupation. There is still a strong and to a large extent cross-­nationally shared sense of what constitutes the core skills of the occupation, but journalists know and see that demands are also changing: INT: So did the skills and competences you have as a journalist also change because of this? RESP: Yes they have changed in the way that you need to have a certain affinity to technology as there are some people that reject it completely and they have quite some difficulty because sometime it just doesn’t go any other way and within the department we have a certain competition of who is the fastest and produce it on the scene and you have to have a certain kind of understanding of technology in order to decide whether “can I do it on the scene or not” what so I need to order or not. Because when I’m in the car with my team already, then it’s too late to order something as a freelancer, and it’s also the case when I tell my CvD [= editor-­in-chief] that I will be able to cut that short news movie myself then he expects that I’ll do it and can’t just go there one minute before the broadcast and tell him, no sorry I can’t make it. So although I still have the backup of my cutter, it’s also quite important that I can do it myself. So I think that changed and although I think even in the past people had to do the same amount at the television but now you have to be more up-­to-date with the technology because it’s not really possible without it. Mid-­career, broadcast, Germany

Particularly early-­career journalists perceive the demand to be proficient across platforms as an ever-­present pressure. This is the flip side of technology making

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journalism easier. It is also linked to the discussion of “technologization from above” in the previous chapter, as skill demands are either perceived as being imposed on journalists from above, or part of a larger environment that you as a young journalist cannot do anything about: /. . ./ It’s a poisoned chalice becoming more skilled, it means that you can then be employed as the word suggests, in a range of activities. So I can now shoot, edit. I can shoot, I can edit, I can do the online side of things, and I can look after the multimedia aspect. But quite often, because I am one of the few people who can do all of those things, I might get asked to do those things ahead of getting asked to do the journalism. Early-­career, broadcast, UK You need to give yourself a lot of skills so you can facilitate being able to do something. When you get those skills you then give others an opportunity to exploit those skills over and above the journalism which is why you are in the job in the first place. But if you are not multi-­skilled then someone else is. Especially at my age. Early-­career, broadcast, UK /. . ./ But all the editing and processing of news, absolutely everything is done on computers. From this autumn onwards even the picture editing should be done solely on computers, not from one cassette to another. For the editor, it means an increase in . . . I wouldn’t even say workload, but in range, he has to deal more and more with something that used to be the film editor’s or director’s job. The number of tasks of a television journalist increases. Not even just the tasks, but the skills he has to have. Mid-­career, broadcast, Estonia. NB: This quote also appeared in a previous section. INT: Would you then also say that the requirements, the competences or the skills that a journalist has to have also have changed because of these developments? RESP: Yes, I think that is true, because in the online department for example you have to have a lot of technical competences and you have to be very quick. Which is actually only secondary for a journalist. Late-­career, print (freelance), Germany /. . ./ Especially the ones that work in the online editorial department, they have to know how to use HTML a bit and if possible also some other things such as Flash and video. So things like that. And also for the print journalism you need more technical competences, given all that rationalization, you must be able to

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structure a page yourself and not only hand in your text, and also in research you need to be able to use the Internet and things like YouTube or Twitter, so you have to get used to these. Mid-­career, online/print, Germany

It is increasingly common (and often perceived as an either inevitable or natural development) to have to learn technical skills that are fairly far removed from the actual production of content and “traditional” occupational tasks. Many new tasks (and their associated skills) added to the journalists’ repertoire deal with how one presents content in order to have the maximum impact on the audience. Learning about and using techniques for search engine optimization is a typical example (also see Currah, 2009): RESP: [describes how s/he has learned to master different content management systems, how to do photo editing in Photoshop, and also designed and implemented a blog platform for journalists within the organization.] INT: And you learnt all that on the job? RESP: Yes, that’s right it all developed further, and what I mentioned before with the search engine optimizing, which is a new topic in our online section, how we are presenting articles in a way that they are easy to Google because the access to our pages over Google News is rather broad and of course we want to guide many users to our pages . . . Mid-­career, online, Germany

The following exchange particular illustrates how search engine optimization practices for some journalists have become a thoroughly integrated and everyday work skill (note that the term “search engine optimization” is not even used by the journalist, even though this is obviously what is being described): RESP: /. . ./ When we have our shifts, we have a so-­called “click map” where we see in real time how particular things are being read and we have to do our best for all the things to be read as much as possible. And definitely there is some pressure. There is also trying to have the best possible result every day, and a lot of our efforts go there, because we compose a title and when we see that it doesn’t read very well we have to think of how to make it more interesting. INT: I’m not sure I fully understand. An item appears, but you see that it is not being read so you change it? RESP: No. We have the texts we have. But we have to expose them on the website, where in fact you can only see the titles. And these titles are different than the actual ones that are in those texts. They are the titles we come up with in order to . . .

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INT: Encourage? RESP: Yes, encourage people to click. And they are frequently changed throughout the day. So let’s say we have a title that says “The President says something” and we can change this title into a quotation. And we can change one title a couple of times. The way we do it is that if something doesn’t read, then we take something interesting out of the article and put it in the title. So when we publish material, we usually monitor it and if we see that people don’t read it, we try to do something to make the title more attractive. Early-­career, online, Poland

There is of course considerable variation in skill demands across countries and across media. Even though the pressures to learn new technical skills are on the increase everywhere, there are still journalists who feel they can “opt out” and simply refuse to learn new skills (sometimes because they, with some justification, perceive that their workload will increase if they learn new skills): RESP: We’re talking about technology. I don’t really use it that much. What do I need? I just have to be able to write a text in a relevant computer program, which I’m later going to read onto the material. That’s all I have to know. INT: The cameraman is going to do the rest? He has to know how to do it? RESP: We have this rule, according to which a cameraman is also an editor. It makes it easier because the editor knows the pictures already as he takes them himself. It also makes it easier because the cameraman knows what takes he needs to edit them easily afterwards. INT: That makes sense. RESP: Moreover, it makes them identify more with a topic. They know what it’s about and how to match it with the picture. I think it’s good, like Wash & Go [a combined hair shampoo and conditioner]. Just between you and me, I should be able to edit these materials myself on these complicated computers. But I can’t. Maybe I would be able to do something if I absolutely had to. Mid-­career, broadcast, Poland

Other journalists offer similar descriptions of how they either feel it is unnecessary to learn new technical skills, or that they fear that they will be assigned more work tasks if they do learn them. But while opting out is still an alternative in some places, most journalists who talk about this also agree that it will probably soon cease to be a viable strategy (note that this same quote was also used earlier in Chapter 4): RESP: I should, but unfortunately I don’t really have time, and sometimes I just don’t feel like doing it. Actually, we have so-­called audio blogs. So reporters from

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all around the country have a sort of an Internet site where, theoretically, they should publish all their information. /. . ./ You have to write it, you have to . . . Of course I’m not going to dupe you by saying it’s one hour of work because it’s not. But they push us hard. So I suspect that soon we will have to start being more dutiful in this area. Early-­career, broadcast, Poland

Being multi-­skilled does not only mean skilled in various production technologies. Great value is also placed on being a generalist, someone who can work across many different subject areas and quickly grasp the important elements of a new area (as noted earlier, generalists generally value generalist skills higher than specialists, but the notion that being a generalist is good is still widespread). This is another instance when the values of occupational professionalism and organizational professionalism coincide. Being a generalist has traditionally been valued within journalism as an indicator of occupational professionalism (a journalist should be able to “do anything”), and it is of course also convenient for media organizations to have a set of employees who can work across multiple subject areas: So that’s a challenge of the journalists, the new generation, as they can’t really say “I am just going to do politics and nothing else” they have to be more open minded, they have to be comfortable in many areas, which is a further competence beside the technical one. But I think at the very heart what a journalist had to be able to do there didn’t really change much. I think, you need a broad education and to be able to take criticism and also how to use the information, how reliable is it, to have a healthy suspicion towards authorities in order to develop a certain standing and not to give in to any random pressure and he also has to be able to use language very efficiently that all didn’t really change much. It doesn’t really matter in which area he is working, the language is the key mean to transport the message so to speak. That was also the case when I started my career, you always have to have a very good knowledge of their language in spoken as well as in written form. That is still the case today, although it went a little bit in the background given the age of emails, sms, Twitter, and blogs and so on, but nevertheless that still stands in the very center. So the center didn’t really change that much but the technical competences have become more important and the competence to be able to go into different areas and to do it in a more comprehensive way. Late-­career, broadcast, Germany

There is still a powerful image of the journalist as a jack-­of-all-­trades, someone who constantly has to be prepared for reporting on a new subject area or in a new

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genre. This occupational ideal of course also makes it counter-­productive to resist multi-­skilling demands, as competences in cross-­platform production are readily incorporated into the jack-­of-all-­trades image. Plus, as can be seen in the previous quote and most other quotes on the topic, technical skills are not viewed as a fundamental challenge to the core skill of journalism, i.e. storytelling ability.

Entrepreneurship as skill Finally, there is also some evidence that another skill—or rather meta-­skill— is very important, particularly for young journalists and freelancers: the skill of entrepreneurship. As noted by Baines and others, in contexts of precarious labor, a key skill or set of skills relates not specifically to your chosen occupation but rather to the ability to find and get new jobs (Baines, 1999, 2002; Dex, Willis, Paterson, & Sheppard, 2000; Ekinsmyth, 1999; Gollmitzer, 2014). You have to manage your own career. The focus on skill-­building for employability, and on developing “employability” in itself as a skill, is also very much implicit in most recent texts on so-­called entrepreneurial journalism (e.g., Baines & Kennedy, 2010; Briggs, 2011; Drok, 2013; Hunter & Nel, 2011). The emergence of entrepreneurship as a key skill is very much against a background of increasingly rapid job change; i.e., journalists can no longer necessarily expect to stay for very long with the same employer. Early-­career journalists in particular often have to move from one short-­term employment to the next. While increasing rapidity of job change is well documented in general (e.g., Beck, 2000; Beynon et  al., 2002; Burchell et  al., 1999; Goos & Manning, 2007), there is very little longitudinal data specific to journalism on how often you change jobs, so Table 5.3 can only present a snapshot of the situation. Still, it provides an important context for the further discussion of entrepreneurship as skill in journalism. Note that Table  5.3 is not comparative; it just looks at the overall sample composition. It provides a striking illustration of the reality of precarious labor and short-­term contracts in journalism. For example, a total of 38 percent (15 + 23) of journalists who have worked less than 1 year in the profession have in that time had two or more different jobs. If we add up the three intervals that make up what is in this study defined as early-­career journalists (i.e., those who have been working as journalists for 5 years or less), we find that a full 71 percent of early-­career journalists have held more than one job, and 41 percent have held more than two. As noted, it is very difficult to make sense of the scale and scope

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Table 5.3  Number of jobs held by time working as a journalist (overall)—percent How many years have you been working as a journalist?

How many different jobs in journalism have you had previous to your current one? Only this 1 other one

2–3

4–5

6–9

10+

Tot.

Up to 1 year 1–3 years 4–5 years 6–9 years 10–15 years 16–19 years 20 years Average N

  62   31   25   19   15   14   10   16 341

23 29 39 39 43 32 30 34 750

– 5 9 20 20 25 26 21 456

– – 2 4 8 13 16 10 224

– – – 1 2 1 10 5 107

100 101 100 100 100 101 101 101 2203

15 36 25 17 12 16 9 15 325

of the changes in the occupation, but what little longitudinal data we have indicates that the transformation of this aspect (i.e., frequency of job change) of the journalistic labor market structure has been extensive. Table 5.3 also shows that 15 percent of all journalists have had at least five different jobs; in Johnstone, Slawski, & Bowman’s 1976 study of US journalists, 4.7 percent of all respondents had held at least five jobs (Johnstone, Slawski, & Bowman, 1976). In his 1971 study, Tunstall noted that 13 percent of specialist reporters had held at least five different jobs prior to becoming specialists, at an average age of thirty and after working in the profession for 12 years (Tunstall, 1971). These figures are less than ideal from a comparative standpoint (Johnstone, Slawski & Bowman’s study is about US journalists), but still show an apparent increase in job change frequency, particularly for young journalists. This is the context most journalists today work in: jobs are scarce and permanent jobs even scarcer, and therefore you have to be flexible and entrepreneurial to stay in the profession. This context is very much evident in young journalists’ attitudes to technical skill training. Being skilled in cross-­platform production is something you have to be in order to remain employable, and you have to take personal responsibility to acquire these skills, typically by attending training or arranging to practice on your own in your spare time: You need to give yourself a lot of skills so you can facilitate being able to do something. When you get those skills you then give others an opportunity to

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exploit those skills over and above the journalism which is why you are in the job in the first place. But if you are not multi-­skilled then someone else is. Especially at my age. Early-­career, broadcast, UK. NB: This quote has been used in an earlier section. There are no opportunities for courses. You can ask, ask, ask, as I have done but basically there is no money. There is no money and they don’t want to put you on a course unless they are absolutely sure that it’s absolutely worth it. So you’ve got to do it, prove that you can do it before they will even think about training you which is ridiculous. Early-­career, broadcast, UK Yes. When I first started journalism, absolutely. I think it’s quite exploitative because, certainly with the work experience thing, you can end up working for months on end for no money because you’re just desperate to try and get in there, and really you think it’s better to work at the Observer for free rather than some crap magazine that no one ever reads. And certainly when I was at the Observer I wasn’t paid very much and I was only paid to work on those two magazines, the Food magazine and the Woman magazine. So I wrote for news in my spare time. Every weekend I would be writing either a channel thing or a television review. Usually I was doing something at the weekend—totally on my own time. That was never paid for. I didn’t mind that then. Early-­career, print, UK

Contract uncertainty and precariousness is an everyday reality for most young journalists (and for quite a few of those further advanced in their careers as well). Having to constantly be on the lookout for new employment is the norm: My contract comes to an end at the end of this year. I really have to get out and do something new. And maybe if it was just ongoing it would never push me to move. I would just think “Oh, there’s always next week, or next month”; whereas now I am applying for this part-­time course because I think I have to start it before the end of my other contract. What I’m hoping is that they’ll renew my contract and I can do the two side by side and then once I’ve finished it I’ll know whether or not I want to be a news reporter and then go from there. So, yeah, I think there are other problems. At times when things get locked down and they’ve got to get rid of people, the people on freelance contracts or fixed terms, you are the first person to go because you’re cheap. There’s no redundancy; you don’t get a pension; there’s all of that to take into consideration. Early-­career, print, UK

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There are other examples of young journalists using their initiative and working in their spare time to increase skills that could definitely be defined as entrepreneurial. A young radio journalist (UK) described how he persuaded an acquaintance working in television within the same organization to get after-­ hours access to the TV editing rooms so that he could teach himself TV editing. Another young online and broadcast journalist (UK) described how he borrowed video and film equipment from friends—and also bought some equipment from his own money—in order to learn more about video/film-­making techniques. A German early-­career journalist demonstrated entrepreneurial initiative when the media outlet where she was doing her internship closed down: she persuaded the closest competitor to take her on as an intern instead. A young Estonian broadcast journalist mentioned reading encyclopedia entries every night all the time while she was working as a foreign desk assistant, in order to better understand the context of foreign events. And so on. Skills like networking and learning ability, as well as traits like being self-­ directed and hard-­working, are of course important in all occupations, and have always been important in journalism too. However, among young journalists in particular, the contemporary environment of precarious labor and contract uncertainty creates a context where a lot of your work is about getting work, as it were. The following quote illustrates this from the employer/manager perspective as well: Every semester we get two interns from the Journalism School at University here, and the good ones are the ones where you can just put things in their hands and they succeed . . . you have to be very driven today. Since many newsrooms are so small, you have to be very driven, good at finding your own stuff. Well, it’s completely different on a national tabloid of course, there you’ll never get to do your own stories unless you’re a star reporter with an established beat. /. . ./ This job, you have to be very driven, have a lot of ideas, and know how to get them done, know the routes to take. Mid-­career, print, Sweden

As noted, networking is an important part of entrepreneurship: INT: And you say you spend a lot of your time now in your working week trying to network? RESP: Yeah, relationship building, building trust. Letting people have a drink with you, have a look at my face and generally let people get the word out about me and figuring out what I want to do and why I’m doing this and what my motivation is.

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/. . ./ Yeah, it’s [it = networking] the only thing that’s working. The only thing. If I hadn’t met people no one’s ever taken anything. If I’ve met them and we’ve built a relationship, then those are the only people I freelance with. Early-­career, online/broadcast (freelance), UK

One UK journalist tells of taking the initiative in creating a more formalized social network of young journalists who meet over dinner once a month and sometimes invite speakers from the industry—the explicit aim of this network is to help members build their skills and keep each other informed about job openings. Benner describes similar networks existing in Silicon Valley, perhaps the paradigmatic example of a working environment characterized by high levels of flexibility, precariousness, and uncertainty (Benner, 2002). Another aspect of entrepreneurial skill is having an increased awareness of and adaptation to the commercial context of journalism: [RESP talks about commercial “pressures” being natural and necessary—he suggests that journalists should be in touch with their advertising people more.] INT: So many journalists would be resistant to this as they think the guy in sales is really coming to get them to do a story . . . whereas what you’re saying is “We’re doing a story on this—can you use it?” RESP: Yes, having in mind that money can be made—or how money can be added to the content you are creating. Early-­career, online, UK

In a similar fashion, one of the Swedish young interviewees describes how journalists and ad salespeople in his workplace attend the same editorial meetings, and that the ad salespeople often weigh in on editorial decision—and that the interviewee welcomes this as it allows him to develop an understanding of the commercial realities of journalism. The UK online journalist quoted previously later in the interview specifically mentions being entrepreneurial and identifies a general “business sense” as an important element of this: INT: /. . ./ You mentioned earlier journalists becoming increasingly entrepreneurial professionally. Is that something that would characterize a good journalist? RESP: I think so but it’s hard to find examples of that happening already but I do definitely get the sense that if you’re not lucky enough to be a star correspondent on a paper that you can rely on being there for the next 10–20 years, that you are going to have some business awareness and that sort of thing just to carry you through. Early-­career, online, UK

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These examples are scattered—and most from the UK—but they do serve as an indicator that journalism is going the way of many other jobs in that being entrepreneurial is becoming a key work skill or meta-­skill, particularly for those working on a freelance basis. This trend is also a clear example of organizational professionalism winning out over occupational professionalism: entrepreneurialism represents an adaptation to—and adoption of—commercial– organizational demands. A professional worker is someone who takes on the responsibility of managing uncertainty and skill development so that organizations do not have to.

Summary and conclusions There is broad cross-­national agreement on what the most important skills in journalistic work are: writing, ability to work independently, research skills, and interviewing skills are ranked highly across all six nations. Management skills, multimedia production skills, and design/layout skills are conversely ranked lower in importance across the six countries (except for the high importance placed on design/layout skills in Poland, which was discussed earlier). Differences do exist: in Poland, Estonia, and Italy, all nations with a higher degree of clientelism than those in the rest of the sample, networking skills are valued much more highly than in the UK, Germany, and Sweden. But overall, differences are small. Earlier in this book I proposed that skills linked to editing and the “desk” aspects of journalism might be valued more highly than skills linked to the “field” or reporting aspects of journalism in countries where the editor role has historically been more prominent (i.e., one could expect that “desk” skills would be valued more highly in Germany and Italy and “field” skills in the UK and Sweden). This does not seem to be the case. Just as many comparative studies have found great cross-­national agreement on journalistic values and the societal role of journalism, so too does there seem to be great cross-­national agreement on what the “core skills” of journalism are. Writing, working independently, research, and interviewing are all more associated with the field/reporter role, whereas skills like management, design/layout, and multimedia production are more associated with the desk/editor role—and the field role skills are considered most important across all countries. A journalist is someone who needs to be able to work unsupervised outside the newsroom (ability to work independently), to find facts and verify them (interviewing, research), and to present them to audiences in an accessible and interesting way (writing). Skills related to work

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tasks that have recently (i.e., in the past 5 to15 years) been added to journalistic work (in this case mostly multimedia production and design/layout) are not at all considered as important—despite the fact that, as indicated in Chapter  4, a majority of journalists today have to engage in multimedia production as a matter of course. Journalists have to do it, but they do not think it is important— presumably because it is not perceived as directly linked to the core task of journalism. Organizational professionalism creates an inertia that occupational professionalism cannot easily change, despite the rapidly changing technological context of journalistic production. Skill demands are changing faster than the value placed on skills by journalists. New technologies, despite becoming more and more seamlessly integrated into all kinds of journalistic production, are still considered alien compared to the “traditional” elements of journalistic work.

Upskilling, deskilling, reskilling? So is journalism a highly skilled, elite occupation with a high level of autonomy, or is the occupation, as some critics suggest, becoming more like “factory work,” but producing content rather than machine parts? Or is journalism becoming more polarized with some groups of journalists enjoying upskilling while others are subjected to deskilling? As journalists are now more involved in different stages of the news production process, as well as routinely working across platforms, the conclusion is inescapable: a de facto upskilling of journalism has taken place. Journalists today have more, and need more, technical production skills than the journalists of yesteryear. Those who argue that journalism is becoming deskilled usually contrast technical production skills with more intellectual skills like the ability to find interesting topics and angles, skill in investigative reporting techniques, and intellectual reflexivity: in their view, it may well be that journalists have been upskilled in terms of technological production proficiency, but this is exactly what contributes to deskilling in other areas. Many interviewees mention the difficulty finding time for reflection and more in-­depth reporting, as well as an increased pressure to produce more material faster—a work environment that privileges manual over intellectual labor to the detriment of journalistic quality. But in contrast, most journalists still value—and more importantly, still regularly use—the more intellectual skills of the occupation. Furthermore, the degree of “intellectual” effort involved in different skills is difficult to assess. From the examples given by the interviewees, it seems

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that exercising entrepreneurial skill actually involves a great degree of reflexivity, planning, and imagination, for example. The rise of entrepreneurial skill cannot easily be explained as the dominance of manual over intellectual labor. Rather, it is the case that one form of intellectual labor (being entrepreneurial) might take time and energy away from other forms of intellectual labor (working on in-­ depth, long-­term reporting, or reflecting on one’s professional role); i.e., a reskilling rather than a deskilling. The critical aspect of the rising importance of entrepreneurial skill is that it is, as noted, a meta-­skill, i.e., it is a skill that is not primarily related to the performance of one’s work tasks but rather related to the overall task of professional development and career management. Skills like writing, ability to work independently, interviewing, and research are clearly specifically tied to the day-­to-day work of journalism, whereas the entrepreneurial skills come into play when workers try to ensure that they will have an opportunity to engage in this day-­to-day work in the first place. In this sense, the reskilling or even upskilling of journalism (since a big part of being entrepreneurial is ensuring one has the skills to be employable) is still deeply problematic as it is a consequence of the increased precarity of labor rather than any specific new skill demands raised by changes in the job itself. Thus the pattern within journalism is skill polarization rather than outright upskilling/deskilling. Polarization is not occurring along national lines—it is very difficult to detect anything that points to a deskilling of UK journalists and an upskilling of journalists in Sweden, for example. Instead, the dominant variable in polarization is basic platform or medium type. Among the respondents, complaints about an extreme production tempo, an emphasis on churning out large quantities of content, and repurposing/rewriting as key work tasks, are more common among those journalists who work in predominantly online environments. Online journalism (be it online-­only services or the Web versions of newspapers or broadcasters) is the most factory-­like journalism, and thus intellectual skill demands are not as high. Some online journalists describe their work as essentially surfing the Web hunting for items they can rewrite or just copy and then post on the organizational website; working to fill an insatiable news-­hole. Lastly, there is another key variable of polarization—one that may seem obvious, but that still merits closer analysis and attention. This is polarization along career-­stage lines: young journalists are much more likely to have a more factory-­like work environment, less able to exercise intellectual skills, more likely to be involved in manual production work (also noted by Davies, 2008: 56ff). That such polarization exists is hardly surprising—in most occupations, skill

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demands are low at entry level and increase with career progression. This is not unique to journalism, and nor is it unique to the contemporary era: entry-­ level journalists have always had to do more of the drudge work. However, it is potentially worrying since, as noted in Chapters 1 and 2, the straightforward career advancement opportunities that used to exist in journalism do not anymore: entry-­level journalists cannot necessarily expect to move on to more skilled positions within a reasonable time frame. Journalism has always been characterized by an oversupply of labor (more people want to become journalists than there are jobs), but once you entered, you could be pretty certain of staying in journalism for as long as you wanted. A polarization between masses of young, cheap (or even free) employees doing factory-­type work (repurposing/ rewriting/copying content) under uncertain contractual conditions at the bottom end, and an increasingly smaller top tier of permanently employed, highly skilled journalists is clearly useful from an employer’s perspective (a big talent pool coupled with low salary costs for the majority of staff). It may not be that useful from an audience or democratic point of view: intense competition for jobs makes journalists more obedient (as noted by other scholars, e.g., Deuze, 2009; Phillips, Couldry & Freedman, 2010) and thus less likely to be critical or to even suggest doing things that do not fit the profile of the news organization they work for, or that will require too many resources.

6

Autonomy

So, at the newspaper where I worked before I really used to carry out journalistic activity: I went around to the police asking what had happened, I made phone calls to have the latest news, then I went to the court, to have something about legal news. I mean, in the morning I used to go around collecting stories everywhere, wandering the streets of this little town, and in the afternoon I tried to collect ideas about what had happened, mostly in the office. Here my job is different: topics are commissioned by the editors, I’ve got less autonomy in searching for stories, in the sense that topics come from the director or the editor-­ in-chief, who decide what will be broadcast and what I’ll deal with. Then the scope is of course different. I can’t go to the local police station anymore, to the local court, I deal with national news here, sometimes I work with “ready to use” images, shot by someone else, and you work with second-­hand information, from press agencies or other organizations. Early-­career, broadcast, Italy

Introduction The opening quote above is unusual because the interviewed journalist explicitly uses the term “autonomy.” Unlike “technology” and “skill,” “autonomy” is not part of the common journalistic vocabulary used to describe your own work. Many journalists would rather use the term “independence,” and then commonly in reference to their employer (i.e., that the media organization they work for is independent from various outside interests) rather than themselves. Workplace autonomy, i.e., the level of discretionary decision-­making in your own everyday work, is on the other hand not generally seen as a function of the state of the institution of journalism as a whole but rather seen as more related to specific workplace characteristics (e.g., the resources available when working on stories,

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the personal characteristics of the editor/manager, the culture of the organization). In other words, what goes on in the workplace is generally not explicitly related to wider trends in journalism: macro-­level trends are rendered invisible on the micro-­level of everyday work. Journalists often readily observe that journalistic work in general has become more stressful and more demanding, but usually they do not think this applies to their particular job—again, the opening quote of the chapter stands out because it is so exceptional. The overall pattern of the material in this regard is clear. This captures the close but often invisible relationship between institutional autonomy and workplace autonomy discussed in Chapter  2, as well as the previously mentioned third-­person effect at work when journalists relate general developments in journalism to their own working life and their personal experiences. This chapter presents a more detailed analysis of the perceived autonomy of journalists, and of the perceived relationship between macro-­level institutional tendencies and the micro-­level of journalists’ own working lives. In the first half of the chapter, a comparative analysis of four different quantitative autonomy indicators is presented, all of them dealing with different aspects of workplace autonomy: (1) perceived daily workload and time pressures; (2) perceived degree of discretionary decision-­making; (3) perceived sources of influence; and (4) perceived level of corruption. Coping with the daily workload and time pressures of day-­to-day work is a key element of workplace autonomy and linked to stress levels and other aspects of occupational health (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007; Spector & Jex, 1998). Research in this field indicates that high and unpredictable workloads will reduce functional autonomy (Peeters & Rutte, 2005; Sparks et  al., 2001). Discretionary decision-­making is considered as a key indicator of workplace autonomy across virtually all occupations (Breaugh, 1985; Karasek, 1979; Spector, 1986); here, the focus is on discretionary decision-­making directly related to the production of content and the possible conflicts around such decision-­making. Perceived sources of influence have been a key issue for comparative journalism research and are a well-­established indicator oriented towards the specific factors journalists see as influencing their autonomy (Hanitzsch, 2011; Hanitzsch & Mellado, 2011). Last in this first part of the chapter is a comparison of perceived level of corruption in journalism in general and in the individual workplace. The assumption here is that the existence of bribery and other forms of inappropriate compensation would be the ultimate indicator of weak autonomy vis-à-vis external forces. Unlike the preceding three

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aspects, corruption in journalism is a surprisingly little-­studied topic (either on its own or as an indicator of low autonomy); the research that does exist is usually done on countries where corruption is considered more of a society-­ wide issue, i.e., not in “The West” (e.g., Bærug, 2005; Erjavec, 2005; Erjavec & Kovačič, 2010; Harro-Loit & Saks, 2006; Nevinskaitė, 2009; Roudakova, 2008). The chapter then turns to a qualitative analysis of what journalists mean when they talk about autonomy and independence, and their views on how autonomy is affected by internal (workplace) and external (sources, commercial pressures, political pressures) factors. Using the concepts discussed in Chapter  2, I also analyze the nature of bounded autonomy within journalism as well as the balance between internalization and self-­censorship on the one hand, and critique, resistance, and negotiation on the other hand.

Perceptions of autonomy in six countries: An overview The object of the quantitative overview is not so much to weigh different factors influencing autonomy against each other (the research design does not allow this), but rather to establish patterns specifically related to the interaction between organizational and occupational professionalism. It has already been noted that time pressure has been a key factor perceived as setting the boundaries of journalistic autonomy: the scope to control and manage your own work has historically always been limited by deadlines and the nature of news itself (as it derives much of its economic and cultural value from being “new”). Closely linked to time pressures is the notion of workload, i.e., the number and intensity of tasks assigned to an employee during a specified working period. Many recent works on journalism have highlighted a widespread perception that workloads are increasing; it is this notion that is behind recent critical concepts such as “churnalism” (Davis, 2008) as well as management mantras like “do more with less” (Deuze, 2008). Let us therefore start by looking at journalists’ perceptions of their workloads and whether they have enough time for particular tasks. The survey contained a number of statements where respondents indicated agreement/disagreement on a 7-point Likert scale. Table 6.1 shows the comparative mean scores for each statement per country, and Figure 6.1 shows the same numbers but in spider diagram format, making it easier to see key differences and similarities across countries. Just like in Chapter  5, the differences between countries are rather small. Journalists in all countries basically agree that there is often not enough time for

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Table 6.1  Workload and time pressures—comparative means

Workload evenly distributed Not enough time for research Not enough time for producing content Not enough time for fact checking Work outside specialist area Workload predictability New tasks often added to workload Workload causes stress Workload is manageable

UK SE

PL

EE

DE IT

Avg. SD

3.91 4.32 4.16 3.76 3.51 4.58 4.91 4.44 4.56

3.97 3.68 4.02 3.77 3.43 4.76 4.60 4.26 4.41

4.37 3.73 3.72 3.17 3.67 5.75 4.39 4.17 5.88

4.20 3.92 3.87 3.50 3.55 4.54 4.23 4.45 4.96

3.88 4.06 3.96 3.59 3.51 4.68 4.49 4.49 4.89

3.98 4.08 3.87 3.48 3.24 4.44 4.44 4.61 4.97

3.09 4.11 3.96 3.70 3.64 4.42 4.07 4.80 4.78

1.91 1.88 1.90 1.85 1.99 1.83 1.88 1.85 1.62

Figure 6.1  Workload and time pressures—spider diagram. For the original color version of this diagram please go to: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/ newsworkers-9781780931838/.

research, for fact checking, and for producing content (i.e., writing), and the extent of the experience of having to work outside one’s specialist area is also similar across the six countries. There is more variety in the degree of agreement with the statements “The workload is evenly and fairly distributed among colleagues,” “I can generally predict what my workload is going to be like during the day,” and “My workload

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is generally manageable”; there is also some variety in the degree of agreement with the statement “New tasks frequently get added to my workload.” In terms of overall patterns, Italian journalists have the highest degree of workload issues: Italian journalists report the lowest agreement with the statement about the even distribution of workload among colleagues, and have the highest perceived workload-­related stress as well as the lowest perceived workload predictability. Their opposites are the Estonian journalists, who report a notably higher degree of workload predictability and of equitable workload distribution, as well as higher agreement with the statement that their workload is generally manageable. Time-­pressure issues are likewise less urgent for the Estonian respondents. The other countries present no clear patterns, though UK journalists are also concerned about workload-­related time pressures and perceive that new tasks often are added to their workload. Discretionary decision-­making is operationalized using six statements where the respondents indicated agreement/disagreement, as previously mentioned. The two primary statements deal with the perceived freedom to choose stories to work on and the perceived freedom to choose angles/hooks for those stories. Other statements include whether journalists are asked to work on stories they do not want to work on, whether they feel pressure to work on stories they think are unimportant, and/or pressure to work in an unethical way, and finally whether there are frequent disputes between reporters and their editors/ managers on what to cover and how to cover it. As before, the results are shown first in a table of comparative means and in spider diagram format. Overall, these results point in the same direction as many other comparative studies of journalism (e.g., Weaver & Willnat, 2012): most journalists report a relatively high degree of autonomy and decision-­making latitude in the Table 6.2  Discretionary decision-­making—comparative means UK SE Freedom to choose stories Freedom to choose angles Asked to work on stories I don’t want to work on Disputes on what should be covered and how Pressure to work on non-­important stories Pressure to work in an unethical way

PL

EE

DE IT

Avg. SD

5.24 5.40 5.49 5.27 4.96 4.78 4.89 1.60 5.54 5.68 5.59 5.86 5.85 5.18 5.60 1.41 2.99 2.32 2.87 2.99 2.42 2.97 2.77 1.68 2.84 2.72 3.62 3.55 2.52 3.61 3.04 1.74 3.12 2.66 2.95 3.32 2.67 3.52 3.05 1.79 2.14 1.73 1.83 2.14 1.90 2.65 2.10 1.55

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Figure 6.2  Discretionary decision-­making—spider diagram. For the original color version of this diagram please go to: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/ newsworkers-9781780931838/.

workplace. Journalists across all six countries report a perceived high degree of freedom to choose stories and angles, they do not feel particularly pressured to work on unimportant stories or to work in ways they find unethical. The small variations that exist strengthen the established pattern: almost on all indicator statements, Italian journalists perceive the lowest degree of discretionary latitude. They report the lowest degree of freedom to choose stories and angles (though note that the overall means are still fairly high on the 1–7 scale), and more often feel they have to work on unimportant stories and in unethical ways. They also frequently experience disputes on decision-­making on what should be covered and how it should be covered, and are more often than journalists in almost all other countries asked to work on stories they do not want to work on. Swedish journalists are on the opposite end of the scale, with high freedom to choose stories and angles, rarely being asked to work on stories they do not want to work on and rarely pressured to work on unimportant stories or

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in unethical ways. German journalists are very similar to Swedish journalists in these regards, also experiencing a high degree of decision-­making latitude. “Perceived sources of influence” is the next autonomy indicator. This survey used a simpler instrument than other comparative studies of journalistic autonomy (e.g., Hanitzsch & Mellado, 2011; Reich & Hanitzsch, 2013), focusing on the external influences of sources and PR agents and influences internal to the organization (the role of the manager, the colleagues, and the political line of the news organization). The survey tool of Hanitzsch and colleagues uses six possible sources of influence: political, economic, organizational, procedural, professional influence, and influence from reference groups (Hanitzsch & Mellado, 2011: 406f). Most of this present survey focuses on organizational sources of influence, procedural/professional influence, and to some extent political influence; political and economic influence are also covered in greater depth in the qualitative analysis. These patterns are then further investigated in the qualitative analysis in order to answer questions of how influence (external and internal) is mediated in the everyday working lives of journalists. The focus is then naturally on organizational, procedural, and professional factors of influence. The results are shown in Table 6.3 and Figure 6.3. Table 6.3 further supports the pattern that overall perceived autonomy is high across all nations: mean scores for perceived influence of managers, colleagues, and pressure to follow the political line of the news organization are in the lower half of the 7-point scale. Journalists in general perceive more attempts to influence from external actors, i.e., sources and PR agents (it is not surprising that PR agents are seen as trying to influence journalists more than sources in general since after all, the job of PR agents is to try to influence journalists).

Table 6.3  Perceived sources of influence—comparative means UK SE Managers/owners often try to influence me Sources often try to influence me PR agents often try to influence me Colleagues often try to influence me There is pressure to follow the political line of the organization I am often given direct orders by my manager

PL

EE

DE IT

Mean SD

3.16 2.17 2.74 2.54 2.70 3.06 2.79

1.83

4.34 5.21 2.93 2.86

3.98 4.30 2.57 2.59

1.91 2.02 1.57 1.82

3.41 2.87 3.70 3.72 2.58 3.75 3.30

1.92

3.40 3.72 2.29 1.95

4.08 4.28 2.95 2.33

3.78 3.77 2.58 2.29

3.75 3.52 2.13 2.29

4.28 4.40 2.47 3.33

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Figure 6.3  Perceived sources of influence—spider diagram. For the original color version of this diagram please go to: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/ newsworkers-9781780931838/.

The differences that exist again follow established patterns: Italian journalists experience more interventionist managers and sources, as well as pressure to follow the political line of the news organizations, than journalists in other countries. They are closely trailed by UK journalists, who also experience interventionist managers, source pressure, and pressure to conform to the political line; they also report the strongest perceived influence from PR agents. As before, Sweden and Germany are at the other end of the scale, with experience of more non-­interventionist managers, considerably less pressure to follow a political line, as well as fewer pressures from colleagues, sources, and PR agents.

Corruption One final aspect of autonomy—or rather, the lack of it—which is rarely discussed in journalism research is the presence of outright corruption. Can outside sources pay journalists or editors money in order to get them to cover or not

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cover a particular story? Bribery could be seen as the ultimate measure of (lack of) autonomy: if a journalist can be bought, it stands to reason that autonomy would be weak both on the individual and the institutional level (Dahlström, Lapuente & Theorell, 2011; Lange, 2008). As scholars of corruption know all too well, the nature of the phenomenon (hidden, often illegal) makes it difficult to study empirically (Holmes, 2006; Lancaster & Montinola, 1997; McKitrick, 1957). Even under conditions of anonymity, respondents may be unwilling to admit that they have taken part in corrupt activities (Johnston, 1986); and in cases of comparative studies of corruption, perception of what constitutes “corruption” may vary from country to country (Xenakis, 2010). A common empirical proxy for corruption is perceived corruption, a measure that is imperfect and has been critiqued, notably for conflating perception with practice (again, see Xenakis, 2010; Olken, 2009). Still, using perceived corruption as a proxy for corruption is well-­established in the field and considered an appropriate indicator of levels of corruption (Davis & Ruhe, 2003; Lambsdorff, 2001; Treisman, 2007). In my case, I deemed it unworkable to ask respondents if they themselves had taken bribes or other inappropriate compensation and found it better instead to ask whether they had witnessed such practices, i.e., a form of perception-­of-corruption measure. Bearing in mind cultural differences in how corruption is perceived and defined, I asked about “bribery or other forms of inappropriate compensation” (my emphasis), thus essentially leaving it to the respondents to decide whether what they had witnessed was seen by them as inappropriate or not. Both of these strategies (i.e., asking about perceived corruption and leaving it to the respondents to define what constitutes corruption) may have led to an over-­estimation of the level of corruption, which should be borne in mind when interpreting the results. The question was asked in two ways: first, respondents were asked whether they had witnessed bribery or other forms of inappropriate compensation in their current place of work; second, whether they had witnessed it over the course of their career. The results are shown in Tables 6.4 and 6.5. By-­and-large these results are not surprising as they follow overall European patterns of (perception of) corruption. In the 2013 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index (where corruption is measured on a 0–100 scale, where 0 = most corrupt and 100 = least corrupt), the rankings of the six countries among the twenty-­eight EU nations plus Switzerland, Norway, and Malta, are displayed in Table 6.6. There is very little difference in the perception of corruption among journalists between Sweden and the UK. Perhaps surprisingly, journalism in

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Table 6.4  Perception of corruption in current workplace—percent

Yes No N

UK

Sweden

Poland

Estonia

Germany

Italy

Total

5 95 673

6 94 394

11 89 131

7 93 277

10 90 347

23 77 380

10 90 2202

The table shows the responses (yes/no) to the question “Are you aware of any instance of a journalist ever receiving bribes or other inappropriate compensation for covering/not covering a particular story? At your current place of work?”

Table 6.5  Perception of corruption across career—percent

Yes No N

UK

Sweden

Poland

Estonia

Germany

Italy

Total

24 76 673

27 73 394

26 74 131

34 66 277

39 61 347

59 41 380

34 66 2202

The table shows the responses (Yes/No) to the question “Are you aware of any instance of a journalist ever receiving bribes or other inappropriate compensation for covering/not covering a particular story? Over the course of your career?”

Estonia is viewed as less corrupt than in Germany, with Poland being more similar to Germany. Corruption among journalists is perceived as highest in Italy. Two German interviewees mentioned a long-­standing tradition of “freebies” among German journalists, i.e., that journalists in various specialist fields (notably motor journalists and technology journalists) could expect free or discounted objects related to their specialist field (e.g., cars, computers, mobile phones). This practice was, however, also mentioned by Swedish and Italian interviewees, and beyond that there is no obvious explanation for why German journalism would be perceived as more corrupt than would be expected based on the Transparency International rankings.

Table 6.6  Transparency International Corruption Perception Index for the six nations

Place (overall, 127 countries) Place (EU28+3) Total score

Sweden

Germany UK Estonia Poland Italy

3 2 89

12 7 78

Source: Transparency International (2013)

14 9 76

28 14 68

38 17 60

69 27 43

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Beyond the overall ranking of the six nations in the responses to these questions, it is striking that even in low corruption countries like Sweden and the UK, around one in four journalists have, over the course of their career, experienced other journalists receiving bribes or other forms of inappropriate compensation. In Germany, the proportion is two out of five journalists and in Italy three out of five, meaning that in Italy the experience of corruption is more common than the experience of non-­corruption (the only one of the six studied nations where this is the case).

Summary of results Almost regardless of which autonomy indicator is used, Italy comes out as the country where journalists experience the least amount of autonomy among the six studied nations. Given earlier research on the Italian case presented in Chapter  3—notably the high degree of political instrumentalization of Italian news media noted by Hallin and Mancini and others—this is not all that surprising. More surprising, perhaps, is that the UK trails Italy rather closely on most autonomy indicators: compared to the remaining four nations in the analysis, journalists in the UK perceive stronger time pressures, more interventionist managers, more aggressive PR agents, and stronger pressure to follow the political line of the organization. This goes against the expectation based on Hallin and Mancini, who emphasize the strong professionalism (and thereby autonomy) of the Liberal or Anglo-American media system (Hallin & Mancini, 2004: 217ff)—though they do also mention the more partisan character of UK newspapers (Hallin & Mancini, 2004: 208). These results support a more critical strand of UK journalism studies which emphasizes the continuing strength of political parallelism in UK news media, tabloid newspapers in particular (Curran & Seaton, 2003: 81f; Phillips, Couldry & Freedman, 2010). The key difference between the UK and Italy with regard to autonomy is the much lower perceived degree of corruption in the UK. Conversely, the pattern of greater perceived autonomy and overall less interference from internal as well as external actors in Sweden and Germany also conforms to the analysis of the democratic-­corporatist media system advanced by Hallin and Mancini. While media systems in these countries have also historically exhibited a great degree of party-­press parallelism, journalists as a professional collective were also more organized and able to articulate the interests and ideals of the occupation as a whole (Hallin & Mancini, 2004: 171ff; Petersson, 2006; Jarlbrink, 2009), strengthening the independence of the

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profession from both internal and external factors. Comparative studies of labor relations and workplace organization also demonstrate that Sweden and Germany have a history of more egalitarian and autonomy-­supporting policies than other European nations (Swenson, 1989; Pontusson & Swenson, 1996), something that presumably also forms part of the explanation. A further observation is that, at least based on the evidence from the Polish and Estonian cases, post-­communist Europe cannot be viewed as its own distinct media system, at least not in terms of autonomy. These countries are not noticeably “worse” in terms of journalistic autonomy than other Western European countries, and in some instances even better—note the high perceived control over workload reported by Estonian journalists, for example, or the relatively high degree of discretionary decision-­making reported by Polish journalists.

Autonomy and workplace experience: Qualitative analysis The qualitative analysis will go more in-­depth into the issues and patterns of workplace autonomy found in the quantitative analysis. We begin with a further discussion of the two major external factors thought to influence journalism: (as found in the literature on journalistic autonomy and perceived influences): the forces of politics and commerce. Normative theories of journalism of various types see it as central to guarantee the autonomy of journalism from these forces—liberal normative theories from Mill onwards (Mill, 1859/1975; Kymlicka, 2002) wish to minimize the influence from the political sphere (in particular that of the government/state), whereas Marxist/political economy-­ based normative theories (Golding & Murdock, 1997; Herman & Chomsky, 1988) see it as of key importance to limit the influence of commerce (in particular advertisers) on journalism. In short, these two forces are widely seen as the most central external influences on journalistic autonomy. Lay discussions on journalistic autonomy are often concerned with the most crude (as it were) manifestations of these forces, i.e., instances when politicians or advertisers explicitly tell journalists what they can or cannot report, and bring their resources and power to bear to ensure their demands are carried through. However, we know from research that such cases of direct, explicit pressure from the spheres of politics or commerce are rare (though they do exist, e.g., Hallin & Papathanassopoulos, 2002; Munro, 1999)—as Hanitzsch and Mellado note, it may actually be relatively uncommon for journalists to be subjected to

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direct political or economic influence in their everyday work (Hanitzsch & Mellado, 2011: 416f). Instead, these two spheres exert their influence on journalism in more subtle ways. Key sources (politicians and advertisers alike) may restrict access to damaging information and selectively release information to journalists that suits their purposes (Davis, 2002). Political sources and political journalists belong to the same networks and come to share values as well as use each other in mutually beneficial ways—something that is an issue for journalistic autonomy on the institutional level (Crouse, 1975). The commercial context of most news organizations creates a general business-­friendly culture where journalists use self-­censorship and voluntarily avoid stories that may upset advertisers (Davis, 2000; Gans, 1979). From a comparative perspective, Hallin and Mancini argue that the exact shape and nature of political influences on journalism vary depending on the media system, whereas commercial influences generally manifest in the same ways regardless of media systems (Hallin & Mancini, 2004: 261f). The degree of political parallelism (Hallin & Mancini, 2004: 26f) determines the general level of politicization of the news media and the likelihood that political actors will attempt to directly influence news content (as well as the likelihood that their attempts will succeed): one can expect different levels of political interference depending on the media system. Commercial forces, on the other hand, are a homogenizing influence and therefore work in similar ways across media systems. The quantitative data presented earlier in this chapter bear this out: journalists in Italy (which has a media system characterized by a high degree of political parallelism) are more concerned about political influences than journalists in other countries, and Italian journalists also overall experience less autonomy in their work. However, these figures tell us little about how this political influence is experienced on the ground, or about how journalists experience and make sense of it. Qualitative evidence will provide a more nuanced picture of how political and commercial forces impact on the day-­to-day activities of newsworkers, if indeed such influences are perceived at all. In terms of the overarching analytical framework of organizational and occupational professionalism, we would expect organizational professionalism to contain mechanisms for integrating commercial influence and occupational professionalism conversely to resist the same influence. However, it is also likely that there will be elements of negotiation between the two forms of professionalism, where some aspects of commercial influence may in fact be integrated into occupational professionalism. In terms of political influence, the

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framework is less specific: one could imagine that organizational professionalism would contain elements of resistance to political influence (resisting what is perceived as undue state influence in organizational activities), but also that— in clientelistic systems in particular—organizational professionalism and occupational professionalism alike would to some extent naturalize some forms of political influence (if they are perceived as part of an established and reasonably transparent system of party–­press parallelism, for example). We will begin by examining what journalists say about political influences on their work.

Political influences What is “political influence” in the minds of journalists? Is it conceived of as only explicit attempts to censor or otherwise influence news content, or do journalists perceive other, more implicit, mechanics of influence as well? There are of course a range of behaviors and instances that could be classified as attempts to influence, depending on how one defines the concept. At one end of the scale, interviewees across all countries describe interactions with politicians and/or government sources that could be classed as mild interference rather than outright attempts to influence journalists. The typical example (mentioned by journalists in the UK, Sweden, Estonia, and Poland, where each interviewee who mentioned it had experienced it personally) would be the government minister or other high ranking politician who calls up the journalist to essentially give them an earful when an article has been published or an item broadcast that is not to their liking. But being phoned by angry politicians after a news item had become public was not viewed as an “attempt to influence” by any of the journalists who had experienced it; rather it was considered to be a normal occupational hazard to be called by irate sources (political or otherwise). Indeed, most journalists who mentioned it laughed it off. The abiding sense was that most of these incidents had become personal anecdotes and that these stories were not told to me for the first time. After all, they are a testament of sorts to the influence of the individual journalist: he or she has the ability to irritate those in power. Another example of mild political interference is that politicians seek to maintain good relationships with journalists in general, and therefore also seek to maintain informal contacts with journalists even when they do not necessarily have any newsworthy information to share. This Estonian journalist describes the phenomenon well:

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I’ve been writing about elections for twelve years. I have practically on my own reported in [my local paper] on every election. I see it well that with every year the pressure on the editorial office increases. /. . ./ There are people who come to our offices and just sit here. I’ve noticed that several months prior to the elections I spend a lot of time on my mobile phone in the evenings. They just phone me and talk twaddle. They ring me up, saying that, hey, I saw a car crash somewhere or something like that. Utterly pointless. No big deal, but they have no real reason for calling and then they talk, doing others down for an hour. Mid-­career, print, Estonia

The practice of maintaining informal contact with journalists and even visiting the editorial offices regularly is a somewhat stronger form of influence, but as this journalist also makes clear it is more of a source of irritation than anything else. Note that the example also comes from regional/local journalism, where one could expect relationships between journalists and political sources to be closer. Indeed, local/regional journalists from Poland and Sweden provided similar examples of politicians calling up journalists “just to chat”—particularly around election time. We should also note that the anecdotes about angry politicians calling journalists mentioned earlier are all about political reactions after the fact of publication and thus rather demonstrate (or serve to demonstrate) the powerlessness of politicians vis-à-vis journalists: journalists write what they want and all that politicians can do is to hurl invective at the journalist after publication. That does not mean that all after-­the-fact reactions from politicians or other political sources are impotent—far from it. Legal action from politicians can still be used as a way to deter journalists from further critical reporting, as exemplified by this journalist: On the contrary, dealing with trade union news, three legal actions were taken against me. They were eventually suspended, but still, in that case pressure was put directly on me. The same thing happened dealing with politics, in a very limited way, but it happened. In Umbria politicians don’t use their right of reply anymore, as they used to do before, according to my older colleagues, instead they immediately take legal action, even when there are insufficient grounds to do that. [The respondent goes on to describe a case when a politician brought legal action against him and the respondent was then advised not to continue writing about the politician by his editor; the case was eventually ruled unfounded by the district court.] Mid-­career, print, Italy

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Using litigation to wield political influence over journalism of course also takes place after the fact of publication, but still represents a more overt type of influence—and in this particular case successful, as the political influence resulted in internally placed limits on the individual journalist’s autonomy. Individual journalists from Poland and Estonia also told stories about litigious politicians, but notably these examples were from the early 1990s, i.e., shortly after post-­communist democratization. The perception was that litigation had become less common over the years. Unsurprisingly, journalists were much more wary of, and alert to, overt attempts to influence reporting prior to publication. A few such instances were mentioned by interviewees: There were some incidents in the beginning. One prime minister had come to the building and demanded that he should be put on [the main current affairs show] right away. But there is no such thing anymore, I don’t think that somebody has even phoned that they want to or that they are coming. Late-­career, broadcast, Estonia But it also coincided with another unpleasant affair, as we got banned from publishing some very serious material about [a government minister]. It was 1998 [he] was still a hero and nothing suggested any untoward connections. But we had a lot of material indicating that he wasn’t a straightforward figure. And the material was quite violently stopped. Late-­career, print, Poland

Again, we see that these two examples from Poland and Estonia are from “the beginning” (i.e., just after democratic transition) and from 1998, respectively— the latter interviewee from Poland went on to describe how this type of incident (i.e., journalists being ordered not to cover political corruption) could not happen today. While these are isolated anecdotes, they do conform to the overall picture in the literature on post-­communist democratization where Poland and Estonia are considered to be particularly successful examples with a high degree of media freedom. Still, certain parts of the media landscape are still considered to be politicized and thus open to political influence—notably public service broadcasting: As you know TVP is normally under a lot of pressure from politicians. It is reflected by the fact that every political change in Poland is followed by a change in TVP management. Late-­career, broadcasting, Poland

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The usual changes are triggered by political changes, which is terribly harmful for journalism because if something happens in politics, journalists in public media are doing their best not to get replaced along with the politicians. Mid-­career, broadcasting, Poland

This picture of Polish public service broadcasting finds support in previous research (Filas & Płaneta, 2009; Hume, 2011; see also Chapter 3). This represents another type of political influence: appointing directors, board members, and senior management in state-­owned or state-­controlled media outlets. Politicization of public service broadcasting is also well-­established in Italy (through the lottizzazione system described in Chapter 3). As noted in the introduction to this section, politicization and political limits on journalistic autonomy are well-­established in certain countries and/or particular contexts (i.e., public service broadcasting appointments). However, we do not know much about how this politicization is perceived at an everyday, workplace level. The interview material tells us interesting things in this regard. First of all, the political influence is often perceived as subtle rather than direct. This Italian journalist describes how story selection in her view can serve political interests: RESP: Political needs, for example. Sometimes it is convenient, and appealing for the audience, to deal with certain topics, for example to show videos of youngsters claiming that they smoke joints in the classroom, showing videos from YouTube whose quality in terms of images is often very poor but that catch people’s attention while they are zapping with their remote control. /. . ./ Doing that avoids too serious considerations about that topic. Which is politically convenient. INT: On a political level, what consequences can it have that people on the top of the organization decide to use youngsters as the main topic? RESP: Let’s say that, if that week one of the political parties has lost one of its leaders and there is a huge mess in the political party that supposedly has decided who the director of [the TV channel she works for] is, in that case it is more convenient not to discuss politics at all, when it would be important to do that. It is the same reason why safety issues and cases of sexual violence against women are predominant in some periods and not in others. Mid-­career, broadcasting, Italy

This journalist does not describe something from her own personal experience but rather talks in general terms. The description of how political influence works is speculation, nothing more. However, I would argue that the mere

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presence of this kind of almost conspiracy-­theory mindset is interesting in and of itself: this interviewee is not the only Italian journalist in the sample who describes or perceives journalism as a world of semi-­shadowy political allegiances where news outlets are used to distract the public or smear opponents. Existing empirical evidence indicates that the lottizzazione system has lost power since the 1980s and 1990s (Hibberd, 1999, 2001; see also Chapter 3), but it still exists (at the very least) as a key frame of reference for many journalists who likely can remember a time when politicization was more direct and explicit. Italian journalists themselves do use the term lottizzazione when describing and making sense of contemporary journalism: Look, definitely some departments of the newspaper are lottizzati. So obviously in some of them . . . but let’s say that there is not a structured control system. The system works, let’s say, in a rather casual way . . . the presence of some colleagues who have certain positions . . . I’m talking about senior positions because I am a junior editor, the lowest grade in the hierarchy. But as I was saying, there are editors-­in-chief, associate editors, who all have to act according to a certain political logic, who move things around, exert their influence, maybe in a subtle way like including one more short article about that specific event regarding that specific political party . . . it’s not a rigid form of control, absolutely determining the results of our work . . . Mid-­career, print, Italy

What is described here is thus not a system of direct control through orders and pressure, but rather precisely a clientelistic system where (journalistic/editorial) clients look out for the interests of (political) patrons to the best of their ability and within the limits of the organization. A dominant way of framing and understanding the media landscape among Italian journalists is that media outlets are being instrumentalized for political and economic purposes as a matter of course, e.g.: INT: I mean, this is not a new aspect of journalism . . . [this is said in reference to Berlusconi’s instrumental use of his TV channels for political purposes, author’s note] RESP: Of course, not completely new, Il Giorno, for example, Mattei founded Il Giorno in 1962 in order to . . . INT: . . . to foster the interests of public companies . . . RESP: . . . because Il Corriere della Sera was driven by totally different economic interests, the private interests of Cuccia and his friends, so they have to foster a

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political line which is absolutely pro-­free market, whereas Mattei needed a newspaper that supported the intervention by the government in key sectors . . . Late-­career, print (freelance), Italy

This quote also demonstrates a view of news outlets as essentially instrumentalized, as political–­economic tools. This journalist interprets the history of key Italian media outlets as a history of attempts to wield political influence. This would certainly be true for many media outlets in Sweden as well, for example, but no Swedish journalist would interpret the actions of Aftonbladet today, in the 2010s, as a result of Lars Johan Hierta’s goal to create a liberal newspaper in the 1830s— the politicization of newspapers in Sweden (or in Germany for that matter) is mostly viewed as something that belongs to history, not something that directly affects the actions of these newspapers in the present day. Another Italian journalist further explains how political influence is expressed in practice: So, in the same way, if the owner is not on his director’s side and instead of protecting him or her, who maybe would like to be the director of a free newspaper, the owner is on a specific political party’s side, on the side of an interest group, or maybe the owner is an industrialist and he doesn’t want his paper to attack other industrialists . . . /. . ./ I mean all newspaper owners have financial interests outside the publishing industry. And those interests will always prevail on the fact that they own a newspaper . . . so a journalist, every day, has to pay attention to that . . . it’s not that you write . . . you pay attention to what you will write because you have to foresee what the director wants, the director who’s been named by the owners . . . Late-­career, print (freelance), Italy

What is interesting in this and the preceding quote is that political and commercial interests are viewed as interlinked rather than opposed—as two aspects of the same phenomenon. Media owners need to exert political influence because they have certain commercial interests. And again, the frame of interpretation used by the journalist is that instrumentalization is “always there,” i.e., the main purpose of newspapers is to wield political influence. Furthermore, the quote also describes the internalization of political influences, as described by Hanitzsch & Mellado (2011) and Reich & Hanitzsch (2013): journalists’ autonomy is limited not primarily because they are being ordered to write or not write about certain things but because of self-­censorship—“you have to foresee what the director wants.” This is an overall pattern in the interviews (with the Italian journalists, who are the only ones

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discussing and describing political influence at length), i.e., political influence is described as subtle and indirect, done mainly through story selection, picking the angles of stories, exerting informal influence on journalists—or even achieved without using any external influence at all but rather through journalists’ internalization of a politicization that is viewed as pervasive and all-­ encompassing. Politicization in this sense seems to be a factor that in the first instance affects organizational professionalism (as politicization is part of the institutional structure of journalism); it may then either be incorporated in, or resisted by, occupational professionalism.

Commercial influences Attempts at direct political influence (either attempting to stop publication or by litigation against journalist and news outlets after publications) are mentioned by a few journalists across the sample, but generally this type of attack on autonomy is exceptional and rare. In contrast, none of the interviewed journalists mention being subjected to direct commercial influence—i.e., advertisers putting pressure on news outlets to cover or not cover particular stories. If direct political influence is rare, then advertiser influence is even rarer. It just is not an issue for most journalists, as exemplified by this Polish journalist: Of course I do. But I notice it [i.e., commercialization and advertiser pressures] as an observer, not as a participant. Because it does not really affect us in this way. Late-­career, print, Poland

As noted earlier, there is a third-­person effect at work in this case. The interviewee readily admits to seeing a general commercialization of news media but does not see it as affecting his own workplace at all (this journalist worked for a commercial news outlet). Similar statements are echoed across all six nations: in each national sample, there is at least one journalist saying that they definitely think news journalism has become more commercialized over the course of their careers, but that this does not affect their particular news organization. Other journalists do see examples of more explicit commercial influences, but point out that such influences are subtle and indirect and do not take the form of direct orders. Furthermore, such influences are rarely directed at individual journalists in the newsroom (in contrast to political interference, which can be aimed at individual journalists), but at higher organizational levels:

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Topics often were indirectly dictated by advertiser’s needs, the marketing department of a particular publisher, but they stemmed from needs expressed by the outside market, that is to say banks, institutions, funds, and so on. But it took place in the form of talks between advertisers and the marketing department, who in turn would pass some suggestions on to editors or to heads of particular sections. Late-­career, online (freelance), Poland

This latter quote also highlights the gradual weakening or outright disappearance of the so-­called iron curtain between the editorial department and the advertising department. The iron curtain, i.e., the idea that the editorial department should be formally independent from the advertising department (and often physically separated as well; commonly these departments were housed on different floors or sometimes even in different buildings), has long been a key feature of how autonomy has been constructed in newspaper organizations in particular. It was recognized that newspapers were commercial enterprises but journalists, being independent professionals, should be isolated from these commercial concerns and not have to make any commercial considerations when determining what was fit to print, as it were. This formal autonomy of journalists from the commercial side of the newspaper organization has been particularly strongly emphasized in Anglo-American journalistic culture (Hallin & Mancini, 2004: 219; Schudson, 2001), but it has been strong elsewhere as well, including within the democratic-­corporatist media system (Hallin & Mancini, 2004: 174f). Today, of course, it is increasingly economically unfeasible to separate editorial and advertising departments, something borne out by many studies. Usher points out that today every (newspaper) journalist is increasingly expected to be a one-­man marketing department (Usher, 2014: 186f)—not one focused on marketing advertised products, to be sure, but marketing the newspaper itself and the journalist as an individual (often expressed using the term “personal branding”). Many parts of a newspaper today—e.g., travel supplements, motor/ car supplements, and other types of lifestyle section geared towards consumer culture—in fact rest on a high degree of integration of advertising and editorial. They would simply not be possible otherwise. This is the reality that most journalists work in today, but it is not a reality that is readily accepted: There are managers who think that we should put editorial and advertising together more, we’re one company, we should have a joint kick-­off, things like

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that, and that’s good in a way I suppose, but I think the wall should be as firm as possible, because you shouldn’t think about that at all, that there’s someone on the other side of that wall selling ads, getting the money that pays my salary. We shouldn’t have to think about that, reflect on that. Then it’s better to just be closed off. Early-­career, broadcast, Sweden

Note that this is said by a young journalist working for a commercial broadcaster; this is an illustration of how strong the support for the iron curtain principle still is. Other journalists in the sample have similar views: a strict separation of editorial and advertising departments is still desirable and the best guarantee of autonomous journalism. But while such views are common, they are far from monolithic. Another young journalist, this one from the UK, does in fact welcome a closer relationship between the editorial and commercial parts of news organizations: We were looking at relaunching the website and in the meetings at which we were looking at that, the commercial team were a key part so that when we were thinking about editorial changes we would understand what the commercial impact would be. But I think it’s a good thing to be honest. I think for a really long time journalists have seen advertising people and sales people as like enemies, but without them you don’t have a job. So I’m not saying people should hand it over to commercial interests but I think it’s good to be aware that journalism does need to be funded. Early-­career, online, UK

Similarly, a young Swedish journalist describes working for an online/print media company specializing in tech news, where members of the advertising department would routinely sit in on editorial meetings—and weigh in on editorial decisions. Journalists in Germany, Poland, and Estonia also bear witness to more and more functional integration of advertising and editorial: advertising staff sitting in on editorial meetings (though not attending them regularly as in the aforementioned Swedish case), story ideas being explicitly conveyed from advertising departments to editorial offices based on new advertising contracts, and so on. Despite this it would be inaccurate to describe this as direct advertiser influence: it is not the advertisers who demand that people from the newspaper’s advertising department should sit in on editorial meetings, but rather this is an organizational change undertaken voluntarily in order to increase competitiveness and ensure that a general commercial orientation is maintained throughout the organization. This is illustrated in the

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following exchange between the interviewer (in this case, the author) and a young Swedish journalist: RESP: [In my company] you should always think, can we make money out of this? That’s important. If I have an idea, then the first question is, how do we make money off of it? You have to consider that, you can’t do something that isn’t a money-­spinner. Other than that I think I have great freedom. INT: So is there some kind of demand that everything you write or do should turn a direct profit, or is it more like, well this has to find its audience, it has to be read, it has to be clicked so that we get the ad money? RESP: Well, more like what you said last, it’s not that everything we write has to turn a profit, but more like you want the clicks, or if we start a new magazine or site then the purpose is to make money, but the way I see it we are not very affected by commercial concerns. Early-­career, online, Sweden

This quote provides a striking example of the third-­person effect common among journalists when describing commercialization and commercial influences. After having very explicitly highlighted his employer’s commercial orientation and emphasis on generating clicks, the journalist states that he and his colleagues “. . . are not very affected by commercial concerns.” This begs the question of how commercial pressures are perceived and understood by journalists. If a journalist can characterize his employer as highly profit-­driven but himself as not affected by commercial concerns within the space of the same sentence, then how does this journalist understand terms like “profit-­driven” and “commercial concerns”? This journalist’s assessment may seem contradictory when set down on the page, but is probably perfectly accurate if he (like many scholars) is operating from an understanding of commercial influences as always being direct and explicit. Nobody probably tells this journalist what to do, or orders him to drop a story because it may hurt an advertiser. It is simply understood that production of news has to take place within a highly commercialized framework (maximizing clicks, being able to sell audience streams to advertisers, etc.). The preceding quote also highlights another pattern in the interviews: technology and commerce are strongly interlinked, and it is the online environment that is at the forefront of the process normally described as “commercialization.” There are many examples of this given in the interview material across all six countries. A few particularly telling examples follow. A German journalist talks about how the content management system she works

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with is in effect removing the iron curtain between editorial and advertising (even though she does not use that particular phrase): I didn’t really notice that [i.e., direct influence of advertisers on news content] yet. But if things like this happen then it’s mostly on another level with the board and the editor and someone like me doesn’t really notice it. So that depends on how the management is structured. But I have to say that it started once we got a content management system that was integrated with e-­commerce. So you have to think about to what extent the content of the article is compatible with other areas on eBay or Amazon and to give bullet points [i.e., key words] so that they can find the article and that they offer products to those who have read the article. It wasn’t like that before. Early-­career, online, Germany

The observation of this journalist is also instructive in that it highlights how quickly the present turns into history. The interview was conducted in 2009, when a new content management system with e-­commerce integration was still considered a novelty. A mere five or six years later, such features are standard in content management systems of major news organizations. In 2008–09, journalists were also only too aware of the logic of the “clickstream” (as analyzed in Chapter 4), i.e., the importance of tracking audiences in real time and the emergence of audience traffic as the key commodity of the online world. Numerous journalists—particularly those working in the online environment— mentioned the importance of getting clicks: So for example if a text is read often, then it gets a better place on the page. So if we see that one text is of interest to many readers then we try to keep it at the top of the page and also update it more often, because we see that people are interested in this topic and also want to see the follow-­up and we also read the readers’ comments as you can comment on the articles. Mid-­career, online, Germany

This is also a good example of how a commercial concern (i.e., maximizing audience traffic in order to sell it to advertisers) has become a fully integrated and almost wholly naturalized part of news production—across all six nations. Having to adapt articles for e-­commerce compatibility and working with article placement and updates in order to increase audience flows is a form of commercial pressure, regardless of whether the journalists involved see it as such. In many cases, decisions about news content that would previously have been made by journalists (article placement, frequency of updates, angle of the text, etc.) are now increasingly made by algorithms or otherwise integrated into

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content management systems where the individual journalist has or little no power to affect them. This is the very definition of loss of autonomy: the power of discretionary decision-­making over key parts of the news production process is removed from the journalist and placed somewhere else. The interview material is very clear on this point: while journalists may to varying degrees be critical of this new focus on audience traffic and the “clickstream,” it is also described as a perfectly normal way of working. Many commercial pressures have seamlessly become woven into the everyday practice of newswork: occupational professionalism is gradually integrating and importing values from organizational professionalism. Last in this section, we will also see how journalists link their micro-­level work practices to the macro-­level institutional framework of journalism, with particular reference to institutional and workplace autonomy. Many senior journalists have a clear understanding of how the overall institutional forces set the rules for their micro-­level practices, as in this case: I’m afraid that a lot of that foreign stuff is changing for financial reasons. But I think this is an unusual publication and therefore one is very privileged in that you don’t have to do stuff that you don’t want to do really and you are able to be autonomous and say I would like to do that. Again, that’s changing I think for the younger reporters here because we are now a 24/7 operation, as you will find in a lot of places. So a younger reporter here will maybe overnight looking at the wires to a great extent because it is difficult to do anything else at that time of night. So I think things in the industry in general are changing because it is difficult to afford people who are going off and saying “this is interesting, I’ll spend a couple of days on that. Oh and by the way I’m afraid I haven’t been able to provide any copy on it, it didn’t work out.” You know, and that’s a luxury and we are probably one of the last publications that is able to indulge people like that. Late-­career, print, UK

This journalist identifies an overall climate of dwindling resources and a stronger focus on results: in a landscape marked by intense competition, news organizations become less willing to take chances. The weakening autonomy of journalism on the institutional level (where decisions are generally made on an economic rather than editorial basis) is directly reflected in weakening workplace autonomy (journalists cannot spend time on a longer investigation if they cannot guarantee results). Of course, this quote also serves as a further illustration of the third-­person effect at work when assessing one’s own workplace autonomy (or

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the overall autonomy of the news organization one works for): resources are dwindling everywhere, but not at this newspaper. Another key change relevant for the autonomy of journalism both on the individual and the institutional level is the increasing precariousness of journalistic work, succinctly and almost painfully captured by this Estonian freelancer: No, I actually have a lot of work. Freelancers always have a lot of work. Because there are so many publishing houses and media organizations who would like to order from you. They know that person x, y, or z can write, she is a lot cheaper to keep, you don’t pay anything extra for them. No social security tax, health insurance, and so on. You just pay the fee for something that was published. Pages are full, newspapers are happy, publishers are happy, but for a journalist or for a person working like this if she doesn’t have some kind of private enterprise, this is very nerve-­wracking. If you work full time you can take it a little easier today and work more tomorrow. But if you are a freelancer, the more you work, the more money you get. So that you have to do something all the time. You work and work and work and work. It’s quite rough. Especially in Estonia. Freelancers don’t get paid much. Mid-­career, broadcast/print (freelance), Estonia

One of the key structural transformations taking place within journalism on the institutional level is the gradual shift away from journalism being something one does within the framework of a permanent, full-­time job and towards being something that is produced on a per-­item basis by freelancers and other contingent employees (Deuze, 2009). The preceding quote shows what this looks like on the ground: a “nerve-­wracking” existence for those who want to make a living as freelancers. This journalist does not have the autonomy to pick and choose assignments and employers; very few freelancers do (Gynnild, 2005). Rather, freelancing means less autonomy as the journalist has to take whatever assignments come along in order to make a living—or leave the profession entirely. This stark choice represents a very tangible link between the macro-­level of institutional conditions and the micro-­level of work/workplace organization. In the next section we will examine autonomy on the level of day-­to-day newswork further. This is the innere Pressefreiheit (to use a German phrase; see Hallin & Mancini, 2004: 175) or internal freedom of the press: how free are journalists to autonomously pursue stories and organize their work, and how is this freedom (or lack of it) related to the external, macro-­level constraints and influences discussed so far?

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Autonomy in newswork: Discretion, hierarchy and organization The preceding two sections on the qualitative analysis of autonomy in newswork went from “the outside in,” i.e., looking at how the twin forces of “politicization” and “commercialization” (understood in the widest possible terms) manifest on the micro-­level of journalistic work across the six studied countries. This section tackles the same subject but from “the inside out,” i.e., starting by looking at common practices in everyday newswork and looking at how, if at all, larger institutional forces are manifested within news organizations and experienced by individual newsworkers. The issues at stake here are the degree of individual discretion journalists’ have in their daily work (mostly when it comes to choosing what stories to work on) and the nature of editorial control. The latter category (i.e., editorial control) has often been analyzed from the reporter point of view—as a kind of interference in journalistic work (Breed, 1955; Tuchman, 1978)—but such a view assumes that the reporter is always right. As we shall see, editorial control can also be interpreted as quality control, a necessary element of news production.

Pitching stories One of the most basic manifestations of workplace autonomy in journalism is the ability to choose what stories to work on (or not to work on). At every morning editorial meeting, some stories originate with the editorial leadership and are assigned to reporters, and others originate with reporters, who pitch their stories to the editorial leadership—who may or may not accept the pitch, or who may accept it in part but want a change of angle, and so on. Pitching a story, arguing for a story, being prepared to negotiate—these are the building blocks of everyday journalistic autonomy. And in this sense, every journalist knows that their autonomy has certain natural limits—no one expects to have total freedom to write about whatever they want. If there is a disaster or other major news event, most journalists would expect to be assigned to cover various aspects of it, even if it is outside their normal beat or area of specialty. In such cases, the most autonomy you can expect is that your own suggestion for an angle on the event everyone is covering will be accepted. In this sense, journalists know full well that their autonomy is bounded: And of course to freely choose a topic, well it’s also the case that it is never really free. You always have to keep your target audience in mind and what is relevant

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for them. Also when you work for a smaller channel, you have to look more into the regional issues for the respective county. I cannot really propose something for the NDR, where the protagonists are mostly from Hesse and I live in Bavaria. Mid-­career, broadcast, Germany

This very basic circumstance—i.e., that much journalism is local and therefore has to serve a local audience—is not even perceived as a very serious limit on autonomy. Going back to the preceding sections on political and commercial influences, there is a tendency (among scholars and working journalists alike) to view autonomy as something that is threatened only by overt attempts to interfere or hinder journalists. Other circumstances that de facto limit the freedom of journalists to choose what to work on are not really seen as limits on autonomy; they are more akin to “rules of the game.” However, even such naturalized limits on autonomy have consequences. The same German journalist continues: Well the issues of current news are very limited indeed. So I would say that about 70 to 80 percent of the topics are predefined. But also I have the feeling that people are supportive if there is an issue you want to do. That’s again limited with television, whether you can find the appropriate pictures for that or if it’s for the Tagesschau there is also the question whether it’s important enough to send out a correspondent especially for that. In that sense I am much more confined now. But I don’t actually have the feeling that this is a big problem for me because I actually think that the current news is the most important. Mid-­career, broadcast, Germany

This journalist does not see this kind of limit on autonomy as very problematic; “the current news is the most important.” Though at the same time, “70 to 80 percent of topics are predefined,” i.e., there is great consensus both within the news organization and across news organizations on what the “news” actually is—a phenomenon that is well known and that several scholars have pointed out as a limit on news diversity (e.g., Galtung & Ruge, 1965; Gans, 1979; Molotch & Lester, 1974). The main reason certain topics may not be covered is not that journalists want to write about them but are hindered (i.e., lack of autonomy due to active interference), but that journalists simply do not see them as topics worth covering, or alternatively, may want to cover them but do not raise the issue because they see it as organizationally and culturally impossible. The following Swedish journalist puts it succinctly: I think I have quite good opportunities to choose my own jobs, but of course the news criteria are always there in the background. You know, you learn what you

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can do and what you can’t do, so there’s always a self-­censorship where you . . . There’s no point doing this, because it’ll never get in the paper, you know what I mean? That happens. But on the other hand, if I’m interested in a case, I can check with my boss and if we agree that it’s interesting, then I have great freedom working on it. Late-­career, print, Sweden

By the same token, every journalist knows that there is room to maneuver and strategically work to increase your scope of action within these institutional boundaries of autonomy: You can choose your battles in another way. Every single news organization is paranoid about their competitors. This may not be the highest-­minded way but again, if you can say to the desk, “I think the Daily Mail will be all over this.” Or “I know The Times will be all over this tomorrow.” News desks are famously insecure beings who are always worried they are making the wrong decision and that is one way you can choose to win the battle. Mid-­career, print, UK, respondent 1

What this journalist is talking about is using another institutional mechanism— that of competition—to your advantage when negotiating a pitch. While the bounded autonomy imposed by news values or news criteria has often been described as a result (at least in part) of the commercial nature of most journalism (e.g., Allern, 2002; Harcup & O’Neill, 2001), it is clear that the commercial context of news production also can be used as a negotiation tool that can increase autonomy. Having a job—any job—always means having to negotiate between individual preferences and work demands. But since there is this widespread notion (as discussed in Chapters 1 and 2) that journalism has a particular place in modern democracy, it is of interest to continue this closer look at exactly how autonomy in journalism is negotiated on an everyday basis. How and when are journalists actually ordered to do things at work? What are they ordered to do? And how do they react to such orders?

Taking orders Ordering journalists out on assignments rests very much on the aforementioned consensus on news values or news criteria: what is considered “important to cover” is commonly not something up for discussion. All journalists have, through education and professional socialization, acquired a set of shared ideas

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on what “important” means and therefore most journalists would not question being sent to cover an issue or event if they share the assessment that it is important or newsworthy. But even in such cases, there is some scope for negotiation: Well the editor who starts early in the morning has the role of the chief editor. He decides what gets onto the page. And then he might think it needs to be a more updated version about the emergency landing of this plane on the Hudson River, but the person responsible for that has something else to do at the moment and wants to finish his articles, then it comes to a conflict with the editor who says, “I need that, that has priority, so please do it.” So then the two have to discuss it. Mid-­career, online, Germany

What is being negotiated here is not whether the Hudson River plane landing is newsworthy or not, but rather how work should be prioritized: the (fictitious) journalist in the example negotiates the order not because s/he disagrees that the task s/he is assigned is important, but because s/he has other (presumably also important) tasks to work on. Though not a negotiation about values or ideas, it is still very much a negotiation about autonomy and about who should control the organization of everyday work. In a similar way, this Italian journalist explicitly refers to the back-­and-forth between reporter and editor about assignment priorities and preferences as a negotiation: So, there is a possibility to negotiate what they ask you to do, and wisely try to do something which is more related to your area of interest. Still, if they tell you to go to Garlasco you have to go there. And, being a professional journalist, you do that. Mid-­career, broadcast, Italy

This journalist even equates being professional with limits to your autonomy: if you are a professional, it means that you agree with commonly accepted news values, and that means you should have no problem being ordered to do an assignment, at least not one that unequivocally falls within the domain of these shared values. Again, this is not perceived as a very strong infringement of your autonomy—not at all like the attempts of political (external) actors to interfere with journalism highlighted by some Italian journalists earlier. Doing what your editor tells you to do is simply part of the job, not interference with your autonomy. Similar views are expressed by another Italian journalist:

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Because it is the news of the day. It’s the event people are most interested in. The two things go together. It’s obvious that the editor-­in-chief of news doesn’t open that section with news of a rape at Caffarella, if he does he makes a mistake and needs to be told. I’m talking about days when no pre-­eminent news occurs. In that case you can feature an inquiry on the reason that Italian cities now have more motorcycles than cars—I totally made that up—or another less relevant news story. There’s more autonomy during down days. In such days you can be more creative. Late-­career, print, Italy

Priorities are here seen as arising from the events themselves and their characteristics, rather than from any shared values on what should be considered important: in other words, such values are deeply internalized among journalists (this is wholly in line with earlier research, e.g., Donsbach, 2004; Golding & Elliott, 1979; O’Neill & Harcup, 2009). While such a view is common across all six nations, it is far from universal. News values may be shared, but they are not uncontroversial. Journalists do not only negotiate workload, workflow, and work prioritization issues but also have discussions and disagreements on values and norms. That news values are shared and that there is a consensus does not mean that they are static or entirely non-­negotiable. For example: I’m a rather accommodating person. I usually do the story if it isn’t rubbish, it won’t kill me, will it? I don’t even remember having disagreed with something. Maybe I haven’t agreed with some specific things that I’ve thought should have been done differently. So there haven’t been many situations like that. I can’t ever remember any at the moment. Recently there was something, I said that we shouldn’t write about this one person, or at least I won’t do it, let someone else write the story. Late-­career, print, Estonia

To be sure this is a minor point to disagree on, but the example demonstrates that there is a possibility (dependent on seniority and position in the newsroom hierarchy) of simply saying no to an assignment: this journalist did not want to write about a particular person, refused to do it, and the assignment went to someone else. On a workplace collective level, of course this can make it seem like autonomy is a zero-­sum game: more autonomy for one journalist meant less autonomy for the journalist who had to do the assignment instead. But on the individual level, this journalist was able to assert her autonomy based on a disagreement over values (however vaguely expressed).

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Editorial work and quality control I have noted—based on extensive previous research in the field—that many core values of journalism are widely shared among members of the occupation, even across nations. The “values” I have referred to are not primarily values about journalism’s role in society (there will be more discussion of that type of value in the following chapter), but rather “news values” or “news criteria,” i.e., shared values on what is important and newsworthy and thus on what should be reported (and what should be prioritized when there are several newsworthy events going on). Even though these values are shared, it does not mean that they are shared equally. Prioritization of work tasks, classifying events, and controlling the final presentation of items (language, general angle, etc.) in order to be able to assign appropriate resources and maximize audience appeal are key organizational objectives and therefore control over values that pertain to these objectives is concentrated at the top of organizational hierarchies. This is sometimes resented by journalists: They often change something in the teaser or the headline and that’s also fine with me. And it’s also the case that you don’t spend too much time on it because you know there’s another control level, if that weren’t the case then I would also work with more diligence. I am also happy if someone gives me advice on spelling and commas, because I usually know it but sometimes I just don’t spot something. So it’s often not anything major and I don’t feel questioned in my competences because of it. That is only the case when they change your texts or the structure of your text. If the head editor comes up to you, “Hey, you have to completely restructure this,” then I feel a bit offended but also not always, and that is happening less over time anyway. Early-­career, online, Germany

What this journalist views as undue interference is, from the point of view of the editor, simply quality control: individual autonomy has to be kept in check in order to achieve organizational objectives. The quote is from a young journalist (at the time of the interview, he had worked as a journalist for four years). An older colleague from the same country has a different (more internalized) view of newsroom hierarchies and autonomy: But most of the cases it’s very subtle and only in very rare cases is it really enforced by direct pressure, and while that’s more difficult, with indirect pressure it also depends on the extent to which your colleagues want to argue the case. /. . ./ So in the end, I think it’s the case that journalism is structured in a

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hierarchical way and all the other mediums are also hierarchically structured and with current news stories there is no other way it can be managed, but at the same time it’s also the case that everyone who works in journalism has a lot of freedom and it doesn’t also really work without this freedom and each individual has to make use of it himself. Late-­career, broadcast, Germany

This is a clear expression of the bounded autonomy at work in the newsroom: on the one hand, the organization needs autonomous employees, able to work on their own initiative and without much direct supervision, but on the other, this only works if the employees have been thoroughly socialized into the values of both occupation and organization. This balance cuts across national borders simply because so much of news production (particularly in print media) is organized in the same basic way and has the same basic concerns across national boundaries. The big differences in hierarchy and autonomy are between organizations rather than between nations: news organizations that have a strong, unified editorial voice of course have to maintain stronger hierarchical control in order to maintain this voice, as exemplified by this British journalist who previously worked at the Daily Mail (this is a long quote but it describes the particularities of editorial control at this news organization very well): At the Daily Mail it was the absolute opposite. Every single piece of writing was analyzed and sent through to about five different people. So I felt it was completely uncreative and I felt that I had no leeway to do what I might have liked to have done. And also particularly because my suggestions were usually you know . . . they would be people that weren’t considered suitable, because they were women or they weren’t the right sexuality or whatever it was and basically the editor of the Daily Mail has an incredibly firm vision of how he wants that newspaper to be. And so there’s no . . . you toe the party line if you like. Everything was rewritten in the Daily Mail. I couldn’t believe it. /. . ./ [T]hey would just come and regurgitate all the facts and figures you needed and then you would rewrite it or even worse, you would send it to another writer and they would rewrite it and then it would be sent back and then it would go through to the subeditor and it would go further and further up and eventually there were about four or five men who controlled it at the top, the editor, the deputy editor, and they would go through it literally line by line so by the time it went to print about six people had rewritten it. Mid-­career, print, UK, respondent 2

In stark contrast to the very centralized and hierarchical organization of the Daily Mail (also described by Collins, 2012) stand many of the news

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organizations—or sometimes divisions within news organizations—that work primarily online, having few resources at their disposal, and small staff: And I also have quite a bit of independence on this side because there’s no ­one managing, I don’t have a manager. If I wanted to do a gallery on the Tamil tigers, because no one is covering it or whatever, then I can just set it up and nobody will even notice. But I think to a certain extent we are limited by the lack of staff and no budget. So you can have as many ideas as you want but if there aren’t the people to do it, or the money to get it done, which is always the case, that’s the limitation rather than someone saying “No we don’t want you to” or whatever. Early-­career, online, UK

Lack of resources, lamented by so many journalists, can also work to the journalist’s advantage: if there are few resources, it means there are also fewer resources to devote to management and control. And from an organizational point of view, a small, understaffed organization needs more autonomous employees than a big organization where maintaining the brand and voice of the news outlet in a hyper-­competitive market (Heyd, 2009) is an overriding concern. Organizational factors—rather than national/cultural ones—are central when determining the scope of workplace autonomy; in effect, it is organizational needs, objectives, and contexts that determine how much autonomy (and autonomy over what domains) can be ceded to employees. The fact that there is a strong element of shared values (or ideas, or notions) on newsworthiness and “importance” within the occupation works to the advantage of media organizations. Indeed, in the words of this senior Polish TV journalist, learning to become a journalist is all about learning the boundaries of your autonomy: No, this is not how this question should be posed and I will tell you why. Because if we have a satellite car, then we can park it wherever we want to. But if we make a live transmission, a so-­called “outdoor,” standing in front of the building, and we take out all our transmission cables and put the camera down, then I don’t have much of a choice. I can choose whether I want to be facing the tree or the street, but that’s about it. My options are limited. So it all depends on technical possibilities. When it comes to the report itself, I am completely free as to what I want to do. Of course you should realize that a journalist who has worked in television for over fifteen years is not going to come up with some crazy idea to make a news report in some breakneck fashion. Because one learns and this learning process involves, among all other things, the fact that one stops coming up with stupid ideas. Emphasis added by author; Late-­career, broadcast, Poland

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Without sounding too flippant, any senior editor in any newsroom in Europe could probably use the phrase “Learn to stop coming up with stupid ideas” (or words to that effect) for the edification of younger members of staff.

Summary and conclusions As previous comparative studies show, journalists who work in democratic countries generally report high levels of job autonomy and do not perceive very strong influences from internal or external actors (Weaver & Willnat, 2012: 532f). The journalists in this study are no exception. Since the study uses a most-­similar systems design, even small differences can be important, however. One should be cautious about looking at responses to single questions or indicator statements when drawing conclusions about cross-­national differences, but the overall pattern is clear: Italian journalists report lower perceived autonomy and higher degrees of internal/external influences on their work in almost every respect, including outright corruption. This is the Italian “giorinalista dimezzato” (the journalist cut in half) described by Pansa (Pansa, 1977; cited in Hallin & Mancini, 2004: 113): only half the journalist belongs to himself, the other half belongs to media owners, political backers, and so on. While scholars of Italian media and politics generally consider the lottizzazione system weakened or gone (Hibberd, 2001), many Italian interviewees in this study still use the word and consider it a living and active aspect of Italian journalism. Some ten-­odd years after Hallin and Mancini’s study, political instrumentalization and strong editorial control are still salient features of Italian journalism. The quantitative analysis overall does not provide any surprising results but confirms earlier research findings. Britain is more similar to Italy than any of the other nations studied in terms of autonomy: as noted, previous studies have highlighted the relatively high degree of politicization of the British press, the strong editorial control, and the increasing power of PR over journalism. This study supports these observations. Swedish and German journalists, on the other hand, report higher degrees of job autonomy and less perceived influence. Poland and Estonia fall somewhere in between—paraphrasing Shleifer’s characterization of post-­communist Russia (Shleifer, 2005), you could say that Poland and Estonia are “normal” countries now. Certainly journalistic autonomy is no greater or less there than in other Western countries, with some minor variations: Estonian journalists seem to enjoy particularly high control over

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their workload, whereas the qualitative analysis points to the continued politicization of Polish public service broadcasting. The qualitative analysis sheds more light on the actual mechanisms of autonomy, and also on what is considered (undue) “influence” by journalists across all six nations. What journalists in general perceive as threats to their autonomy are explicit attempts by actors—external or internal—to control or influence what they are doing. In the case of political influence, the perceived danger is external: politicians who sue, threaten, or otherwise interfere in the news making process. In the case of commercial influence, the perceived dangers are both external and internal, but the external influence is perceived as less threatening than the internal: journalists are in general not too worried about direct advertiser influence, but more worried about their own managers and owners of the news organization letting naked commercial concerns guide newswork. Letting daily work be dictated by the “clickstream” is the main symbol and phenomenon around which journalists rally—or at least they were in 2008–09, when the data was gathered. Click-­driven journalism was, quite rightly, seen as part of the erosion of the iron curtain between advertising and editorial and represents transfer of discretionary decision-­making (and thus a reduction of autonomy) away from editorial to the advertising and marketing departments and the algorithms they use. However, not all journalists are necessarily suspicious of this phenomenon, and many journalists do not seem to care very much one way or the other. And for a few journalists, using real-­time audience data to guide news production is already a naturalized part of newswork, as self-­evidently “just there” as notebooks and shorthand once were. In Chapter  2, I described the relationship between occupational and organizational professionalism as one sometimes characterized by antagonism and sometimes by negotiation. In this chapter, we have seen that there are many aspects of occupational professionalism that do not require any negotiation to be integrated with (and ultimately subsumed under) organizational professionalism because they already serve organizational needs. There are many parts of the established processes of newswork that actually work to decrease the individual workplace autonomy of journalists, but these procedural or professional aspects (as they are described in other quantitative studies of journalistic autonomy) are not viewed as influencing factors or as threatening autonomy (in the way interfering politicians or managers insisting on metrics-­ driven news do), mostly because they have: a) a longer history of naturalization; and therefore also b) a more seamless congruence with key occupational values (such as what constitutes “news” in the first place).

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Certain aspects of newswork are considered to be within the scope of individual, discretionary decision-­making, notably the control over workflow and story selection: on these issues, journalists can have legitimate conflicts, discussions, and negotiations with their employers. This area is what journalists see as the domain where autonomy can legitimately be exercised. Outside this area lie the naturalized elements of newswork which are rarely questioned and not subject to legitimate disagreement. Overarching principles of news selection (i.e., that certain things are considered self-­evidently newsworthy and others are not), the general organization of newswork, and the focus on speedy delivery of news to audiences, are all things that are not considered to be within the scope of individual, discretionary decision-­making in the workplace. There are certain rules of the game—some rules can be bent, worked around, or even broken, but other rules are non-­negotiable. Journalism research has long observed that naturalization of particular news processes serves to set limits on individual workplace autonomy, limits that in turn primarily serve the (commercial) needs of the organization (e.g., Gans, 1979; Schudson, 1995, 2003; Tuchman, 1978). What is interesting here is that even new practices that for many journalists are considered alien and problematic (e.g., use of real-­time Web audience metrics; increased overlap between advertising and editorial; an increasingly precarious journalistic labor market) are also moving fast towards naturalization. Some journalists are critical, to be sure, but the interviews demonstrate that for many journalists, these “new” practices are simply part of the context of work now, something that you must adapt to rather than resist. The functional reduction of autonomy across many aspects of newswork is by many not perceived as such but just as “the way things are now.” This naturalization can happen because, as outlined in the preceding section, occupational professionalism in journalism is actually a rather weak form of professionalism. Journalism’s occupational professionalism often cannot be used to formulate and mobilize counter-­discourses to resist aspects of institutional change and organizational imperatives, because many aspects of occupational professionalism are already so attuned to the framework of commercial news production. This has consequences for how journalists define professionalism and what it means to be a “professional” journalist in a changing media landscape. This is the subject of the next and final empirical part of this book.

7

Professionalism A journalist who publishes a story without verification of his or her sources makes a professional and deontological mistake. Common people are not compelled to do it. If I can use a metaphor: today many people go to the chemist and buy self-­medication products; would you say that they are all doctors? Late-­career, broadcast, Italy

Introduction This chapter on professionalism is the final empirical chapter of the book, but as presented in Chapter  2, the notion of professionalism (in particular the occupational/organizational professionalism duality) is also the overarching analytical framework of the book. Many ideas and key findings thus converge in this chapter: the role of technology in framing and shaping journalistic professionalism, the role of skills and expertise in the definition of professionalism, and the constitution of professional autonomy. In the recent decade or so, two ideas have become powerful in the research on journalistic professionalism. One is that journalistic professionalism is closely linked to, and indeed virtually synonymous with, the perception journalists have of their role in society—their so-­called role perceptions. The idea that professionalism (in general, not just that of journalists) is linked to some kind of societal role or duty originates with Durkheim (1957), though his work is rarely referenced in research on journalistic professionalism and role perceptions. Several early surveys of journalists contained questions that dealt with perceptions of journalisms’ professional role, professional ideals, and notions of professional duties (McLeod & Hawley, 1964; Johnstone, Slawski, & Bowman, 1976; Kepplinger & Voll, 1979), but it was not until the 1980s and 1990s that role perception emerged as a distinct concept (Donsbach, 1981; Köcher, 1986; Weaver & Wilhoit, 1986). The 2000s and onwards has seen a further development of

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this research using larger survey samples and more comparative studies (Beam et al., 2009; Deuze & Dimoudi, 2002; Donsbach & Patterson, 2004; Hanitzsch, 2011; Hanitzsch et  al., 2011; O’Sullivan & Heinonen, 2008; Weaver & Willnat, 2012; Skovsgaard et  al., 2013). In Chapters 1 and 2 this role was described in general terms as having “something to do with democracy,” but role perception research is more fine-­grained than this and operates with many possible ways in which journalists can play a societal role—as purveyor of objective and factual information, as watchdog of those in power, as an activist bringing about positive change to society, and so on. The second powerful and recent idea about journalistic professionalism is that said professionalism—again understood mainly as some kind of societal role or duty—is weakening or declining. This decline of journalistic professionalism is commonly linked to overarching institutional changes—in particular a perceived increased commercialization of news organizations and news content—but also to the introduction of technologies like multiplatform production, search engine optimization, real-­time Web audience metrics, and social media integration (cf. the discussion in Chapter  4). Commercialization and general institutional disruption caused mainly by technological innovation are for example perceived as the leading causes of journalistic de-­professionalization in Mensing (2010); Nossek (2009); Wiik (2009); and Witschge & Nygren (2009). Some observers even suggest (or at least hint) that a commitment to a stronger notion of professionalism, including some form of licensing or limiting entry to the profession, is the only way to stop this decline and guarantee a journalism that is in fact committed to upholding certain societal duties (Donsbach, 2010: 46f). In the analytical terms of this book, occupational professionalism (which is what is generally meant by “professionalism”) is being edged out by organizational professionalism. However, while the decline argument is forceful, it is based on an implicit understanding of professionalism that places a very strong focus on duties, responsibilities, and societal roles, and ignores other possible meanings of the term. Note, for example, that in McLeod and Hawley’s pioneer study, a key aspect of the concept was that “professionalism” made work meaningful for individuals, and commitment to a clearly defined social role was only one of many things that could create this meaning (McLeod & Hawley, 1964; see also Becker et  al., 2005). This more everyday understanding of professionalism as something more closely related to the everyday performance of one’s work task and the meaning found in this performance has over the years become less influential in research on journalistic professionalism (but never wholly ignored; see for example Deuze, 2005; Pollard, 1995; Waisbord, 2013).

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The first part of this chapter is based on the role perception tradition of research. I present a basic quantitative overview of attitudes to professional roles in the six countries studied. The goal here is modest. The expectation is that findings will be in line with previous research, i.e., there will be some well-­ established differences between the countries with regard to how journalists perceive their role in society, but also some well-­established similarities. Hanitzsch’s eighteen-­country comparative study identifies four “professional milieus” (Hanitzsch, 2011: 484ff) of journalists around the world based on their values and notions of the societal role of journalism: detached watchdogs, populist disseminators, critical change agents, and opportunist facilitators. Briefly, the detached watchdog milieu dominates the “core” Western countries, the populist disseminator milieu is more common in “younger” Western democracies (Spain, Bulgaria, and Romania were the countries included in the study), the critical change agent milieu seems to be a feature of countries that are in the middle of or have recently undergone some form of revolution/transition to democracy, and finally the opportunist facilitator milieu is more common in authoritarian regimes. Based on this and other studies which come to similar conclusions (e.g., Weaver & Willnat, 2012), we would expect the detached watchdog ideal to be strong in all six countries in this present study, but also likely stronger support for populist disseminator and/or critical change agent ideals in Poland and Estonia. This overview will then serve as a reference point for the rest of the chapter. The qualitative analysis then reconnects to an earlier discourse of journalistic professionalism focused on how journalists discursively construct professionalism, how they define professional behavior and professional values linked to everyday working practices, and above all on how “professionalism” creates a sense of meaning in journalists’ everyday working lives. The analysis looks at views on professionalism in general and also at how professionalism is defined through claims about the dividing line (if such a line can be said to exist) between journalists and citizen journalists; between “professional” and “amateur” in a converged media landscape. The analysis addresses the balance between organizational and occupational professionalism across the six nations, in particular the ways in which organizational and occupational professionalism merge and become functionally very similar, i.e., the same practice can fill both organizational and occupational needs. The concluding section of this chapter is somewhat longer than in earlier chapters as it also relates the findings on professionalism to the discussions of technology, skill, and autonomy from preceding chapters.

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Professional roles: What do European journalists perceive as their role in society? In the survey, nine statements on professional duties were put to respondents and they were asked to indicate agreement or disagreement on a 7-point Likert scale where 1 = disagree completely, and 7 = agree completely. Two of the nine statements suggested that journalists have no particular societal duties other than either to themselves or to the organization they work for. Table 7.1 shows the comparative mean scores and Figure 7.1 puts these comparative mean scores in spider diagram format. As expected, support for the duty to present facts objectively and accurately and support for the duty to act as a watchdog are strong across all six countries and agreement on the importance of these duties is likewise strong. There is also agreement that journalists do have some kind of societal duty (regardless of what this duty might me), as respondents across all countries indicate low

Table 7.1  Societal duties of journalists—comparative means Societal duties and professional roles

UK

SE

PL

EE

DE

IT

Mean SD

Duty to present facts objectively/accurately Duty to act as watchdog Duty to explain and analyze the news Duty to set the political and social agenda Duty to change society for the better Duty to provide audiences with what they want Duty to tell interesting/ entertaining stories No particular duties other than to themselves No particular duties other than to the organization that employs them

6.63

6.45

6.82

6.76

6.56

6.74

6.63

0.88

5.77 5.92

6.29 6.07

5.76 6.36

5.84 6.19

5.02 5.98

6.02 6.39

5.80 6.10

1.55 1.25

3.77

3.47

3.48

6.24

2.62

2.87

3.68

1.99

4.30

4.06

5.05

5.83

3.69

4.31

4.40

1.95

4.22

2.96

3.03

3.37

2.78

2.46

3.29

1.80

5.48

4.78

2.95

4.57

4.91

4.03

4.75

1.83

1.78

1.72

1.69

1.67

2.38

1.67

1.82

1.42

2.03

1.93

2.12

1.78

2.30

1.74

1.98

1.49

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Figure 7.1  Societal duties of journalists—spider diagram. For the original color version of this diagram please go to: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/ newsworkers-9781780931838/.

agreement with the statements that journalists have no particular duties other than to themselves or the organization they work for. There is considerably more disagreement on the statements that journalists have a duty to set the social and political agenda, and a duty to change society for the better (both statements that could be linked to a critical change agent perception of journalism), and on the statements that journalists have a duty to tell interesting stories and to give audiences what they want (statements that could be linked to a populist disseminator role of journalism). Estonian journalists are more positive to a more interventionist professional role and support the notions that journalists should set the social and political agenda and try to change society for the better. As predicted, Polish journalists also score relatively high on these indicators. Regarding the populist disseminator role, it is UK journalists who show the highest level of agreement with the duties to give audiences what they want and to tell interesting and entertaining stories. The profile of German journalists stands out in several ways. German journalists show the smallest degree of support for the watchdog duty (though

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the agreement that this duty is important is still towards the upper end of the scale), the smallest degree of support for more interventionist duties (including a low degree of support for the duty to explain and analyze the news), and the highest agreement with the statement that journalists have no particular duties at all above those to themselves or their employers (though agreement with these statements is on the lower side of the scale). Together, these numbers paint a picture of a particularly detached journalistic ideal in Germany. This is somewhat in line with Hanitzsch’s finding that among the eighteen countries he investigated, Germany is the most dominated by the detached watchdog milieu, and also has very weak representation of the three other milieus. It was been noted in Chapter 2 that a kind of “trade” or “craft” ideal of journalism has been strong in the UK (i.e., a strong commitment to the skill/expertise dimension of journalism and a somewhat suspicious attitude to the whole idea of a societal role for journalism), but here the German journalists come out even stronger as the “craftsmen of democracy”: the societal role of journalism is simply to provide accurate, objective information and not intervene in societal processes beyond that provision—even by providing explanation and analysis. In terms of the balance between occupational and organizational professionalism, the survey indicates the continued strength of occupational professionalism across all examined countries. Journalists overall agree on what their core societal duties should be (convey accurate and unbiased facts, act as a watchdog, explain and analyze the news) and also do not agree that journalism is “duty-­less,” i.e., journalism is something more than just any other job. Further analysis may suggest that this may be somewhat of a simplification, as we shall see in the following section.

Professional roles: A methodological artifact? It is well known that surveys may not be the best tool to examine people’s opinions and attitudes on any number of things. In many cases, people do not have fully formed opinions or even knowledge about particular issues and phenomena, and if asked a person will form an opinion on the spot so that they can respond to the question. In other words, it is doubtful whether the opinion or attitude would have “existed” if the person had not been asked about it (Bishop, 2005; Schaefer & Presser, 2003; Schuman & Presser, 1980, 1981). The tendency to make up an answer or an opinion on the spot is sometimes known as satisficing, a form of response bias (Krosnick, 1991).

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Since the related notions of professionalism, professional roles, and professional values are so influential in journalism studies, and since they mostly have been examined using survey methodology, it is in the first instance interesting to compare the quantitative results of the present study (which, as noted, largely support existing research in terms of key cross-­national similarities and differences found) with journalists’ responses to qualitative, open-­ended questions about professionalism. When given more open-­ended questions like these, will journalists immediately answer with a reference to duties (e.g., information provision, Fourth Estate function), professional values (e.g., objective reporting), professional practices (e.g., verification), or will other things come to mind? In other words, is there a possibility that the strong opinions on the societal role of journalism found in many surveys to some extent are the result of satisficing? The interview manual contained two questions with additional prompts that deal with professionalism in some way. The first question asks about what it takes to be a good journalist (i.e., more a question about the generic qualities and skills needed to be considered “good” at your occupation), but was linked in the prompts to professionalism; in the actual interviews, most respondents were asked both what they thought was needed to be a good journalist and what was needed to be considered a professional journalist: [Question 4]

What, in your mind, does it take to be a good journalist?

[Prompts] • What does it mean to be professional if you are a journalist? What characterizes a professional journalist? • What does it take to be a successful journalist? Is this the same or different from being a good journalist?

The second question invited respondents to formulate statements on professionalism by asking them to contrast what they (as professionals) do with what “citizen journalists,” (as amateurs) do. This question did not use the specific term “professionalism” but the prompts were designed to elicit discussion and generate definitions on this topic: [Question 5] “We are all journalists now” is a phrase sometimes heard (i.e., new technology places the tools of journalism into the hands of everyone). Is this correct? Is it enough to have a mobile phone camera and an Internet connection to be a journalist? [Prompts]

162 • • • •

Newsworkers How is what you do different from what citizen journalists do? Is citizen journalism a threat or a possibility for journalism? Why? (If interviewee just answers “No”) Why can’t anyone be a journalist? Do professional journalists have some particular skill or set of skills (alternative: particular knowledge or types of knowledge) that citizen journalists do not have?

These questions worked well for eliciting discussion on professionalism; the question about the boundary between professional journalists and citizen journalism was particularly useful in this regard as other studies have found that such boundary discussions reveal a lot about how journalists think about professionalism and similar concepts (Anderson, 2010; Carlson, 2012). Based on the literature of professionalism in general (Abbott, 1988; Burrage & Thorstendal, 1990; Evetts, 2003; Freidson, 1990, 2001; Sarfatti Larson, 1977; MacDonald, 1995; Sciulli, 2005; Wilensky, 1964) and journalistic professionalism in particular (Aldridge & Evetts, 2003; Allison, 1986; Anderson, 2008; McLeod & Hawley, 1964; Schudson, 1995), we could expect to find three main areas where claims of legitimacy are made: expertise, duty, and autonomy. Expertise (or skill, or knowledge) refers to the domain of specialist, often technical, knowledge that is associated with a profession. Expertise is a more straightforward affair in the traditional professions like medicine and law, whereas it is usually more blurred in other occupations—especially so in journalism. When individual journalists make claims to distinctiveness by pointing to, for example, their writing skill, their ability to extract information and present it to audiences in an understandable way, their ability to analyze and put facts in context, and so on, these are all claims based on the domain of expertise. Duty refers to the notion that a profession is more than just a job, i.e., that the professional has a wider societal duty rather than just a duty to his or her employer or to him- or herself. In journalism research, it is this aspect of professionalism that quantitative role perception research has focused on. When journalists say that what they do is unique and special because they have a duty to inform the public, or to act as a Fourth Estate, these are claims from the domain of duty. Autonomy, finally, refers to the degree of self-­governance within the profession, and the extent to which the profession is independent of other societal institutions, primarily the state and the market. The long-­standing tradition of having a strict division between editorial departments and advertising departments (always much more strict in the US than in the rest of the world, now fast-­fading everywhere) is one way in which this desire for autonomy has

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been implemented in practice. When journalists refer to this division between editorial and advertising when making claims to difference from amateurs, they are drawing on the domain of autonomy. The interviews present quite a different picture of what is considered professional and what constitutes professionalism compared to many previous quantitative studies (including my own).

Professionalism in practice: Skills and collective practices In a previous study based on the same empirical material (Örnebring, 2013), I studied how journalists conceived of and expressed the difference between themselves (as “professionals”) and citizen journalists (as “amateurs”). It was striking that relatively few journalists articulated this difference based on any discussion of the societal role of journalism (i.e., duty): instead, journalists mainly focused on their storytelling expertise and technical skills (i.e., expertise) when explaining what set them apart from citizen journalists. This present study of professionalism more broadly defined follows the same lines. There is a great degree of cross-­national agreement on foregrounding skills and expertise when defining professionalism, in particular the skill of writing for an audience: It also requires the skill to explain something to a person who knows nothing about it and, let’s be honest, whose intellectual level can sometimes be several times lower. This person has to understand, and if she doesn’t, it’s the journalist’s fault. Mid-­career, broadcast, Estonia A professional journalist is the one who can write about everything and, even if he doesn’t have knowledge in a particular field, he’ll still be able to gain this knowledge, understand the topic and write about it. There isn’t anything he couldn’t write about. And, in short, this is what I see as professional. Mid-­career, online, Poland

Linking these observations to the discussion of storytelling skill in Chapter 5, we see that “professionalism” in the first instance is much more closely linked to creating meaning in everyday work rather than explicitly fulfilling some kind of societal duty or role. In these quotes, being “professional” essentially means “being able to do the job,” a common everyday understanding of the word. “This person has to understand, and if she doesn’t, it’s the journalist’s fault,” says

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the Estonian journalist, evoking the notion of the journalist as representing the interests of the audience as a key source of professional meaningfulness. “There isn’t anything he couldn’t write about,” says the Polish journalist, linking everyday performance to skill and competence rather than to societal duties (we will return to this linkage between professionalism and skill further on in the chapter). The second quote also highlights that a key aspect of professionalism-­ as-expertise is being able to write about/work on any topic, something also mentioned by other interviewees: /. . ./ if you are a professional journalist you will have to be more or less on the same level with your sources. That when speaking to them you will have educated yourself enough to have a decent discussion with them. You don’t just ask all the questions you have and fit them into the news somehow. Early-­career, print, Estonia

Furthermore, if professionalism can be understood as being able to do the job (the job being explaining something to a general audience) no matter what the topic is, then it stands to reason that different media outlets or different genres require different expertise and thus different professionalisms (or rather different inflections of occupational professionalism): Such a person certainly must be a very skillful writer. The problem is I really don’t know what it means. These things are really difficult. They must be able to conform to the specific character of a given paper. Because, as I’ve already mentioned, every newspaper, every magazine, requires different writing. Early-­career, print, Poland

This German journalist states this even more explicitly: Well, I think the Bild-Zeitung is extremely professional for the section of boulevard newspapers. And if I compare that now with the Süddeutsche, which also comes daily, then I would say it’s in the market sector for political quality journalism. Well then the Bild-Zeitung is entirely unprofessional, but she really doesn’t want to be it either. So for me it also depends on the area we are talking about, if something wants to be successful in the sense of being popular, then it’s also professional if it gets there. Late-­career, print (freelance), Germany

This differentiation of professionalism also applies to different journalistic work roles. A professional editor does not necessarily have the same skills, traits, or values as a professional reporter, for example—but they can both be considered professional journalists, each in their own way:

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So for example, there is this obligation of division between the content and advertising for example, and also opinion and news and that is for me professional journalism in my opinion. But all that doesn’t make a good journalist either. That also depends on the role you have, so to speak. There are brilliant journalists who don’t write a single word, because they are an excellent paper-­maker or online-­maker [i.e., editor, author’s note]. Mid-­career, online, Germany

That is, professionalism is something that can be relative to genre, outlet or work role: one can be a professional tabloid journalist by being good at adhering to tabloid genre conventions and addressing a tabloid audience, but this may be different from being a professional public service journalist or a professional journalist at a quality daily. The German interviewees in particular emphasized the role of skill and expertise in defining journalistic professionalism. One might perhaps have expected UK journalists to be the ones to emphasize skill, craft, and expertise in this regard considering the strong trade/craft tradition in British journalism (Örnebring, 2013), but this was not the case among the interviewees in this study. Several German respondents held that being professional is simply being able to use the tools of the trade (further supporting the quantitative finding of a particularly detached, craftsman-­like, professional role among German journalists): What I said before, you have to learn these tools and be able to do that on your own later. So for example some people can really use language very well, which would be necessary for a journalist. That’s how it is. And if they write in their own way on their blogs and only the people in their environment understand it properly then it won’t spread very far either. And it’s not really a journalist then, for that matter. So you still would need the practical tools. They are simply necessary to build up a journalistic product. Late-­career, news agency, Germany

Having the skills was also equated with knowing “the rules,” i.e., there was a strong perceived linkage between knowledge, craft skill, and various journalistic practices aimed at “quality control” (i.e., verification, editorial discussions): Well, it’s professional journalism from trained journalists who know the tools and fundamental rules, which they design professionally and offer it to the public. The other thing is Web 2.0 which is also good, well not good but you have to accept it. The same goes for blogs for example. And blogs can have big

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advantages, so it’s good that we have them. The task of the journalist will be to stand out from the media mass. Mid-­career, broadcast (freelance), Germany

Or even more explicitly, repeating an earlier quote: So for example, there is this obligation of division between the content and advertising for example, and also opinion and news and that is for me professional journalism in my opinion. Mid-­career, online, Germany He [the citizen journalist, author’s note] might be good with the mobile phone camera but he didn’t go through it [education/journalism education, author’s note] and he doesn’t have that distance. He also often has his own interest about what he is writing and he doesn’t have that distance. Late-­career, online, Germany

In this latter quote, it is actually not so much the skill that makes the professional but rather the commitment to professional values (in this case, the value of distance). This brings the discussion full circle: many journalists do not immediately associate professionalism with commitment to values but rather with the skills and practical routines that make the commitment to values possible. In other words, skill and expertise are seen as integrated with values: journalism requires particular skills and knowledge because it stands for particular values. Still, it is the skills and practices themselves that are topmost in journalists’ minds when asked about what constitutes professionalism. Another important theme when the respondents discuss professionalism is the collective nature of the professional endeavor. As Aldridge (1998) has pointed out, the professional mythology of journalism is very individualistic. In practice, however, the rugged individual heroes of journalism always depended on—and still depend on—collective effort. Writers need their editors, subeditors and fact checkers. Foreign correspondents—perhaps the most typical individual journalist heroes—need their fixers, photographers, and the resources provided by the home editorial office. Ever since the research of Breed (1955), the role of colleagues as a reference group and of newsroom hierarchies in shaping newswork has been well known. Yet the individualist mythology is stubbornly resistant to everyday realities (as mythologies often are), supported as it is by countless images from popular culture and industry award ceremonies. The collective nature of newswork has often been rendered invisible (Hardt & Brennen, 1995) and the newsroom where this

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collective work traditionally has occurred becomes a kind of black box where information comes in and news go out. However, the current technological and economic restructuring of the news industry has opened the black box and rendered the collective nature of news making visible to the general public—not least because newsworkers and news organizations want to make it visible because it is perceived as a system of quality control and something that sets legacy newswork apart from the more individualistic (unpredictable, untrustworthy) work of bloggers, citizen journalists, and other amateur news producers. Many respondents express ideas along these lines, explicitly highlighting the collective nature of journalistic professionalism: I think the kind of exchange you can have between people in editorial team work is essential, more or less traditional editorial techniques but that respect journalistic standards. /. . ./ I think there must be an organization based on strong competences and above all not a single person working on his or her own. Individuals can communicate ideas, but they don’t provide information, well they can, but they risk not being reliable. Late-­career, online, Italy

Or, expressed another way: occupational professionalism needs an organizational framework in order to function and flourish. The interactions in the newsroom can for example help improve your skills as an individual: I also think that the exchange between the people within the editorial department is also very important because you get a different perspective on many things, you also have to be fast but that’s obvious these days, and you need to be able to express difficult complex structures in an understandable way in simple words. Early-­career, print, Germany

Respondents are also explicit about the fact that the institutional character and organizational support of newswork functions as quality assurance: because there is an institution where people work together behind the news, the news from such institutions can be trusted: I think people trust me because as a journalist, particularly as a public service broadcast journalist, I will convey a reasonable and true picture of whatever the story is. /. . ./ The trust in a journalistic product comes from the experience we have in newspapers, in media, that we can be trusted. Late-­career, broadcast, Sweden No, we are not all journalists, I don’t know how that would happen, it has to do with some kind of branding or quality assurance, a text published on “Henrik’s

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blog” is not the same as a text that’s published on newyorktimes.com, because there’s a totally different ethics, tradition there, some kind of guarantee that what it says it’s true and if it isn’t someone will have to answer for it. Mid-­career, print, Sweden But there has to be a place you can go to and trust. I mean everybody has their particular news provider, whether it’s the BBC or the New York Times or The Guardian that you think, “Well if they’re saying that they must have checked that.” Late-­career, print, UK

It is worth noting the phrasing here in detail. First, there is clearly a close link between being professional and being trustworthy, and trustworthiness is in turn achieved by engaging in particular practices (as noted earlier). Engaging in these practices is not the sole guarantee of trustworthiness, however. Note that the respondents do not in the first instance refer to the professional collective (i.e., a group that exists across media organizations and is in some degree independent from them), but rather to organizations as collectives: high-­status news organizations are mentioned by name (New York Times, BBC, The Guardian) as examples of guarantees of professional standards. This further illustrates the close link (rather than antagonism) between occupational and organizational professionalism: occupational professionalism is shaped, maintained, and guaranteed by and through news organizations. Not all respondents use specific examples but can still be explicit about the role and importance of the collective editorial process in maintaining professional standards, e.g.: But on the other hand in making our sort of news judgments on whatever important business or economic stories of the day, choosing how to write them, how we should interpret figures, where there’s often quite a bit of spin particularly by companies often put on their figures, I think there is something of a need for the more experienced and professional voice to make some of those judgments which the public may question if they don’t like that. Late-­career, online, UK

The collective nature of professional news making is made even more explicit when contrasting it against citizen journalists, who are perceived to be lacking this connection to an occupational collective defined by everyday work: For example, they [i.e., citizen journalists, author’s note] lack someone who asks them to write the same article ten times. Mid-­career, online, Italy

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This emphasis on collective, organizational processes in supporting journalistic professionalism is strong, but not all-­encompassing. Many journalists also give examples of individual skills or attributes that help define professionalism. There is a dividing line here between skills (which can be trained, thereby making it at least theoretically possible for anyone to become a journalist) and attributes (which are given and invariant, suggesting that you are either born to become a journalist or not). It stands to reason that an attribute-­centered view of what constitutes professionalism would be more exclusive than a skills-­centered view. In the latter view, anyone with proper training can become a professional whereas in the former, you either have what it takes to be professional or you do not. Besides writing skill and editorial judgment (as covered in Chapter 4), another fundamental skill characterizing the professional journalist is the ability to keep up-­to-date, to manage the news flow: Well a good journalist needs to be totally up-­to-date, he needs to have all the current news and should be able to judge it, not only judge what the people already know but also what is important for them to know, I think that is very exciting as you as a journalist can explain the world to them a bit and that might also shape their world which is an aspect of responsibility. So this being up-­todate and the responsible treatment is the fundament, I think. Early-­career, print, Germany

Some kind of analytical skill—and the ability to write to a wide audience—is also useful and guarantees a level of professional standard: I think that the fact that everyone can see something doesn’t make the one who made it a journalist because journalism is not just about showing something to others. It’s also about posing questions, analyzing social affairs, economic events, historical events, describing them or at least making an attempt at explaining them to normal people, for whom sometimes television, more likely than a newspaper or a radio, is the only way to communicate with the outside world. Late-­career, broadcast, Poland

Those who instead hold to an attribute-­centered view of professionalism often emphasize curiosity as a key trait, but other attributes can be important, too: You need attention to detail. You need a natural curiosity. You need a natural desire to want to know more, a natural curiosity. And actually I think what’s helped me more than anything is emotional intelligence. I think that is really

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useful. I think often you might hear a different story, not necessarily a better or a worse story, but different stories, if you attune to somebody’s emotions. Early-­career, broadcast, UK

Some journalists do also see duties—or rather, responsibilities—as a key marker of professionalism. However, such responsibilities are not explicitly framed as linked to a societal role but rather as a responsibility toward audiences to uphold certain professional ethical standards when handling information (particularly not to let personal needs and feelings influence news decisions): He should be very responsible about it because we have access to information a normal, average person doesn’t have access to. We can really do more than average people, but we should never abuse it to satisfy our own curiosity, our own sick interests, or in order to hurt someone just for the fun of it, or just to avenge my grandma who had to live in the Polish People’s Republic [i.e., under Communism; author’s note]. Mid-­career, news agency, Poland A journalist who publishes a story without verification of his or her sources makes a professional and deontological [i.e., ethical, author’s note] mistake. Common people are not compelled to do it. If I can use a metaphor: today many people go to the chemist and buy self-­medication products, would you say that they are all doctors? Late-­career, broadcast, Italy

As can be seen, the notion that professionalism entails being objective and not letting your personal interests affect newswork is visible in the interviews as well (it is still rarely the first thing that comes to the respondents’ minds, though): They [i.e., professional journalists, author’s note] try to judge something objectively and then divide between facts and opinion, which is a very classical duty of a journalist. Mid-­career, online, Germany

Again, this aspect of professionalism becomes particularly evident when contrasting “professional” journalism with citizen journalism: There’s also responsibility as well which you don’t have as an average blogger or an average person that takes a picture on a mobile phone. I think maybe as a journalist you should be aware of a sense of balance and fairness. I think that’s what distinguishes. Early-­career, online, UK

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The critical-­change-­agent professional role evident in certain countries in the survey does not appear in the interviews. No journalist links professionalism to societal intervention unprompted—with two exceptions, both of them from Estonia: Somebody said at the last press party that a good journalist is someone with no friends, somebody who sneers at everyone, who doesn’t get along with anyone, but who is a good journalist because the problems in the world matter to her. She sees injustice and fights against it. Early-­career, online, Estonia But I still think that a journalist is a person who feels that she’s doing important work in the society, that she is responsible for that society in some way. Late-­career, broadcast, Estonia

Even if these two quotes point in the same direction as the quantitative study, they can hardly be considered overwhelming evidence—but it is perhaps important that no other journalist from no other country mentions such societal duties as markers of professionalism even when not prompted (and not very often even when prompted).

Summary and conclusions When asked about journalisms’ societal duties in a survey context, journalists across the six countries are in agreement on many aspects, but there are also key differences. Support for a neutral observer-­cum-watchdog duty is strong and widespread, in line with many other comparative studies. Most journalists do not agree with statements that they have no particular duties other than to themselves or to their employers, further indicating that journalists believe in some kind of notion of a societal duty, even though that duty may vary. In terms of differences, Estonian and to some extent Polish journalists exhibit stronger support for so-­called interventionist duties, i.e., to change society for the better and to set the political and social agenda. There is somewhat stronger support for a populist disseminator role (a duty to tell interesting and entertaining stories and to give audiences what they want) in the UK than elsewhere. German journalists show the strongest support for a neutral, craftsman-­like, societal role for journalists, providing neutral and objective facts and being more supportive of the idea that journalists have no particular duties beyond those to themselves or their employers.

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The lack of autonomy of Italian journalists demonstrated in Chapter 6 does not impact particularly on their perceptions of their duties. They still show strong support for the watchdog duty and the duty to provide objective and neutral information, despite the difficulties Italian journalists seem to have in fulfilling said duties, and they are more skeptical towards duties like setting the social and political agenda, trying to change society for the better, and providing audiences with what they want. In this sense Italian journalists seem quite Anglo-American, to use Hallin & Mancini’s term. However, when responding to open-­ended interview questions about what makes good journalism, how they define professionalism, and how they are different from citizen journalists, duties and societal roles take a back seat to views on professionalism based on expertise, competence, and the ability to do your job on a day-­to-day basis. Employability, as noted in Chapter 5, also features implicitly as a key feature of professionalism: a professional journalist is one who can be employed anywhere and do any kind of newswork. Here, national differences are much less discernible as the professionalism discourse based on having particular skills and/or mastering particular procedures cuts across country, media, and career-­stage lines. The expertise-­based understanding of professionalism thus includes the ability to perform certain tasks and/or to process information according to certain established practices, e.g., writing in an understandable and engaging manner, not letting your own interests and values affect your work, and verifying facts whenever possible. This means that while journalists may not in the first instance refer to their societal duties when defining professionalism, such societal duties are at least implicitly present when journalists discuss how the performance of certain actions or adherence to particular work processes constitutes professionalism. The duties (of providing objective and accurate information, for example) are put into practice through the exercise of particular skills and enactment of particular forms of expertise, as evidenced by the journalists who link their professionalism to a kind of duty or responsibility to the audience. However, it is also clear that this duty or responsibility to the audience is often framed in general terms. Audiences are first and foremost seen as needing to have unbiased news that they can understand; what audiences might do or not do with this information is outside the purview of the journalist. And while the duties of journalism are somewhat implicit in the expertise-­based accounts of professionalism, they are exactly that: implicit. The explicit definition of professionalism is overall more strongly linked to expertise and a particular skill set than it is to a particular societal role.

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Should this expertise-­centered understanding of professionalism be considered something that derives from occupational (traditional, peer judgment-­based) professionalism or something imposed as an organizational (hierarchical, control-­oriented) notion of professionalism? The answer is of course that an expertise-­centric view of professionalism supports and merges both occupational and organizational needs. From an occupational view, it supports boundary work and helps maintain journalism as a distinct and valued occupation (non-­journalists lack this essential expertise). From an organizational view, it guarantees a level of agreement between employers and employees on what skills are important, and helps ensure the supply of skilled labor. The relationship between occupational and organizational professionalism is in this instance not antagonistic but negotiated and complementary. Compared to many other professions—in particular those that can more easily lay claim to a unique knowledge base, like medicine, law, or engineering— the expertise-­centric understanding of professionalism in journalism makes for a rather weak justification of professional status and privilege. None of the core skills identified by the respondents in Chapter 5 (storytelling skill and editorial judgment) or in this chapter (procedural skills of verification, fact checking, and the general quality control of produced content) are really unique to journalism, or only possible to acquire through journalism education. Indeed, when pressed on the issue of skills-­based differences between professional journalists and amateur/citizen journalists, many respondents note that it is easy to find examples of professional journalists who do not have particularly strong skills in these areas and citizen journalists who do demonstrate strong skills in the same areas. The expertise claimed by journalists as a basis for their professionalism is clearly not exclusive. While this skill-­centric understanding of professionalism is the most prevalent in the material, it is not the only one. The idea of some kind of societal duty as the foundation of professionalism is also widespread across all six nations. These understandings are not held exclusively of each other. It is rather the case that journalists’ understandings of professionalism have many different elements, though these elements do not carry equal weight. The expertise-­centric understanding is the more prominent one, particularly when respondents are asked to define professionalism without any preceding prompts. In the case of the duty-­based understanding of professionalism, it is also the case that some duties are easier to “operationalize” than others and easier to make work within a context of commercial news production. This “operationalization” of duties is also closely connected to the expertise-­centric understanding of

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professionalism, as noted in the opening of this section. The duty that had the strongest and most widespread support in the quantitative analysis—the duty to present facts objectively and accurately—is also the duty most distinctly expressed in the qualitative study, and this is because this is the duty most embedded in the organizational context of day-­to-day newswork. News organizations have an interest in providing information that is seen as fact-­based, accurate, and unbiased (because that supports their societal status and helps legitimate their legal, social, and cultural privileges), and the routines for guaranteeing such information provision are long-­established and linked to widely accepted skills and practices. More interventionist duties (e.g., setting the social and political agenda, changing society for the better) are more difficult to realize within a context of primarily commercial news production—particularly if, as noted in Chapter  4, news organizations are using various technological tools to strengthen their direct control and coordination of the news production process. Thus in terms of the overall balance between occupational and organizational professionalism, journalism is a field where occupational professionalism to a great degree has been, and continues to be, framed by organizational professionalism. Organizational imperatives have to a great extent shaped occupational professionalism—the two forms of professionalism have not really been in opposition to each other but rather marked by the subordination of occupational professionalism under organizational professionalism. Even though there is widespread agreement among journalists across national borders that journalism has some kind of societal duty (though there is variation in views on exactly what this societal duty should be), in practice “professionalism” is defined as being able to do your job regardless of the circumstances—and this “job” is producing news within an established organizational setting. The qualitative analysis overall (see also Chapters 5 and 6) indicates the following key components of journalistic professionalism, across all six nations: l

l

l

Being able to write/produce content in a particular genre (news) or genres (feature, op-­ed, long-­form reportage, etc.). Being able to write/produce content that is understandable, accessible, and interesting for a general (mass) audience. Being able to produce this content in a timely and resource-­efficient manner, and overall being able to comply with organizational demands of content production (i.e., if organizations generally demand proficiency in multiplatform production, then it is considered “professional” to have such a proficiency).

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Being able to perform your job in such a way (by using particular processes and practices) that your personal opinions, circumstances, and preferences do not impact on the “neutrality” of the content you produce—and so that you could work for any news organization regardless of its political/ ideological stance or profile. Finally and importantly, all these elements are performed not only by individuals but by collectives, making the newsroom itself the ultimate guarantee of professionalism. The newsroom as crucible of professionalism merges the occupational elements of peer judgments and traditional professional socialization with organizational elements of distribution of resources, brand value, and light-­touch hierarchical control.

The interview responses to more open questions about what should be considered good journalism, how professionalism should be defined, and how professionals should be distinguished from amateurs, thus add a layer of complexity to the sometimes simplistic notion of professionalism-­as-calling, or professionalism-­ as-more-­than-just-­a-job, as assumed in much of the previous research on journalistic professionalism. The strong (occupational) professionalism found in Breed’s (1955) analysis, which did entail a strong measure of peer control but also made it possible for journalists to resist organizational demands (when they were viewed as anathema to professional self-­understanding), does not exist in the same way anymore as its institutional basis (the stable, large newsroom staffed by long-­term, permanent employees) has weakened considerably since the 1950s. The findings in Chapters 4 and 6 in particular also indicate that this institutional weakening of the newsroom setting has accelerated significantly in just the past decade. The weakening of the newsroom in its traditional form has of course been observed by many researchers (e.g., Deuze, 2008; Lewis & Usher, 2013; Singer, 2004a), but few have made the explicit connection between the newsroom setting as a constitutive element in the construction of journalistic professionalism (though see the recent work of Rodgers, 2014). What emerges from the aforementioned components of professionalism is rather a view that journalism in many ways is just another job—one with its specific demands, to be sure, but not necessarily one that has some higher societal purpose that journalists actively work towards on an everyday basis. This does not mean that a notion of societal duty is entirely absent in the respondents’ definitions of professionalism. The second-­to-last element listed is linked to a societal duty to provide objective and accurate information, and this is also the societal duty most strongly and unequivocally supported by journalists

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in the quantitative study. However, this element cannot be considered to be purely in the realm of occupational professionalism either. From the organizational point of view, it also ensures the interchangeability of staff, i.e., that a right-­wing newspaper could hire a journalist from a left-­wing newspaper (to just use one example) and still expect them to conform to organizational demands. Part of this element of professionalism is that personal political preference should not be an issue when hiring staff, and additionally that professionalism could be seen as a guarantee that a new member of staff could be relied on to follow the ideological/political line of the news organization, if it has one. This is an observation also made by Aldridge & Evetts (2003: 559), as well as Soloski: “Since the norms of news professionalism are shared by all journalists, the news organization needs only to concentrate on teaching journalists its own news policies, and needs only to develop techniques for ensuring that its journalists adhere to the policies” (Soloski, 1989: 147). This is further indication that journalistic occupational professionalism is in fact weaker than generally assumed: occupational ideals about individual freedom of expression are easily subordinated to organizational demands and an organizational notion of professionalism centered on being a good and useful employee who can be expected to meet organizational demands—including ideological ones. Furthermore, this relatively weak professionalism is also linked to the ongoing technological convergence and changing skill demands of journalism, and the effects of these trends on (professional) autonomy. Previous chapters have highlighted many new procedures and phenomena in journalistic work that in many ways reduce functional autonomy—e.g., using real-­time Web audience metrics rather than editorial judgment to make news decisions, letting content management systems set limits on item length/scope/placement, demanding that content be created in such a way that it can easily be shifted between platforms, and so on. While there is some resistance (or at least protest) to these processes, they are also relatively quickly and seamlessly integrated into “what you need in order to do your job.” In other words, as the “job” becomes redefined, so too do the notions of professionalism and autonomy, and a “weakened” autonomy becomes institutionalized and naturalized. If professionalism just means being able to do the job as defined by the employing organization, then it stands to reason that the employing organization only has to change the job in order to change how professionalism is defined: new organizational demands will quickly be integrated into the occupational professionalism framework.

8

Newswork in Europe: Continuity and Change

How is journalism-­as-work affected by the ongoing changes to journalism-­asinstitution, and how do these changes play out in a comparative perspective? This chapter returns to this overarching research question and analyzes and interprets these changes through the lens of the dual (occupational/ organizational) professionalism of journalism. This book started with some observations based on a 1930s guidebook for those seeking to enter the occupation and journalism (Carr & Stevens, 1931). Carr and Stevens ended their book with a chapter on the future. The dominant organizational form within the institution of journalism in their time was the newspaper, and “The newspaper is peculiarly susceptible to the changing conditions of the times. As a chronicle of new ideas and new methods it is itself a reflection of progress” (Carr & Stevens, 1931: 217). Despite the book’s focus on providing career advice for budding journalists, the chapter on the future contains no information on or discussion of how career prospects of journalists may change over time, nor of how journalistic work may look in the future. The chapter is instead almost entirely devoted to how various technological innovations could change newspaper organizations and the newspaper business. Color printing, the “inevitable stage of newspaper evolution” (Carr & Stevens, 1931: 218), is discussed, as is photogravure (i.e., the technique for reproducing photographic images on the printed page). The possible future role of wireless (i.e., radio and television) is also touched upon—both as a possible future competitor, and as a technology that could aid in the production of news and newspapers (for example by having remotely operated linotype machines, or being able to receive news agency information via wireless: Carr & Stevens, 1931: 221). The cinema with its newsreels is mentioned as another possible future competitor (Carr & Stevens, 1931: 229). Carr and Stevens also assume that the future will inevitably bring “an international newspaper” (Carr & Stevens, 1931: 223), probably somehow linked to the new medium of broadcasting—not

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a bad prediction considering the global success and spread of 24/7 satellite channels, The Economist, and the online editions of papers like The Guardian and the New York Times. But what of the work of journalism? Would that change at all in Carr and Stevens’ brave new world of broadcasting and color printing? Not much, probably, because as they say towards the very end of their book: “There is no phase of active life more adaptable than journalism, and whatever the need it will be filled” (Carr & Stevens, 1931: 229). In other words, the key role of journalism is simply to be adaptable, to respond to changes in the surrounding world (“The newspaper is peculiarly susceptible to the changing conditions of the times”) and express them to their audience (“. . . ‘reader interest’ – that elusive quantity which every journalist seeks to hold”: Carr & Stevens, 1931: 218). In that sense, Carr and Stevens would probably have agreed that a crisis for newspapers would not necessarily mean a crisis for journalism. Journalism, as both institution and practice, will adapt and survive. But adaptation means change, so as the institutional framework changes, so too will the work. In the following sections, I will go through the four areas of analysis of the book (technology, skill, autonomy, and professionalism) and pin down which aspects of the institutional framework are changing (and also what stays the same), and how it affects the working practices of journalists. I will also return to the issue of key similarities and differences between countries, as well as the question of which form of professionalism (occupational or organizational) dominates in each area—or whether some form of negotiation is at work.

The technologized workplace As can be gleaned from the future visions of Carr and Stevens, technology has always been highly integrated into both journalism-­as-institution and journalism-­ as-work. The dominant organizational forms of the institution (newspapers, news agencies, and then later broadcast organizations) have been built up around particular distribution and production technologies (e.g., printing, the telegraph, recorded and live-­broadcast sound and images). At the same time, many elements of these distribution and production technologies have at least since the postwar period been kept at arm’s length from day-­to-day journalistic work. Newspaper journalists did not as a rule have to master printing and, as broadcast journalism gradually became more established, nor did they have to master all elements of wireless transmission and film production; the TV and radio journalist would be expected to know something about editing and recording, but a lot of this

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technological work was conducted by specialized employees, e.g., cameramen and sound engineers/editors. Carr and Stevens also noted this phenomenon, i.e., that certain technologies over time move away from everyday journalistic practice. It can still be useful to possess some level of knowledge of how such technologies work, even if you are not skilled in their operation: It really does not matter a great deal that the journalist should, as was deemed advantageous in the old days, be able to set matter out of cases. He would never be required to do it, and the knowledge, being non-­essential, would in any case fade from his recollection. But that is not to say that he should not know type faces at a glance, both as to their names, their point value . . . and their width of letter. Carr & Stevens, 1931: 155f

But as some technologies move away from everyday practice, other technologies move in. Even given that journalism and technology always were inextricably linked, the scope and scale of technologization of the journalistic workplace today can still be considered unprecedented—mainly because many technologies of production and distribution (the latter having been separate from the everyday practice of journalism for most of the modern history of the institution) are now integrated into the everyday working lives of journalists. The Web and other online technologies are essentially distribution platforms and content platforms simultaneously: as content is being produced and put online, it is being distributed at the same time. Many production technologies (notably photography and recorded audio/video but also to some extent design and typesetting) have moved away from specialist employees and back to journalists (or to technological systems controlled by non-­journalist staff). Add to that the rise of ubiquitous, networked, and mobile computing, as well as digital algorithms and metrics, and we can see that technology saturates journalistic work inside and outside the workplace more than ever before. Despite this apparent saturation, it is in the area of technologization that we find perhaps the greatest cross-­national variation: in 2008–09, multiplatform production was routine in some countries but still relatively unusual in others— and the countries studied here are all part of the resource-­rich West/global North. In 2008–09, important media organizations in large countries (Italy) still did not use standardized content management systems, such systems were a novelty in others (Poland, Estonia), and in yet others they were a well-­established aspect of everyday newswork (UK, Sweden). In Italy, it was still possible to “opt out” of various multiplatform production techniques, whereas in countries like

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the UK, Sweden, and Germany such techniques were well on their way toward becoming fully naturalized. But how has this increasing technologization of journalism at an institutional level affected everyday working practices? A typical contention of many early studies of the introduction of online technologies into journalistic workplaces was that technologies were not being adopted/diffused fast enough and that journalism in general needed to be “better” (i.e., faster, more wholesale) about adopting new technologies. Maier’s statement that “Clearly, the journalism profession needs better approaches to bring new technology to the newsroom” (Maier, 2000: 95) is typical in this regard. But why should journalists necessarily adopt and use technologies if they are: a) introduced from above; and b) reasonably could be expected to add tasks to an already heavy workload? Also, what is the “acceptable” time frame of diffusion? Nine years after Maier’s study, Machill and Beiler found that exactly the same online research tools studied by Maier had become entirely naturalized and everyday in newsrooms (Machill & Beiler, 2009: 200). Quick adoption does not necessarily make journalism “better,” and journalists will be guided by pragmatic attitudes when adopting technologies (Machill & Beiler, 2009: 196). Based on the present study, technologies as used in the journalistic workplace can be divided into technologies of reduced effort, technologies of control, and technologies of creativity. Technologies of reduced effort are those most readily embraced by journalists as they are perceived as labor-­saving and effective and therefore meet joint occupational and organizational goals of quick news production and distribution. Such technologies include (but are not limited to) online research tools (search engines in particular), mobile phones, laptops with wireless Internet capability, and digital audio/video recording equipment. These technologies reduce time needed to be spent on research, eliminate “dead time” that can instead be used for production, enable constant contact with the editorial office, and reduce dependence on bulky analog equipment and the ancillary staff needed to manage such equipment. Technologies of control are those that enable a greater degree of organizational control over the news-­making process, in particular in the forms of standardization and a naturalized sensitivity to commercial concerns. Such technologies are sometimes resisted in the workplace, as is the case with the real-­time Web audience metrics that power the “clickstream,” but often also rendered invisible and therefore not resisted, as is the case with content management systems (which also enable the continuous surveillance of employees). Technologies of control are strongly linked to the mechanisms of organizational professionalism.

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Technologies of creativity, finally, are those that enable journalists and editors to produce, present, and distribute news in innovative ways and realize occupational goals of professional self-­realization, job satisfaction, and performance of perceived societal duties. These include the many different technologies that enable and create forms for interactivity, as well as many multiplatform production technologies that enable the blending of different journalistic forms and content delivery methods. This final category of technology is also the least widespread and the least integrated into everyday working lives; innovative and creative uses of technology are often the organizational purview of small and specialized working groups or otherwise separate organizational units. In other words, technology use is mostly either guided by principles of organizational professionalism (technologies of control) or by simultaneous/ merged application of organizational and occupational professionalism principles (technologies of reduced effort). In the case of technology and technology use in journalism-­as-work, the analysis thus demonstrates an overall dominance of organizational professionalism over occupational.

Skill demands in technologized, flexible, and porous organizations A point of order and apology must open this section. In order to fully study how changes to journalism-­as-institution affects the skill needs, skill demands, and the general construction of a set of “core skills” in journalism, one obviously needs to study the various forms and types of journalism education, something which has not been done within the scope of this book. Here we can only speak of the role of education indirectly and by inference. Education takes place prior to workplace entry, and the focus here is instead on how skill is defined and discussed on the basis of day-­to-day newswork. That said, there are many aspects of institutional change in journalism that lie outside the domain of journalism education (and that journalism education has to adapt to as well), but which still could reasonably be expected to impact on skill demands and the general understanding of what constitutes key expertise within journalism as an occupation. Following on from the previous section, the most obvious aspect of institutional change affecting skill demands is the extensive technologization of the workplace. As new technologies get introduced, journalists are expected to be familiar with them. The material presented in this book shows—as have

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other studies before it—that competence in multiplatform production is today more or less essential for journalists: one may have an overall profile geared towards print, broadcast, or online but all types of media organizations increasingly expect you to have at least a passing familiarity with other technological platforms as well. However, there are important differences between different technologies. Skills directly relevant for content production are prioritized by both journalists and their employers; for example, all journalists today are expected to be familiar with how content management systems work and also often to have more detailed knowledge of commonly used CMSs (e.g., Drupal, EPiServer, Atex Polopoly, Joomla, eScenic), but journalists are rarely required to have the skills necessary to program/modify/maintain such systems. The continuous maintenance and to a great extent development of such systems is instead the domain of specialized technical staff—today’s journalists are dependent on IT staff and programmers rather than on cameramen and sound editors. Similarly, journalists are expected to act on and adapt to information provided by Web audience metrics systems and other algorithmic technologies, but are not as a rule expected to know how to program and maintain such systems—much like how journalists in Carr and Stevens’ time were not expected to be able to operate linotype machines but still able to understand the limits and central features of printing technology. However, even as this study shows that cross- or multimedia production work is increasingly becoming the “new normal” way of conducting newswork, journalists still consider such skills (and the somewhat related design/layout skills) unimportant—even banal—to journalism-­as-work. Instead, when assigning importance to the various skills of newswork, journalists instead focus on skills associated with “serious, old fashioned reporting” (to borrow a phrase from Anderson, 2013: 1008)—i.e., writing, ability to work independently, interviewing, and research skills. The qualitative study further developed the notions of skill and expertise and introduced storytelling and editorial judgment as core skills (again a valuation that cuts across national borders). The core skills identified in the quantitative and qualitative analysis all have in common that they are skills favored in a context of occupational professionalism. These are all skills that are self-­defined by the occupational collective as well as sources of peer approval: your colleagues are much more likely to see you as a good journalist if they consider you to be a good storyteller (or a good writer, or a good interviewer) rather than if you are considered to possess extensive technical expertise in multiplatform production. In the area of skill valuation by journalists, occupational professionalism trumps organizational.

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However, technologization is only one of the central institutional changes journalism is undergoing. Another—perhaps even more central—is the massive shift in organizational forms within the institution as a whole. The dominant organizational form of newswork used to be a large, stable organization employing journalists on permanent, full-­time contracts. Today, news organizations are much more flexible (or lean, or downsized, depending on your ideologically preferred terminology) and porous—the latter meaning that the “boundaries” of the organization are becoming more and more difficult to discern as news organizations work to incorporate user-­generated content, increasingly outsource newswork, and enter into long-­term or short-­term relationships with various different partner or consulting organizations (e.g., becoming owners or part-­owners of other commercial websites, hiring external companies to develop new types of news services). Since full-­time, permanent positions in journalism are becoming less common, and per-­item payment, short-­term contracts and contingent project work more common, it is not surprising that we find that journalists and employers alike assign more and more importance to entrepreneurship skills and skills in self-­directed professional development. The responsibility for training and skill maintenance is shifted onto the individual and risk is shifted away from news organizations. To some extent, employability is still ensured through competence in the core skills mentioned earlier, but it is also the case that entrepreneurship is a sought-­ after and important skill in its own right in journalism (as it already is in many other occupational sectors). Prospective journalists today have to build skill sets where they can “create their own job” rather than necessarily “get a job.” Entrepreneurship skills are thus primarily valued from the context of organizational professionalism. Indeed, most interviewed journalists view the demand to be entrepreneurial and take responsibility for their own professional development and skill training as a type of external/employer pressure and to some extent see it as in opposition to doing the “actual journalism,” i.e., resisting or at least being able to critique the demands of organizational professionalism with reference to occupational professionalism. This leads to the conclusion that in the domain of skill, occupational professionalism is dominant overall. Demands for entrepreneurial skills formulated from a context of organizational professionalism are becoming more prevalent but are still resisted by journalists, or at least seen as problematic and a source of occupational pressure. Status among peers and collective occupational ideals are what shape journalists’ notions of which skills are important to their job.

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Narrowing boundaries of autonomy Autonomy has rightly been central to discussion of journalism’s social role and legal privileges. If we agree that one key role of journalism is acting as a watchdog of those in power (and most journalists in most surveys, including the one presented in this book, do agree quite strongly with this), then it stands to reason that journalism—both as institution and as work—should be as autonomous as possible from the state, from the market, and from many other possible power-­ holding institutions (religious institutions come to mind). This type of professional autonomy, i.e., the right of a profession to govern itself, to formulate its own professional duties and codes set down to guarantee the carrying out of these duties, to collectively determine which skills are essential to the performance of its professional duties, etc., has been central to the discussion of professionalism in many other areas (not just law and medicine but also education, nursing, public administration, etc.). Freidson’s 2001 book Professionalism: The Third Logic is perhaps the most forceful recent formulation of this positive, even hopeful, framing of professionalism and the centrality of autonomy to the professional project. Of course, critical scholars of professionalism have long pointed out that self-­governance also can be deeply problematic and have detrimental effects for society. Swedish sociologist Gunnar Olofsson uses the term “dark side of the professions,” with professional autonomy in particular seen as potentially destructive, in his analysis of the role of the medical profession in the acceptance of lobotomy as a valid form of treatment of mental illness (Olofsson, 2007). Many destructive and detrimental phenomena from journalism can easily be seen as resulting from too much autonomy, rather than too little, e.g., pack journalism (Berkowitz, 2000; Frank, 2003; Matusitz & Breen, 2007); systematically misrepresenting scientific facts and debates (Boyce, 2007); and failing to acknowledge fraudulent behavior within the occupation (Cooper, 1996; Hindman, 2005). This study takes the lived experience of working journalists as its starting point and therefore it is no surprise that the results here show that the problem for most journalists in most of the countries studied is too little autonomy, not too much. Commercial and sometimes also political constraints are often (but not always, as we shall see) experienced as real threats to professional autonomy. Italy stands out as the country where journalists suffer most from political and economic instrumentalization of the news media among the nations studied— including outright corruption, as indicated in the quantitative study. In the interviews, it was made clear that Italian journalists are very much aware of this,

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often resent it and try to work against it in whatever ways they can (though in the case of corruption journalists must in at least some way be complicit; this area was unfortunately not touched upon in the interviews). British journalists also experience more limited autonomy in key aspects (pressure to follow the political line of the news organization, pressure from PR professionals, less workplace autonomy), whereas the perceived autonomy of journalists in Sweden and Germany is high in almost every aspect. However, the study also found that journalists—like scholars—usually mean very particular things when they talk about autonomy, independence, and occupational interference. Generally only overt attempts by external (from politics or business) or internal (media owners) actors to influence or interfere with newswork are perceived as threats to autonomy. The internal limits placed on an individual journalist’s autonomy by editors, managers, news industry demands and practices, and the norms and values of the occupational collective itself, are not as a rule seen as constraints on autonomy but rather as a kind of rules of the game that do not originate from a particular actor or set of actors but rather are seen as just the way newswork is done. This leaves journalistic workplace autonomy rather vulnerable to the autonomy-­reducing effects of practices that can easily be framed as rules of the game, in particular if these rules are not introduced or enforced by external actors (of whom journalists would likely be more wary as it fits with their understanding of what “interference” is) but rather by editors and other mid-­ level managers. Examples include but are not limited to editors passing on story/topic suggestions from the marketing and advertising departments; advertising/marketing staff sitting in on editorial meetings; marketing (often via online recommendation systems and social media) of your own work becoming integrated into the news production process; the overall maintenance of an advertiser/business-­friendly profile; the clickstream guiding news production; and content management systems with e-­commerce integration. Many journalists express unease about these developments, but many do not— early- and late-career journalists alike tend to see these practices as “just the way things are done now.” On a larger (institution-­wide) scale, the increased precarity of work and dwindling newsroom resources are similarly perceived as often uncomfortable and stressful facts of life, but not ones that journalists could feasibly change or have any influence over (except by making themselves as competitive as possible by being entrepreneurial). Precarious work becomes “Just the way things are in the industry,” the macro-­level analog of the previously described

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newsroom practices that are seen as “Just the way things are done here.” That this precarity is so readily accepted is in part due to the fact that (just as in the case with journalists’ cultural-­cognitive schema for technology use, see Chapter  4) there is a strong historical precedent of labor oversupply in journalism, and a concomitant cultural template of journalistic work as being bohemian, risky, competitive, but ultimately meritocratic (“Cream rises to the top”). The cultural work done by this template serves occupational professionalism and organizational professionalism alike. If you do not succeed, it is because you do not have what it takes to be recognized by your peers, and those who succeed function as exemplars for those who continue to struggle in the profession (occupational professionalism). And of course a widespread belief in meritocracy and that fierce competition for even contingent, short-­term work is the way the industry has always worked (rather than as a result of conscious decisions by owners to downsize organizations and outsource more journalistic work in order to cut costs) fits with organizational professionalism. This cultural template ignores that contingent employment and freelance work is now much more common and the labor oversupply greater: industry practices are never “just the way things are” but always the result of conscious choices and implemented strategies by institutional actors. The consequence of this is a continued reduction of functional autonomy, as it is more difficult for an occupation to collectively self-­govern if a key institutional condition of such self-­governance—permanent, full-­time work contracts—is becoming less and less common. While the domain of autonomy in journalism has long been marked by a great degree of agreement between the organizational and occupational forms of professionalism, the organizational form is getting the upper hand—across all six investigated nations.

Adaptability as professional credo There is a widespread cultural trope that journalism should be, in the widest sense of the word, oppositional. A good journalist is one who does not have any friends, as one Estonian journalist (jokingly) remarked in Chapter 7. This trope is related to the likewise-­widespread watchdog ideal, i.e., the notion that a key professional role of journalism is to critically scrutinize those in power. The cultural trope of the oppositional journalist also includes a healthy dose of disrespect for your own management (as noted by Aldridge, 1998 in her analysis of journalistic occupational mythology): a good journalist is someone

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who is unruly, difficult to manage, fiercely autonomous. The trope is widespread in popular culture and shared not only by journalists themselves but also the general public—and journalism scholars. Being professional in journalism means being independent, autonomous, and ideally a little bit eccentric. Occupational professionalism reigns supreme. That is the mythology. In empirical reality, being a professional journalist is a lot about being adaptable. This adaptability takes many different forms. First of all, journalists have to be adaptable because their professional view of the world that they cover is that this world is constantly changing and filled with unexpected events. News, after all, is about the unexpected. Therefore journalists have to be prepared to change with their circumstances, work on the go (using mobile, networked, and digital technologies), and keep up-­to-date (most journalists are themselves news junkies who obsessively follow the competition) and be capable of self-­directed work. The most common first response when interviewees were asked to describe a typical working day was along the lines of “There is no typical working day.” The fact that most “news” is actually “olds” (in the words of Galtung & Ruge, 1965), i.e., that a large proportion of news comes from preplanned events and/or events and happenings that have been known in advance, is usually glossed over by journalists. Being adaptable in this sense has positive rather than negative connotations for journalists, as it means that you are skilled and professional enough to be able to improvise as necessary to get the story, yet produce it in a way that conforms to peer expectations and peer-­ based quality standards. A slightly different but related aspect of adaptability is the ability to work across genres and subjects: a professional journalist is a jack-­of-all-­trades but a master of none. This part of adaptability is particularly connected to the activity of writing (or producing content more widely understood) for many of the journalists interviewed here. You should be able to quickly grasp a new subject and be able to ask informed questions about it, and then write about it so that it is both seen as initiated and expertise-­based, and easily understandable for a general audience. This is actually a long-­standing journalistic ideal. Carr and Stevens’ guidebook had (in the chapter titled “The Nose for News”) a sub-­header “How to Maintain Freshness of Mind,” under which they state: “Still, the writer who calls himself a journalist, condemned in consequence to constant association with the trivial, will always find refreshment in the study of a subject which is to him an unchartered sea.” (Carr & Stevens, 1931: 126). Since the news is always new, so too must the journalist keep his or her mind fresh and new. Adaptability of this type is strongly anchored in occupational professionalism: if you can

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work under any circumstances, get the story no matter what, and write intelligently and interestingly about anything, your peers will surely consider you a great professional. While a great deal of this adaptability is framed in individual terms, it should also be noted that another key result of the analysis was that professionalism is considered a collective endeavor. Many of the things that support adaptability on the individual level and make it work on a day-­to-day basis are related to the collective nature of newswork. You can adapt to circumstances because you know you can rely on your colleagues to perform the necessary quality control, and your colleagues can help and support you in different ways as you try to deal with your present circumstances. Conversely, they know that they can rely on you to do your job in a way that conforms to collective expectation, and rely on you for similar support when they are faced with a situation they need to adapt to. The “quality control” can be annoying, to be sure, as when your editor tells you to rewrite your article for the tenth time, but it is necessary. Over time, you will learn to write in a way that will not make it necessary for you to rewrite the article ten times, because you will have become further socialized into the occupational collective and its values and routines. Again, the collegiate aspects of occupational professionalism remain strong. Yet organizational professionalism is also strongly present in the adaptability credo. Being able to do the work under any circumstances is also very useful from the organizational point of view. If employees internalize the competitive framework of newswork (as noted in the preceding section), valorize adaptability, and work collectively to reach occupational goals (getting status in the eyes of your peers), these elements help create a well-­functioning workplace and remove the need for intense individual supervision. Furthermore, organizational goals coincide or are even the same as occupational ones: the timely provision of high-­ quality news, even under difficult circumstances, is of course a key way in which commercial (and non-­commercial!) news organizations compete with each other. Being a good journalist (occupational professionalism) is often the same as being a good employee (organizational professionalism). But it is of course this same valorization of adaptability based on occupational professionalism that makes it difficult for journalists to critique and resist many initiatives designed to strengthen organizational professionalism. Changing working conditions—more widespread precarity, fewer resources for news production, shrinking newsroom staff, demands to produce more content for more different platforms, and so on—easily become just one more circumstance to cope with for the harried professional. It was noted by some interviewees—

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and in other research—that one marker of journalistic professionalism is to be able to produce content for a news outlet even if you do not personally agree with their political profile. In the same way, working under circumstances you do not really find agreeable or conducive to the production of quality journalism can also come to be considered “professional.” If the job of the journalist is to adapt, to cope, then that gives employers quite some leeway in providing reasonable working conditions.

Comparative notes and final words In many ways, this book has been more about cross-­national similarities than cross-­national differences—in part a consequence of the research design, in which basically similar countries (stable parliamentary democracies, EU members) were selected. The differences that have been found do not add new knowledge as much as they confirm previous findings (which, given the cumulative nature of the scientific endeavor, is still an important task): an interventionist professional role is more supported in Estonia and Poland (and least supported in Germany), British journalists are somewhat more attuned to a populist disseminator role, workplace autonomy is high in Sweden and Germany (as well as in Estonia, a country that in this respect has more in common with the democratic-­corporatist media system type), but considerably lower in Italy and also the UK. Italy is in fact among the six countries studied here the one where the perceived autonomy of journalists is lowest—and this includes the frequent experience of corruption and the use of inappropriate compensation in the field of journalism. Corruption has hitherto not been studied as an aspect of journalistic autonomy, but the results presented in this book at least suggest that this could be a useful area of further investigation: it does seem that corruption is in some way linked to the overall level of perceived autonomy among journalists in a given country. Finally, the study has also found significant differences in (digital, networked) technology use and technology adoption in the six countries, differences that in turn seem to depend on the general level of digital/networked technology adoption and infrastructure in the different countries. Considering that in journalism research, technology is often viewed as a universal force that ignores or even transcends national borders, this result may in some small way function as a corrective to that universalist view. And so what of the future for journalism-­as-institution and journalism-­aswork? In a 1981 article, Wolfgang Donsbach suggested that both journalists as a

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professional collective and democratic society might be better served by journalists laying claim to legitimacy and professional status by achieving particular competences, rather than basing it on different types of value judgments and professing to perform some type of societal role (for performance of a societal role surely rests on having the abilities and expertise to actually be able to perform it). Competence should be the main source of journalistic professionalism and claims of legitimacy and relevance (Donsbach, 1981). Donsbach returned to this idea in later texts (Donsbach, 2010, 2014), arguing that journalists should aim to become “the new knowledge profession,” and setting out what he sees as the core competences journalists need in order to perform their societal role (NB: journalistic roles and professional values were also important to Donsbach, but competence should be the overarching source of legitimacy because as noted, fulfilling a professional role rests on a journalist having and practicing the necessary skills and competences). These core competences are (as found in Donsbach, 2010: 45f) general competence (which means general analytical ability and a broadly speaking “scientific” attitude to information gathering and presentation), subject competence (a high level of expertise in the specialist area(s) a journalist covers), process competence (a reflexive and theoretical knowledge about how news production works and what influences the journalist’s own news decisions), journalistic skills (which would include many of the things covered in the Skills chapter of this book, i.e., writing skill, basic research skills, skills in procedures of verification, and so on), and finally professional values (Donsbach here frames commitment to ethics, values, and a social role as a kind of competence or skill). Considering that the area of competence or expertise has generally been seen as an area where journalism’s claims to professionalism are at their weakest (since most journalistic skills are not exclusive, not very technical, not in general based on scientific research, and thus really do not require specialist education; see for example Krašovec & Žagar, 2009), Donsbach’s suggestion is a bold one. And while I fundamentally agree with Donsbach on this point (particularly the overarching notion that any journalism that wants to claim societal legitimacy and relevance needs to be based on a much wider spectrum of expertise than the rather narrowly craft-­oriented focus of most current journalism education programs allows), there are also—as this present study shows—formidable obstacles to achieving the goal of making journalism “the new knowledge profession” in the Donsbachian sense. And most of these obstacles are linked to the transformation of journalism-­as-institution and the concomitant transformation of journalism-­as-work.

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As the oversupply of labor in journalism increases, combined with an ever-­ decreasing number of permanent full-­time positions, entrepreneurship will also increase in importance—a tendency we can see the beginning of in this book. That in turn means that it is employers’ definitions of key skills and competences that will be most influential. Organizational professionalism will more likely demand extensive technical/craft competence (i.e., journalistic skills, in Donsbach’s terminology) rather than any general knowledge, reflexivity, or scientifically grounded analytical ability. Those latter competences will not necessarily get the job done—particularly not if “getting the job done” equals “producing more news faster.” The ongoing technologization of journalism is thus far focused on reducing effort and increasing opportunities for control and surveillance, another circumstance that makes creating a counter-­discourse of professionalism based on competence more difficult. One of the key findings of this book is that the occupational professionalism of journalism is increasingly becoming subsumed under organizational professionalism. This is because many of the institutional changes described in this book not only weaken the traditional frameworks and mechanisms of occupational professionalism formation, but they also strengthen the frameworks and mechanisms of organizational professionalism. Furthermore, as there is a long-­standing historical precedent in journalism of internalizing and/or adapting organizational goals into also becoming occupational goals (the emphasis on speedy production and dissemination of news, the naturalization of workplace constraints on autonomy, the valorization of adaptability), occupational professionalism within journalism is not strong in the sense that it can form a viable counter-­discourse (as in Freidson, 2001) to managerial–­commercial reforms and changes in working conditions that make the production of quality journalism more difficult. Since being a good journalist was always to some extent equivalent to being a good employee, it can be difficult to even formulate the idea that in order to be a good journalist, one may at times have to be a bad employee.

Methodological Appendix The empirical material of the project comes from two sources: a set of qualitative open-­ended interviews with a small sample of journalists, and an email survey sent to a larger sample of journalists. This combination of qualitative and quantitative methods is fairly unusual in comparative projects. This appendix contains basic methodological information about the interview sample and the survey sample, followed by a copy of the survey and a copy of the interview manual.

Interviews The primary group of journalists selected for interviews have been those involved in daily production of traditional “hard news.” However, as an important aim of the project has also been to highlight the diversity of experiences within the occupation, each national sample has also included a smaller number (2–3) of journalists outside this group (e.g., journalists specializing in feature production, sports news, news and features for children and young readers, and/or journalists working under a non-­daily news cycle). All journalists selected for interview had journalism as their primary occupation, and they were all currently working as journalists at the time of the interview (a couple of interviewees have since left journalism, either for other jobs or unemployment). Besides this, the two key selection criteria have been medium type and occupational experience. Each national sample includes at least three journalists working mainly in print (mostly daily newspapers of different types, but also a few journalists working on weeklies and monthlies), three working in broadcasting (radio and TV, public and private), and three working mainly with online media (mostly this group consists of journalists working in the online division of media organizations that also produce print and/or broadcast material, e.g., the online verson of a newspaper). Similarly, at least three journalists from each country are early-­career (defined as having spent five years or less as a journalist), three are mid-­career (5–15 years), and three are late-­career (15 years or more). Additionally, the goal was to have a freelance

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journalist (either currently working freelance or with significant previous experience of freelancing) in at least two of the career-­stage categories in each country.When journalists are quoted in the text, they are credited using primary medium type, career stage, and country (e.g., “Broadcast, mid-­ career, Sweden” or “Online, early-­career (freelance), Italy”). In each country a minimum of nine journalists have been interviewed. The final number of interviews was as follows: UK (9), Sweden (10), Germany (12), Italy (11), Poland (10), Estonia (11), for a total of 63 interviews, divided between categories as shown in Table M.1. Editors with managerial responsibilities have been interviewed as well as beat reporters. The majority of journalists in the late-­career category were working as editors rather than reporters/journalists in the field; they were, however, still very much involved in daily news production (with some exceptions). About one-­third of the mid-­career journalists had editorial responsibilities, as had a smaller number of the early-­career journalists. The interviews were conducted during the period Oct 2008–June 2009. Each interview lasted between 40 minutes and 1 hour 30 minutes, with around 55 minutes being the median time. The interviews were all conducted in the native language of the interviewee. The author conducted all the interviews in the UK or in Sweden, and a team of four research assistants based locally conducted the interviews in Germany, Poland, Italy, and Estonia. The interviews were then transcribed and translated into English.

Table M.1  Number of interviewees and categories of respondents (Total N = 63) Country Early-­ career (15 years)

Resp. Print Broad-­ Online Other Resp. total cast total

UK Germany Italy Sweden Poland Estonia

3 4 4 4 4 4

3 4 5 3 3 4

 9 11 11 10 10 11

3 3 2 3 3 3

3 4 3 4 3 4

3 3 4 3 3 4

2 3 3 3 3 3

1* 1** N/A N/A 1** N/A

 9 11 10 10 10 11

* In the UK case, one respondent strongly refused to classify him/herself as a medium-­specific journalist, as he/she claimed to work across all platforms equally. ** In the German and Polish cases one of the respondents from each country came from a news agency and his/her work was not easily classifiable as being print, broadcast, or online.

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Survey The issue of sampling is always foremost with any survey, but perhaps even more so when it comes to surveys of journalists. It is very difficult to create a representative sample of journalists in almost any country as it is impossible to get a comprehensive view of what the total population is. Few countries have publicly available lists or registers of all journalists in the country. For example, there has to date been no representative-­sample survey of UK journalists because of the difficulties involved in getting an accurate count of the total population. In Italy, all journalists are required to be members of the journalists’ “guild,” Ordine dei Giornalisti, but the membership list of this organization is not considered an accurate representation of the total population. The Ordine currently has around 110,000 members but only about 24,600 of them work more or less full-­time as journalists (Conte, 2011). Surveys of journalists in Sweden (e.g., Asp, 2007) have used union membership lists as a sampling frame. This has been considered acceptable as the unionization rate among Swedish journalists has traditionally been high, though recent studies have found that the unionization rate has been dropping rapidly, particularly among younger journalists (Nygren, 2010)—raising questions about the appropriateness of this strategy. Using a similar sample frame in the UK (i.e., union membership lists) would not be a viable strategy as unionization rates are much lower. Unionization rates are likewise low in many other countries, particularly Eastern Europe. A tiered and quota-­based sampling strategy is favored by many involved in large-­scale surveys of journalists (see Weaver, 2008 for an overview)—first, the researcher assembles lists of organizations that employ journalists (often focusing on traditional news organizations), groups them according to media type and size, then randomly selects a set of organizations using quota sampling (i.e., a certain number of organizations of a certain size and media type, for example), then approaches these organizations for staff lists, and then samples randomly from these staff lists. This was the strategy used in a recent German representative-­sample survey of journalists, where researchers first built a list of the total population by getting access to staff lists from most German news organizations (75 percent of organizations responded) as well as compiling lists of freelancers using internal news organization data, and then following up each individual entry to ascertain whether that person still worked in journalism (Weischenberg, Scholl & Malik, 2006)—a method described by the scholars themselves as time-­consuming, costly, and reliant on extensive cooperation from a large number of news organizations (Malik, 2005). Scholars in most other

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countries could not count on this level of cooperation from media organizations, let alone on getting the time and the resources it would take to compile a population from which a representative sample could be drawn. This study thus used a different sampling frame, buying access to commercially available contact lists of journalists from a company that specializes in such services—Cision, a Swedish-­based company operating across Europe, North America and Asia, and Medias.it, an Italian company providing a similar service. Using published lists as a sampling frame is considered a viable alternative in cases where getting an accurate count of the total population is very difficult (e.g., Richie, Lewis & Elam, 2003: 89). The Cision list has been considered “fairly” representative of the journalist population as a whole (Nel, 2010), and it has been used for academic research previously, most notably the annual Social Journalism Survey conducted by Canterbury Christ Church University and Cision (Gulyás, 2011; Stephens, Gulyás & Pole, 2012). There were of course limitations inherent in this sampling strategy. First, the lists over-­represent journalists in print media, in particular journalists in weekly/ monthly magazine publications of a commercial nature (i.e., various specialist magazines and business magazines). Second, the comprehensiveness of samples varies according to country. Over-­representation and lack of comprehensiveness were particularly notable in the case of Eastern Europe (i.e., Poland and Estonia). In the case of Estonia, these limitations were mitigated by the fact that the project had access to an updated database of journalists used in similar surveys at the University of Tartu. In the case of Poland, no such additional list was available and thus the Polish results are likely to be the least representative in the sample. The main advantages of using lists like the Cision list are: 1) that the providers regularly update them—in the case of Cision in three- or four-­week cycles and, 2) that the lists are as a whole comprehensive and wide-­ranging—the total number of contacts in each country ranges from about 13,000 in the UK, Germany, and Sweden to about 2,900 in Italy, 1,900 in Poland, and 600 in Estonia. The total Italian sample was boosted by purchasing an additional list from another company (Medias.it), which garnered another 10,000 contacts. As noted, the Estonian contact list was extended through use of an additional list. Redshift Research, the company commissioned to do the email survey, also added around 250 names to the Polish contact list through their own research. In total, 51,697 journalists were emailed the survey and 2,238 responded, for a total average reply rate of 4.3 percent (reply rates and total numbers of course varied from country to country, as seen in Table M.2). This is significantly less than many other large-­scale surveys of journalists but acceptable for an email

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survey. It was also encouranging to note that while monthly magazines were over-­represented in the total sample, this over-­representation only carried over to the final sample to a limited extent (i.e., the over-­representation of said journalists is less in the final sample than it was in the total sample). The unusually high reply rate in Estonia was due to the fact that an Estonian colleague, Professor Epp Lauk, was able to send an additional email to many journalists with a personal appeal to respond to the survey (Professor Lauk is a senior academic and well-­known and well-­respected in the Estonian journalist community). In a similar fashion, the reply rate in Poland was boosted using a personal appeal email from Helena Luczowy, a likewise known and respected senior journalist with a wide network of contacts. In retrospect, it would have been sensible to use personal appeal emails from senior academics/practitioners in every country in order to boost reply rates. The survey was translated into the language of the respective nations. The translation was carried out by translators working for Redshift Research; each translation was then double-­checked by a native-­speaker academic who were all also specialists in the field of media and journalism research. The survey was piloted on a smaller sample in the UK from July 1 – July 8, 2009. The full survey was launched July 20 and was in the field until August 28 (6 weeks), except for Poland and Estonia, where it was in the field until September 15 (in order to accommodate the additional emailing of personal appeals, as described). Table M.3 summarizes some basic sample characteristics. As can be seen, the sample likely over-­represents journalists with editorial responsibilities (note the particularly high percentage of respondents with editorial responsibilities in Poland and Italy); in part this may be due to the fact that journalists with editorial responsibilities often also have managerial roles and therefore more control over their own work time and work flow; junior Table M.2  Sampling and response rate by country Country

# Mailed

Completed Surveys

Response Rate (%)

UK Italy Germany Sweden Poland Estonia N

13,678 13,564 12,190 9,208 2,810 947 52,397

707 380 349 394 131 277 2,238

5.2 2.8 2.9 4.3 4.7 29.3 4.3

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Table M.3 Sample basic characteristics

Sex (% male) Age (less than 40) Percentage of journalists with editorial responsibility Journalism education (Yes) Number of journalists surveyed

UK

Sweden

Poland

Estonia

Germany Italy

62.4 44.7 37.4

58.9 28.4 33.2

55.4 52.3 63.4

43.1 56.2 29.3

66.8 25.5 42.7

63.7 19.7 53.4

49.9

72.6

45.7

52.5

47.5

31.4

707

394

131

277

349

380

journalists would likely often feel they have less time on their hands to respond to a relatively extensive survey (the survey took about 20 minutes to fill out). The following text presents the survey instrument in its entirety, followed by the complete interview manual.

Reuters Institute—European Journalists Survey This is a survey about your work as a journalist. The information collected will be used as part of the Axess Programme in European Journalism run by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University. The survey will take about 15 minutes to fill in and all the information you provide will be treated in the strictest confidence. It is important for us to get a wide variety of opinions and experiences, and your cooperation is highly valued.

Current job First, we would like to ask you some questions about your background as a journalist, and the job you currently hold (or the job you most recently held, if currently unemployed). Q1 How many years have you been working as a journalist? [tick one only] Up to 1 year 1–3 years 4–5 years

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6–9 years 10–15 years 16–19 years 20+ years Q2 For how long have you been in your current/most recent job? [tick one only] Less than 1 month 1–6 months 7–12 months 1–3 years 4–5 years 6–9 years 10–15 years 16–19 years 20+ years Q3 What best describes the type of medium you work for? [tick one only] Press, daily Press, weekly/monthly/other TV, public service TV, commercial Radio, public service Radio, commercial News agency Online division of other media organization Online-­only Own company General freelancing work Other (please specify) Q4 What are your current terms of employment? Full-­time, Permanent Contract Part-­time, Permanent Contract Full-­time, Temporary Contract (e.g., 6 months contract)

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Part-­time, Temporary Contract Contracted to a specific one-­off assignment Other (please state) Q5 Would you describe yourself as being, primarily, a freelance journalist? Yes No

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Q6 Which of the following statements best describes the nature of the freelancing work that you do? (please tick one only) I work mainly or exclusively for a single primary employer Most of my work is done for a small group of key customers I work for a wide variety of different customers

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Q7 In addition to working for your primary employer, do you ever do work for any other media outlets? Yes No

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Q8 Which other types of media outlets would you work for, aside from your main employer? (Please tick all that apply) Press, daily Press, weekly/monthly/other TV, public service TV, commercial Radio, public service Radio, commercial News agency Online division of other media organization Online-­only Own company General freelancing work Other (please specify)

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Q9 To what extent would you feel your job is secure? Please answer on a scale from 7 down to 1, where 7 = extremely secure and 1 = not at all secure. ______________ Q10 In addition to working as a journalist, do you also do any other work that you would not classify as journalism? Yes No Q11 Do you view yourself as producing content primarily for a general audience, a specialist audience or for both? General Specialist Both Q12 What best describes the kind of deadlines you have to work with in your current job? I have to meet several deadlines each day I have to meet one deadline each day I have to meet a deadline every other day I have to meet a weekly deadline I have to meet a monthly deadline I have to meet quarterly or less frequent deadlines I rarely have to meet a specific deadline Q13 Is the organization you’re currently working for primarily national or local/regional? National Local/regional I work for both national and local/regional media I’m not working for anyone at the moment Other

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Q14 Do you supervise any other employees in your current job? Yes, usually Sometimes No

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Q15 How many staff would you typically supervise? 1 or 2 3–5 6–9 10+ Varies significantly Q16 Do you share responsibility for supervising these people with anyone else? Yes No Q17 Do you ever get involved in hiring new staff? Yes, frequently Yes, sometimes No, never Q18 What is your main duty/task at work? [tick one only] General management Editorial management Reporter Subeditor/Copy editor/Proofreader Producer Researcher Web editor/subeditor Presenter/Anchor Other (please specify)

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Q19 What is the main subject area(s) you cover? [tick one only] General reporting/no particular subject area Politics Editorial/comment Culture Social affairs Investigative reporting Sports Business/finance/labor Entertainment Foreign Crime/court/police Features Science/technology Other (please specify) Not applicable

Workload and work practices This section contains questions about your workload, pressures at work, and work practices in general. Q20 How many hours did you work yesterday (or the most recent day you were at work)? _______ Q21 How many hours did you work in the past week? _______ Q22 How many separate assignments/stories/items/outputs did you work on yesterday (or the most recent day you were at work)? _______

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Q23 Indicate whether you agree or disagree with the following statements about your workload. Please give each a score out of 7, where 7 = strongly agree and 1 = strongly disagree. [The order of questions below was randomized for each respondent.] The workload is evenly and fairly distributed among colleagues I don’t have enough time to spend on research/information gathering I don’t have enough time to spend on producing content (e.g., writing, producing) I don’t have enough time to spend on fact-­checking I often have to do work outside my specialist area I can generally predict what my workload is going to be like during the day New tasks frequently get added to my workload My workload frequently causes stress My workload is generally manageable Q24 In your current place of employment, how frequently do you find yourself engaged in each of the following activities? Not applicable Never Two or three times a year at most Once or twice a quarter Once or twice a month Once or twice a week Every other day Every day . . . investigative reporting . . . travel for any work-­related reason (e.g., to do research, to do an interview) . . . producing content to be used for more than one type of media (e.g., for online & print, or for broadcast & online, etc.) . . . doing work normally outside your main tasks/duties (e.g., photography if you are not a photographer, copy editing if you are not a copy editor, etc.)

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. . . working on any assignments/stories outside your own specialist area . . . working on rewriting/repurposing material someone else has produced (e.g., agency material, items produced elsewhere in the organization) Q25 On a typical working day, how much of the whole working day (as a proportion of your total working time) would you spend on each of the following activities? All of the working day 80%–99% of the time 60%–79% 40%–59% 20%–39% Less than 20% None Research/information gathering Production (includes writing/producing, creating original content) Editing/subediting (includes working on someone else’s content) Fact-­checking (your own material or that of others) Editorial coordination/management (includes commissioning, attending meetings) Working with other divisions/parts of the organization

Skills and values We would like your opinion on the skills a journalist needs, what makes a good journalist, and what kind of occupation journalism is. Q26 In order to be a good journalist, how important would you say the following skills are? Please provide each with a score out of 7, where 7 = absolutely essential and 1 = not required. Writing Editing/subediting Interviewing

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Research techniques Multimedia production skills Design/layout skills Time management skills Knowledge of law Networking skills Teamwork skills Management skills Ability to work independently Q27 Please indicate whether you agree or disagree with the following statements? Please give each a score out of 7, where 7 = strongly agree and 1 = strongly disagree. [The order of questions below was randomized for each respondent.] Journalism is a job I enjoy doing Journalism is a job I would recommend to my children Journalists have a duty to present facts objectively and accurately Journalists have a duty to act as a watchdog, holding those in power to account Journalists have a duty to explain and analyze the news Journalists have a duty to set the political and social agenda Journalists have a duty to try to change society for the better Journalists have a duty to provide audiences with what audiences want Journalists have a duty to tell interesting and entertaining stories Journalists have no particular duties other than to themselves Journalists have no particular duties other than to the organization that pays their salary

Control/autonomy We would also like to know more about the level of control you have over your own work. Q28 Please indicate whether you agree or disagree with the following statements. Please give each a score out of 7, where 7 = strongly agree and 1 = strongly disagree. [The order of questions below was randomized for each respondent.]

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In my current job . . . . . . I have the freedom to choose what stories/items to work on . . . I have the freedom to choose my own angle/hook for the stories/items I work on . . . I am often asked to stop working on/not work on stories/items I want to work on . . . I am often asked to work on stories/items I do not want to work on . . . I have the freedom to control and manage my own work . . . There is a lot of variety . . . I am trusted by my manager(s) to do my job without much direct supervision . . . there is a lot of support for working independently . . . managers/owners often try to influence what I should cover/how I should cover it . . . sources often try to influence what I should cover/how I should cover it . . . PR officers/PR agents often try to influence what I should cover/how I should cover it . . . colleagues often try to influence what I should cover/how I should cover it . . . I feel I have enough time to work on each assignment/story/item . . . there are frequent disputes between reporters and editors/managers over what should be covered and how it should be covered . . . I often feel pressured to work on stories/items I think are not important . . . I often feel pressured to work in a way I think is unethical . . . I often feel pressured to follow the political line of my organization (if applicable) . . . I am often given direct orders by my manager(s) . . . editors and reporters share the same values . . . the owners of the business share the same values as the reporters Q29 Are individual performance reviews used regularly in your current place of employment? Yes No Not applicable (no current main employer)

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Q30 Do employees in your current place of employment have to meet production/performance targets? Yes No Not applicable (no current main employer) Q31 Is part of or all the pay you receive in your current place of employment performance-­related (e.g., are there bonuses for producing online material that a lot of people click, or for producing more material than required)? Yes No Not applicable (no current main employer)

Background These last questions are about you and your personal background, as well as some further questions about your current working conditions. Note that participation in this survey is anonymous. The questions about you and your personal background are needed for classification purposes. Q32 Gender Male Female Q33 How old are you? Under 20 20–29 30–39 40–49 50–59 60+

Methodological Appendix

Q34 How many different jobs in journalism have you had previous to your current one? Only this one 1 other 2–3 4–5 6–9 10–15 16–19 20+ Q35 Are you a member of a union? Yes No

continue go to Q37

Q36 Which union(s) are you a member of? ____________________________ Q37 Are you a member of any other professional organization? Yes No

continue go to Q39

Q38 Which professional organization(s) are you a member of? ____________________________ Q39 Do you have any specific journalism training (e.g., journalism degree from university or college, journalism courses from other education provider)? Yes No

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Q40 Have you undertaken any further professional training while working? Yes No

continue go to Q42

Q41 Has the professional training you’ve received been mostly undertaken . . . On your own initiative? OR Because you were sent/told to by your employer? Q42 How would you characterize the work environment/working conditions in your current place of employment? Please give each a score out of 7, where 7 = strongly agree and 1 = strongly disagree. [The order of questions below was randomized for each respondent.] Very stressful working conditions Strict managerial control Great camaraderie among colleagues Lots of competition between colleagues Strong shared values on professional issues Good career advancement opportunities Good personal development opportunities Good training/further education opportunities Difficult to use own initiative/own ideas Suspicion/small-­mindedness/pettiness Ethical standards are strictly maintained Q43 Are you aware of any instance of a journalist ever receiving bribes or other inappropriate compensation for covering/not covering a particular story? Yes No a) At your current place of work? Or . . . b) Over the course of your career?

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Q44 Would you like us to send you a free copy of the summary of the main findings from this study once the project has been completed? Yes No

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Q45 A summary of the results will be issued as a pdf document to our survey respondents. Please enter the email address where you’d like us to send your copy below: __________________________________________________________ Please re-­enter this email address to confirm: __________________________________________________________

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR HELP

Interview Manual: Newswork Across Europe Project (English) Introduction of researcher. Introduction of project—three main areas:

(1) work, career, and everyday routines (2) professionalism/values/what is good journalism (3) views and opinions on current trends in journalism. The nature of the questions may necessitate going back and forth between questions/areas to maintain a natural flow in the interview. Please do remember to try to cover all areas. Follow-­up questions can also be used as prompts if the interviewee is silent or does not give a very in-­depth answer. A good general prompt is “Please give examples” (of whatever is currently under discussion).

1. Could you please briefly describe your career up to now? (Note: as early-­ career journalists are not likely to have had many jobs, it may be valuable to instead focus on their education, their opinions on it, etc.) first job l

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education (do you think your education prepared you for a job in journalism? Why/why not?) other jobs differences between workplaces (organizational culture, values, working practices and working routines, influence over own work, autonomy/ control—which workplace did you like better? Why?) have you considered changing careers? Why/why not? Do you enjoy your job? What do you want to do in the future (continue/not continue in journalism, alternatives)? do you know anyone in journalism who has changed (or has considered changing) careers?

1a. Questions only for freelancers How/when did you become freelance? Have you only worked as a freelancer or have you had other jobs during your career? Comparison? Do you have any regular clients? Who are they? Do they suggest stories/ items to you, or do you suggest stories/items to them? Is freelancing a choice or a necessity—or a combination of both? Please describe the advantages and disadvantages of freelancing. l

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2. (For mid- and late-­career journalists only) Change over the course of your career What is the biggest change you have seen in journalism during your time as a journalist (technology, political change, changes in how you work, etc.)? How have these changes impacted your own work/job? Examples? Have there been any changes in the skills/knowledges/competences you need as a journalist? l

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3. Could you briefly describe a typical working day? Times (i.e., when do you get in to work, when do you leave, other important times)? Meetings (when and with whom?)? How many different assignments/tasks do you work on in a typical day? Is it ever possible to plan ahead? Where do you spend your working day? Where do you spend the most time (i.e., office/newsroom, other desk outside newsroom, out on assignment, etc.)? Who decides what stories/items you should work on—and how to cover them? How much scope do you have to suggest/work on the l

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stories/items you want to work on? What proportion of stories/items you work on originated with you, and what proportion originated with the editor/editorial team? (NB: Editors should instead be asked how often they suggest stories/items to reporters, and how often they take the suggestions of reporters.) How do you divide your time between different aspects of the job (research, writing, other)? What would you say takes up the most of your time (research, writing, other)? Are there any formal/informal demands on production/other things in your workplace (i.e., do you “have” to file/produce a certain number of stories/words every day)? Are there ever conflicts in your workplace over what to cover, how to cover it, etc.? How are these conflicts resolved—if they are? (Note: emphasize anonymity.) Who are in conflict with each other?

4. What, in your mind, does it take to be a good journalist? What does it mean to be professional if you are a journalist? What characterizes a professional journalist? What does it take to be a successful journalist? Is this the same or different from being a good journalist? l

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5. “We are all journalists now” is a phrase sometimes heard (i.e., new technology places the tools of journalism into the hands of everyone). Is this correct? Is it enough to have a mobile phone camera and an Internet connection to be a journalist? How is what you do different from what citizen journalists do? Is citizen journalism a threat or a possibility for journalism? Why? (If interviewee just answers “No”) Why can’t anyone be a journalist? Do professional journalists have some particular skill or set of skills (alternative: particular knowledge or types of knowledge) that citizen journalists do not have? l

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6. “Commercialization” is another word often used to describe contemporary journalism (i.e., that commercial concerns, rather than traditional news values, drive news selection and news presentation). Are commercial pressures noticeable? How are they noticeable? Examples? Has it always been like this? Is talk of commercialization exaggerated, in your view? Can it have positive consequences? l

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Index 24/7 news 27, 141, 178 accreditation bodies 29 activist/agent of change roles 60 adaptability 186–189 advertising market autonomy 129, 136–142, 185 and the “clickstream” 84 editorial/advertising “iron curtain” 137–138, 140, 152, 162–163 entrepreneurship 112 professionalisms 165–166 storytelling 102 Sweden 53 technology 7, 16 Agostini, A. 60 Aldridge, M. 21, 36, 162, 166, 176, 187 Allan, S. 55 Allison, M. 162 altruism 32 amateur journalism 8, 36, 163, 167, 173, see also user-generated content analytical skills 169 Anderson, C. W. 162, 182 Andersson, U. 54 Anglo-American/Liberal media system 10–11, 12–13, 54–55, 57, 59, 127, 137, 172 anti-professionalism 35 Ashton, D. 31 associations, journalists’ professional 4, 7, 22, 49, 52, 60–61, 195 attributes (versus skills) 169 audience research 101, see also “clickstream” authoritarian states 58 autonomy 117–153 commercial influences 136–142 comparative dimensions 58–59 corruption 118–119, 124–127, 185, 189 discretionary decision-making 118, 121, 128, 143–151, 152–153

freelancing 142 history of journalism 6 journalism-as-institution 32, 34, 141–142, 184 narrow boundaries of 34, 37, 119, 145, 149, 184–186 political influences 130–136 professionalism 21, 23, 31–35, 162–163, 176 research questions about 37 and stress 118 technology 28, 176 time pressures 119 and Western journalism 11 Avilés, J. A. G. 16, 27, 55, 57 Axel Springer 45, 51 Baines, S. 108 Bajomi-Lázár, P. 50, 51, 52, 61 Bakker, A. B. 118 Bakker, P. 17 Bale, T. 27 Barkin, S. M. 101 Barton, M. D. 8 BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) 41–42 Beam, R. A. 19, 156 Becker, L. B. 29 Beiler, M. 17, 180 Benner, C. 112 Berkowitz, D. 101, 184 Berlusconi, S. 48, 134 Bernt, J. 9 Bertelsmann 45 Bishop, G. F. 160 blogging 69, 75, 165, 167 Blondheim, M. 27 Bonniers 54 boundaries of journalism 1–2 Bourdieu, P. 35 Bowman, W. W. 109, 155 Boyce, T. 184

240

Index

Braverman, H. 30–31 Breaugh, J. A. 118 Breed, W. 21, 143, 166, 175 Breen, G. M. 184 Brennen, B. 166 bribery 125–127, see also corruption BRIC countries 10, 12 Britain, see UK broadcast journalism, see also public service broadcasting commercial broadcasting sector 39, 41–42, 47–48, 51, 53–54 deregulation 42, 43, 44, 50, 53–54 history of journalism 6, 27 production skills 73–74 radio 51, 52, 69–70 television 73–74, 81 broadsheet press 39, 42, 54 Bulmer, S. 46 Burawoy, M. 31 capitalism/free markets autonomy 32, 34–35, 58–59 deskilling 31 Estonia 43 freedom of the press 12 Italy 48 journalism-as-institution 15 technology 27 UK 41 career paths, see also short-term employment patterns employability 102–103, 108, 115, 172 entrepreneurship 108–113 freelance journalism 7, 8, 62, 142, 186 in modern world 2, 7, 142 skills 93, 115–116 technology 71–77 Carlson, M. 162 Carr, C. F. 1–3, 4–5, 177–178, 179, 182, 187 casual labor 8, 20, see also short-term employment patterns Catholic Church 50, 51, 52 Chalaby, J. 57, 58, 99 Chomsky, N. 128 Chung, D. S. 57 “churnalism” 8, 119 Cision 196 citizen journalists 36, 161, 163, 166–170, 173

Clark, C. E. 41 Clerwall, C. 8 “clickstream” autonomy 140–141, 152, 185 professionalisms 176 skills 105 technology 8, 83–86, 89, 180 clientelism 49, 58, 99, 113, 130, 134 closed shop systems 49, 61, 156 collective nature of professionalism 166–171, 175, 188 collectivisation (unions) 49, 52, 61 commercial broadcasting sector 39, 41–42, 47–48, 51, 53–54 commercialization of the media autonomy 59, 128–129, 135–142, 145, 153, 184–185 interventionist duties 174 skills 112 technology 80, 83–86 UK 41 competencies 190 competition Anglo-American system 11 autonomy 59, 141, 145, 150 entrepreneurship 186 hyper-competition 7 technology 26 conservativism 21 content, journalism as 4 content management systems autonomy 140–141 as control tools 180 naturalization 63 professionalisms 25 skills 105, 182 as standardization tools 78–83 technology 88–90, 179–180 “content providers” versus newsgatherers 8 contractual employment 4, 17, 20, 108–113, 142, 183 convergence of news production 66–71 Cooper, T. W. 184 copy-and-paste journalism 3, 18, 115 core knowledge 28–31 core skills 181, 182, 183 core values 16, 23, 29, 87, 148–149 “corporations”, journalistic 49 corruption 118–119, 124–127, 185, 189

Index

241

Corten, M. 30 Couldry, N. 33–34, 127 “craft”-based views of journalism 92, 97–98, 160, 165, 171 creativity and innovation 86–88, 180, 181 critical change agents 60, 157, 171 cross-national comparison the case for 9–11 comparative European study introduced 12–13 structure of analysis 23–24 cross-platform content production, see multiplatform content production Crouse, T. 129 crowdsourcing 87 curiosity 169–170 Currah, A. 8, 9, 83, 105 Curran, J. 41, 127 Curry, J. L. 51 Curtin, P. 8 cut-and-paste journalism 3, 18, 115

desk-bound journalism 9, 11, 57, 81 deskilling 30–31, 57, 114–116 Deuze, M. 9, 55, 57, 60, 78, 119, 142, 156 Dex, S. 108 d’Haenens, L. 30 digital production techniques 25, see also technology digitalization 56, 68–69, 72, 88–89, 179 Dimoudi, C. 156 direct press subsidy system 53 discretionary decision-making 118, 121, 128, 143–151, 152–153 distribution 26, 66, 178, 179, 180 Dobbie, M. 7, 8 Domingo, D. 66, 73 Donsbach, W. 60, 92, 155, 156, 190 Downie, L. 9 dumbing-down 86 Durkheim, E. 155 duty 32, 35–36, 160, 162, 170, see also societal responsibility

Dahlström, C. 125 daily mass newspapers 5–6, 9–10, 11, 42, 48 Davies, N. 8, 18, 115 Davis, A. 8, 119, 129 “dead time” 75, 180 decentralization 26 definition of ’journalism’ 1–6 Demand Media 17 Demerouti, E. 118 democracy autonomy 32, 145, 151 comparative dimensions 59 history of journalism 12 news organizations 5, 6 Poland 51 professional entry barriers 61 role perceptions 156 skills 92 Sweden 53 Western media landscape 39 democratic-corporatist system 10–11, 13, 53, 54, 127, 137, 189 de-professionalization 156 deregulation of broadcasting 42, 43, 44, 50, 53–54 design skills 93, 113, 179

e-commerce platforms 80, 81, 140, 185 Edgell, S. 31 editing editorial judgement 101, 145–147, 182 quality control 148–151 removal of editing roles 80 versus reporting roles 57, 113, 164–165 technology 103–104, 106 editorial/advertising “iron curtain” 137–138, 140, 152, 162–163 education of journalists 49, 60, 173, 181, 190–191 Ekinsmyth, C. 108 Elliott, P. 19 employability 102–103, 108, 115, 172 entrepreneurship 115, 183, 186, 191 entry to profession 1–2, 7, 22, 32, 49, 60–61, 116, 156 Erjavec, K. 32 Estonia autonomy 127–128, 130–131, 132, 151–152, 189 background data 39, 40, 43–45 content management systems 80, 83 corruption 125–127 discretionary decision-making 121–122 interventionist duties 189

242

Index

multiplatform content production 67, 68–70, 77 not included in Hallin & Mancini’s framework 13 perceived sources of influence 123–124 professional associations 61 professionalisms 60, 61, 171 role perceptions 158–160 sampling 62, 196, 197 skills 94–95, 97–99 technology 56–57, 89–90, 121–122, 179 workload and time pressures 120, 121 ethics 52, 147, 170 Etzioni, A. 35 Evetts, J. 20–21, 36, 162, 176 expertise 28, 162, 163–164, 172–173, 182, 190 fact checking 16, 23, 75, 119–120, 170, 173, 174 factory-like, journalism becoming 31, 114–116 Fahmy, S. 29 feedback opportunities 66, 75, 83–86, see also “clickstream” Filas, R. 52, 133 Finland 10 Fishman, M. 19 Flintham, N. 30 Folkerts, J. 28 foreign investment in media sector 50 Fortunati, L. 9 Fourie, P. J. 30 France 50, 53 Frances, R. 31 Frank, R. 184 Franklin, B. 8, 18, 32 “freebies” 126 Freedman, D. 33–34, 127 freedom of the press 12, 45, 52–53, 142 freelance journalism 7, 8, 62, 142, 186 Friedson, E. 184, 191 Fröhlich, R. 60 Gall, G. 61, 195 Gallie, D. 31 Galtung, J. 187 Gandy, O. H. 32 Gans, H. J. 129 Gatignon, H. 26 gender 31

generalist versus specialist journalism 99, 107 Germany autonomy 125–128, 138, 140, 151–152, 185, 189 background data 45–47, 53 content management systems 82 corruption 125–127 discretionary decision-making 121–123 education of journalists 60 example of Northern European media system 13 interventionist duties 189 investment in Polish media sector 50 multiplatform content production 67, 68–70 perceived sources of influence 123–124 professionalisms 60, 165, 171 sample size 62 skills 94–95, 98 technology 56–57, 82, 89–90, 180 workload and time pressures 120 Gillmor, D. 71 Giomi, E. 48 global financial crisis (2008) 6, 40, 44 globalization 42, 45 Goetz, K. H. 46 Golding, P. 128 Gollmitzer, M. 108 good employee, concepts of 23, 92, 188, 191 good journalist, concepts of 36–37, 92, 100–103, 112, 160–176 Google 7, 72, 85 graphic design 66, 80, 93, 103 grassroots initiatives 25 Greenwald, M. 9 Gross, P. 60 Gulyás, A. 196 Gustafsson, K. 54 Gynnild, A. 142 H. Bauer 51 Hadenius, S. 54 Hagen, L. M. 46 Hallin, D. C. 10–11, 35, 41, 48, 49, 53, 54, 57–58, 59, 127, 128, 129, 137, 142, 151, 172 Hampton, M. 9, 18, 27, 57 Hanitzsch, T. 58–59, 60, 80, 90, 118, 123, 128–129, 135, 156, 157, 160

Index “hard news”, decreased spending on 8 Hardt, H. 166 Hawley, S. E. 155, 156, 162 Heinonen, A. 156 Herd, H. 41 Herman, E. S. 128 Hermida, A. 66, 73 Hersant 50 Heyd, U. 150 Hibberd, M. 49, 134, 151 Hindman, E. B. 184 Holz-Bacha, C. 60 “honor courts” 52 Høyer, S. 55 Huang, E. 57 Hume, E. 50, 52, 133 India 9–10 influence, sources of 118, 123–124 infrastructure 23 in-house training 60 innere Pressefreiheit (internal freedom of the press) 142 instinct, journalistic 101 institution, see journalism-as-institution instrumentalization 48, 134–135, 151 intellectual versus manual labor 114–115 interactivity 71–72, 75, 181 Internet access 56, 68–69, 71–72, see also online content; technology internships 60, 110–111 interventionist duties 159–160, 171, 174, 189 investigative reporting 8–9, 87, 97, 114 “iron curtain” between advertising and editorial 137–138, 140, 152, 162–163 Isabella, M. 48 IT programming/support services 182 Italy autonomy 127–128, 129, 131, 133–135, 151, 185, 189 background data 47–50 content management systems 82–83 corruption 125–127 creativity and innovation 87 discretionary decision-making 121–122 education of journalists 49, 60, 61 example of Southern European media system 13

243 lottizzazione system 48–49, 133, 134, 151 multiplatform content production 67, 68–70, 77 perceived sources of influence 123–124 politics 48–49, 127, 129, 131, 133–135, 151, 185 professionalisms 60, 61, 172 role perceptions 158–160 sample size 62 sampling 196 skills 94–95, 96, 97–99 technology 56–57, 67, 68–70, 77, 89, 179–180 workload and time pressures 120, 121

jack-of-all-trades image 107–108, 187 Jakubowicz, K. 51 Jarlbrink, J. 127 Jex, S. M. 118 Jõesaar, A. 43 Johnstone, J. W. L. 109, 155 Josephi, B. 35 journalism-as-institution adaptability of 178 autonomy 32, 34, 141–142, 184 defined 3–6, 15, 22 future of 190–191 as independent variable 15 institutionally-bounded work 15–19, 22 newswork in crisis? 6–9 professionalisms 19, 175 skills 30, 92, 181–184 teamworking 166–168 technology 16–17, 25, 76, 88–90, 180, 181–182, 183 journalism-as-work autonomy 141–142, 184 defined 3–6 as dependent variable 15 future of 190–191 institutionally-bounded work 15–19, 22 professionalisms 22 technology 25, 26 Kaase, M. 45 Karasek, R. A. 118 Karlsson, M. 8, 27, 36

244 Keen, A. 8 Kepplinger, H. 155 Kimball, P. 35 King, D. 71 Kleinstuber, H.J. 45, 47 Knights, D. 31 knowledge professions 190–191 Köcher, R. 60, 155 Kovačič, M. P. 32 Krasovec, P. 8, 32 Krosnick, J. A. 160 Kymlicka, W. 128 Lange, D. 125 language in Estonia 43–44 in the survey 62, 197 Lapuente, V. 125 Lara, A. 50, 51 Lauk, E. 40, 45, 60, 61, 197 law, knowledge of 93, 95, 97 Levy, D. A. L. 10 Lewis, J. 8, 18, 32 Liberal/Anglo-American media system 10–11, 12–13, 54–55, 57, 59, 127, 137, 172 literary traditions 11, 47–48, 57–58, 92, 99 litigation 131–132 local editions of national newspapers 51 local/regional newspapers 2, 10, 42, 46, 51, 53, 61, 131 Löfgren Nilsson, M. 33 lottizzazione system 48–49, 133, 134, 151 Lowery, W. 29 Luczowy, H. 197 Machill, M. 17, 180 Maier, S. R. 180 Malik, A. 47, 196–197 management authoritarian management styles 34 autonomy 33–34, 187 and the “clickstream” 85 editorial control 148–151 journalists taking orders 145–147 organizational professionalisms 20–21, 31 skills 93, 96 technology 71, 81–82, 88–90, 104

Index Mancini, P. 10–11, 35, 41, 48, 49, 53, 54, 57–58, 59, 127, 129, 137, 142, 151, 172 Marjoribanks, T. 89, 90 mass press 5–6, 9–10, 11, 41, 42, 47–48 Matusitz, J. 184 McLeod, J. M. 155, 156, 162 Medias.it 196 Mellado, C. 58–59, 80, 118, 123, 128–129, 135 Mensing, D. 156 meritocratic models 186 Mill, J. S. 128 mobile technology 9, 72–73, 179 Modern Journalism: A Complete Guide to the Newspaper Craft (Carr and Stevens, 1931) 1–3, 177–178 Mölder, M. 44 Morton, P. 195 most-similar systems design 12, 39 multimedia production skills 93–95, 96, 104, 114, 182 multiplatform content production professionalisms 174 skills 96, 99, 103, 109–110 technology 65, 66–71, 73, 77, 88–90, 179–180, 181, 182 multi-skilling 29, 57, 103–108 Munro, N. 128 Murdock, G. 128 National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) 29 National Union of Journalists (NUJ) 61, 195 naturalization 81, 88, 152, 153, 180, 182 Nel, F. 43, 196 Nelson, R. 26 network journalism 93 networking skills 58, 93, 95, 99, 111–112 neutrality 11, 55, 60, 171–172, 175, 189 Neveu, E. 58 Newman, N. 16 news the job of finding 2–3 journalism as newsgathering 4–5 news selection 34, 66, 143–145, 153 prioritization of news stories 146–147 news agencies 75

Index Nguyen, A. 26 Nielsen, R. K. 10 Nolan, D. 28 Nordmark, D. 53 Northern European/Democraticcorporatist media system 10–11, 13, 53, 54, 127, 137, 189 Norway 55 Nossek, H. 156 Nygren, G. 8, 17, 54, 57, 61, 156, 195 objectivity 11, 170, 172, 174, 175, 189 occupational professionalism adaptability 187, 188–189 autonomy 129–130, 136, 141, 152–153, 186 collective nature of professionalism 166–171, 175, 188 core skills 102–103 decline of professionalism 156, 174, 176, 191 defined 20–23 different inflections of 164 and entrepreneurship 113 organizational framework 167–168, 174 role perceptions 160 skills 107–108, 114, 173, 182–184 technology 181 Olofsson, G. 184 online content, see also “clickstream”; content management systems amateur versus professional content 8 blogging 69, 75, 165, 167 charging 6 in comparator countries 39 convergence of news production 66–71, 179 discourse of speed 27 Estonia 44–45 included in study 62–63 “pure player” new providers 45 Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 85, 86, 105 skills 29–30, 115–116 social media 40, 63 UK 42 on-the-spot reporting 72–73, 75, 103 operationalization of duties 173–174 Opgenhaffen, M. 30

245

opportunist facilitators 60, 157 oppositionality 186–187 Ordine dei Giornalisti (Order of Journalists, ODG) 49, 50 organizational professionalism and adaptability 188 autonomy 129–130, 136, 141, 152–153, 186 and competencies 191 defined 20–23 edging out occupational professionalism 156, 191 and entrepreneurship 113 as framework for occupational professionalism 167–168, 174, 191 role perceptions 160 “rules of the game” 33, 144, 153, 185 skills 92, 102–103, 107–108, 114, 173, 182–184 societal duty 175–176 technology 180, 181 trustworthiness 168 organizations, news 4, 5, 7, 20, 26–27 Örnebring, H. 10, 36, 40, 43, 44, 45, 60, 61, 163, 165 O’Sullivan, J. 156 outsourcing 8, 23, 183 oversupply of labor 116, 186, 191 pack journalism 184 page designers 66, 80–82 Papathanassopoulos, S. 128 Paterson, W. 46 Patterson, T. E. 60, 156 Paulussen, S. 9 peer control 175 peer recognition 22, 23, 182, 186 Peeters, M. A. 118 perceived sources of influence 118, 123–124 per-item payments 17 “personal branding” 137 Petersson, B. 55, 127 Pettai, V. 44 Phillips, A. 33–34, 127 Picard, R. G. 16 pitching stories 143–145 Płaneta, P. 52, 133 Platman, K. 8

246

Index

Poland autonomy 125–128, 130–131, 132–133, 138, 151–152 background data 50–52 content management systems 79 corruption 125–127 discretionary decision-making 121–122 entry to profession 61 interventionist duties 189 multiplatform content production 67, 68–70, 77 not included in Hallin & Mancini’s framework 13 perceived sources of influence 123–124 professional associations 61 professionalisms 60, 61, 171 role perceptions 158–160 sample size 62 sampling 196, 197 skills 94–95, 96–99, 113 technology 56–57, 89–90, 179 workload and time pressures 120 polarization of skill 31, 115–116 Pole, K. 196 Polish Press Agency 51 politics autonomy 34–35, 58–59, 128–129, 130–136, 151–152, 184–185 Italy 48–49, 127, 129, 131, 133–135, 151, 185 Poland 51–52 political parallelism 48, 52, 127, 129 role perceptions 159 societal duty 176 source of influence 123 UK 41 Western journalism generally 11 populist disseminator roles 60, 157, 159, 171, 189 post-communism 13, 50, 128, 132, 151 PR (Public Relations) 8, 32, 123, 127, 151, 185 Prentoulis, M. 19, 35 press freedom 12, 45, 52–53, 142, see also autonomy Presser, S. 160 Preston, P. 17–18 prioritization of news stories 146–147

production skills 29, 80–81, 93–97, 113–114, 179, 182 professionalisms 155–176, see also occupational professionalism; organizational professionalism autonomy 184–186 collective nature 166–171 comparative dimensions 59–61 decline of 156 defined 19–23 research questions 37 role perceptions 35–36, 155–156 skill-centric views of 173 survey-based research 160–162 technology 25–28 professionalization of journalism 6, 18–23, 35–36 propaganda 13 provincial newspapers, see regional newspapers Przeworski, A. 12 public service broadcasting audience 102 autonomy 33, 132, 133, 152 in comparator countries 39 creativity and innovation 87 Denmark 51 Estonia 43, 44 Germany 46–47, 51 history of journalism 7, 12 Italy 48–49 Poland 50, 51 Sweden 53–54 UK 41–42, 51 quality control 148–151, 165–166, 167, 168, 188 radio 51, 52, 69–70 real-time feedback 66, 83–86, 89, 105, 140–141, 152, 176, 180 reference groups 58 regional newspapers 2, 10, 42, 46, 51, 53, 61, 131 Reich, Z. 135 repackaged content 8, 17 research methods 160–161, 195 research skills 71–72, 74, 113, 180 reskilling 114–116

Index resource shortages 141–142, 150, 189 response rates 62, 196–197 Richards, B. 101 Robertson, T. S. 26 Rogers, S. 87 role perceptions 155–156, 157–171 Rosten, L. 9 Ruge, M. H. 187 “rules of the game” 33, 144, 153, 185 Rutte, C. G. 118 Rydén, P. 54 Ryfe, D. M. 4, 5 Salaman, G. 8 samizdat 50, 60 sampling 62, 193–194, 195–198 Sanders, K. 27 Sarfatti Larson, M. 23, 28 Sarrica, M. 69, 72 satisficing 160–161 Schaeffer, N. C. 160 Schaffer, J. 71 Schiller, D. 35 Schlesinger, P. 18, 27 Scholl, M. 47, 195 Schudson, M. 6, 9, 34, 137, 162 Schultz, I. 101 Schuman, H. 160 science journalism 40 Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 85, 86, 105 Seaton, J. 41, 127 semi-professions 35 Shleifer, A. 151 short-term employment patterns 108–113, 142, 183, 186 Sigelman, L. 21 Simon, H. 34 Singer, J. B. 16, 26, 55, 57 single-source news items 3 skills 91–116 versus attributes 169 changes in demand 99–113 comparative dimensions 57–58 versus competencies 190 core skills 95–96, 99, 102, 113 deskilling 30–31, 57, 114–116 entrepreneurship 108–113 graphic design 66, 80, 93, 103

247

multiplatform content production 69 multi-skilling 29, 57, 103–108 networking skills 58, 93, 95, 99, 111–112 polarization of skill 31, 115–116 production skills 29, 80–81, 93–97, 113–114, 179, 182 professionalisms 28–31, 163–171, 172–176 research questions 37 research skills 71–72, 74, 113, 180 reskilling 114–116 standardization of labor 23 storytelling 100–103, 163, 182 technical skills 103–108, 109–110, 114 technology 29–30, 181–184 valued skills of journalism 92–99 writing skills 92–99, 100–103, 113, 163–164, 172, 174, 182, 187 Skillset 30 Skovsgaard, M. 156 Slawski, E. J. 109, 155 Smith, G. 195 Smith, P. 42 Social Journalism Study 196 social media 40, 63 societal responsibility autonomy 32, 184–186 versus competencies 190 in European media systems 11, 12 professionalisms 19, 23, 35–36, 156, 163–176 role perceptions 157–171 storytelling 101–102 watchdog function 8–9, 11, 12, 157, 159–160, 172, 186–187 sociology of work 30–31, 32, 35 “soft news” 87 Soloski, J. 19, 21, 23, 34, 176 Sommerville, J. 27 source verification, see fact checking Southern European/Polarized pluralist media system 11 Sparks, C. 51 Sparks, K. 118 specialist knowledge 28, 107, 109, 162 Spector, P. E. 118 speed autonomy 119–124, 153 discourse of speed 27

248

Index

professionalisms 22 skills 114 speed-over-quality mindset 9, 17 technology 17–18, 74–77 Spilsbury, M. 43 sports newspapers 48 standardization 20–21, 23, 77–86, 180 state-owned media 51 Stephens, H. 196 Stevens, F. E. 1–3, 4–5, 177–178, 179, 182, 187 Storey, J. 8 storytelling 100–103, 163, 182 stress 33, 118 stringer journalism 7 subsidy systems 53 Sunday newspapers 42 surveys as research tools 160–161, 195 Sweden autonomy 33, 52–53, 125–128, 130–131, 135, 138–139, 151–152, 185, 189 background data 40, 52–55 content management systems 81, 83 corruption 125–127 creativity and innovation 87 discretionary decision-making 121–123 education of journalists 61 example of Northern European media system 13 institutional base of journalism 10 multiplatform content production 67, 68–70 perceived sources of influence 123–124 professional associations 61 professionalisms 60 role perceptions 158–160 sample size 62 skills 94–95, 96, 98 technology 56–57, 89–90, 179–180 workload and time pressures 120 tabloid newspapers autonomy 33 in comparator countries 39 Germany 46 Italy 48 political parallelism 127 Sweden 54 UK 42

taking orders 145–147 teamworking 166–167, 188 technology 65–90 autonomy 28, 176 comparative dimensions 55–57 convergence of news production 66–71 creativity and innovation 86–88 decline of professionalism 156 digitalization 56, 68–69, 72, 88–89, 179 efficiencies 74 everyday working practices 71–77 ICT diffusion 56 interventionist duties 174 journalism-as-institution 16–17, 25, 76, 88–90, 180, 181–182, 183 mobile technology 9, 72–73, 179 multiplatform content production 65, 66–71, 73, 77, 88–90, 179–180, 181, 182 naturalization 81, 88, 152, 153, 180, 182 and the news process 66 professionalisms 25–28 research questions 36–37 skills 29, 103–108, 109–110, 114 standardization tools 78–83 technologized workplace 178–181 time compression 17–18 television 73–74, 81 Terzis, G. 60 Teune, H. 12 text, journalism as 4 Theorell, J. 125 third-person effects 33, 118, 136, 139, 141 Thomass, B. 45, 47 time compression 9, 17–18, 22, 74–77, 119–124 “trade” versus profession 35, 92, 160, 165 training/education of journalists 49, 60, 173, 181, 190–191 trustworthiness 168 Tuchman, G. 101, 143 Tumber, H. 19, 35 Tunstall, J. 35 Turner, M. W. 27 TVP (Polish public sector broadcaster) 52 typesetting 89

Index UK (United Kingdom) autonomy 125–128, 130, 138, 151, 185, 189 background data 39, 40, 41–43, 53 content management systems 83 corruption 125–127 creativity and innovation 87 discretionary decision-making 121–122 education of journalists 61 example of Anglo-American media system 13 influence on Sweden 54 and journalistic autonomy 33 multiplatform content production 67, 68–70 perceived sources of influence 123–124 populist disseminator roles 189 professional associations 61 professionalisms 60, 61, 165, 171 role perceptions 158–160 sample size 62 skills 94–95, 97–98 technology 56–57, 89–90, 179–180 Wapping Conflict (UK) 88–89 workload and time pressures 120 unions history of journalism 6 in modern world 7 Poland 52 Sweden 53 technology 83 UK 61 user-generated content 70 unpaid work 4, 7, 110 up-to-date, keeping 101, 169, 187 upskilling 31, 114–116 Ursell, G. 75 US (United States) autonomy 35 dissimilarities with comparator countries 39 influence on Sweden 54 institutional base of journalism 9 newsrooms 54–55 user-generated content 70, 87, 183 Usher, N. 63, 137

249

values Anglo-American 55 autonomy 34, 129, 141, 145–149, 150, 185 and competencies 190 core values 16, 23, 29, 87, 148–149 institutional 27, 31 professionalisms 59, 60, 61, 107, 152, 157, 161, 166 skills 29, 166 technology 77, 87 Voll, I. 155 Vos, T. P. 2, 28 Waisbord, S. 19 Walters, E. 7, 8 Wapping Conflict (UK) 88–89 Warren, C. 7, 8 watchdog function 8–9, 11, 12, 157, 159–160, 172, 186–187 Watson, P. 30 Watson, T. J. 26 Weaver, D. H. 60, 151, 155, 156 Web metrics 83–86, 105, 140–141, 152, 176, 180, 182 weekly news products 42, 44, 46, 69 Weibull, L. 53 Weiner, J. 18 Weischenberg, S. 47, 195 White, D. M. 9 Wiik, J. 55, 156 Wilensky, H. L. 23 Wilhoit, G. C. 155 Williams, A. 8, 18, 32, 61 Willnat, L. 60, 151, 156 Wilmott, H. 31 Winter, S. 26 Witschge, T. 17, 156 work, journalism as, see journalism-as-work workload 119–124 writing skills 92–99, 100–103, 113, 163–164, 172, 174, 182, 187 Zagar, I. Z. 8, 32 Zuboff, S. 26