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This paper investigates how war correspondents working for U.S.-based news organizations Tweeted about the early stages of the 2022 war in Ukraine, focusing particularly on instances when these war reporters contributed to a distinctly transnational version of what Matt Carlson has termed "metajournalistic discourse" (2016). Defining this concept as the "public expressions evaluating news texts, the practices that produce them, or the conditions of their reception" (Carlson [2016]. "Metajournalistic Discourse and the Meanings of Journalism: Definitional Control, Boundary Work, and Legitimation." Communication Theory 26 (4): 349–368 , 353), we argue that from February to May of 2022, U.S. war correspondents constructed a discourse that situated their own labor within the boundaries of what counts as the most acceptable form of war journalism, representing their reportage as the most independent and transparent form of war reporting. Conversely, they situated the work of Russian and Ukrainian journalists outside this boundary. The paper ultimately argues that journalism scholars should think more transnationally about the discourses that discuss journalistic labor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can constructive journalism subscribe to established standards of journalism and still offer something new to the field? This paper explores the possibility that constructive journalism looks for better ways to implement the standards in a changing media environment. A case in point is the partial loss of the gatekeeper role in digital journalism. Here, journalism tries to show that it is still relevant by always finding something to criticize. But this may cause readers to turn away because, even though the news informs them about important points of disagreement, it does not outline how the debate might move on. Constructive journalism can be taken to suggest that journalists should evaluate the merits of the arguments involved so that readers can better assess the situation. This would not require journalists to give up on a negative focus in news, but to broaden their view: They should not confine their reporting to those in power but reflect the productive discourse which is often hidden in digital media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using digital ethnography and in-depth interviews, this study offers a comprehensive understanding of how diaspora journalists maintain connections with their conflict-torn homeland and advocate for transnational human rights and political reforms after fleeing its repressive political sphere. To this end, the paper examines how Syrian diaspora journalists engage in transnational advocacy practices through building digital networks that blur boundaries between journalism, activism, human rights advocacy, social movements, and civil society work. The paper further investigates how these advocacy practices shape the diaspora journalists' perceptions of their roles as well as their understanding of the different political, economic, procedural, organizational, and professional factors that influence how they perform them. Findings demonstrate that diaspora advocacy journalism poses various challenges to traditional journalism paradigms as journalists' roles go beyond news gathering and publishing to include petitioning, creating transnational solidarity, collaborating with civil society organizations, and carrying out various institutional work. In so doing, the paper rethinks hybridity in journalistic role perceptions proposing two unique approaches for serving democracy from exile. A novel definition of diaspora advocacy journalism and comprehensive discussion of the various sources of influence on news reporting and advocacy networking in the unique transnational conflict context are further proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For journalism research rooted in a sociological framework, gaining access to journalists is crucial for data collection. However, journalists are documentably difficult to recruit as participants, frequently due to limited time and resources in shrinking newsrooms, sometimes because of roadblocks put up by leery newsroom management. As part of the data collection process for the Canadian branch of the international Journalistic Role Performance project, researchers tracked issues raised by journalists that may have impacted survey recruitment and completion. These issues were frequently grounded in the context of survey questions designed to be operationalizable in vastly different cultures, and were also documented by other researchers in both the Global North and South who were cooperating in this comparative study. Despite first refusing or completely refusing survey participation, though, some Canadian journalists were willing to be interviewed, giving researchers the opportunity to explore how to best engage journalists in the research process, and design research tools to be shared in different media systems. Using a lens of social exchange, this paper provides unique insight, from the perspective of researchers and participants, on the importance of relationship-building as a focal point in order to adequately contextualize findings within a sociology of news framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The morphology of journalism culture comprises three factors, namely, micro-, meso-, and macrofactors. Politics and economics are among the many macro factors. However, this study focuses on how the morphology of journalism culture is formed by local culture. This study is important in the theory of de-Westernization because local culture could be a differentiator among journalism cultures. Such efforts will enable the diversity of journalism cultures that differ from those in the West. This research was conducted on journalists working in Yogyakarta, a region in Indonesia. This study shows that local culture, in this case, the Javanese culture, contributes to creating the journalism culture among journalists in Yogyakarta either in their journalism values or practices. This influence is evident in their politeness, language propriety, and criticism style. Several informants stated that they choose a criticism style that is not vulgar. They believe that there is no need for vulgar criticism because their style of criticism is effective because both the journalists and their subjects of criticism are from the same cultural environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If there are authoritarian, transitional, and democratic political and media systems, are there associated authoritarian, transitional, and democratic role profiles for journalists? The relation between countries' degree of democracy and the importance of journalistic role conceptions among journalists in a country is analyzed based on the World Journalism Study (Wave 2). I find that journalists in democratic political systems generally subscribe to fewer role conceptions than journalists in authoritarian political systems; Journalism-for-Democracy is more defined by what it is not (i.e., journalists reject the typical role conceptions of Journalism-for-Authoritarianism and Journalism-in-Transition) than by what it is. Journalism in transitional political systems (i.e., hybrid regimes and deficient democracies) is characterized by a specific set of role conceptions that are linked to political activism, which journalists in full democracies tend to reject. The study reassesses which role conceptions might be typical for which kind of political systems leading to revised hypotheses regarding the link between democracy and journalistic role conceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Journalists and news media in Western democracies appear to be under increasing fire for having an alleged partisan bias. This study joins the increasing number of studies on partisan news slant, and focuses on the central actors in the news-making process, namely journalists themselves. Drawing on unique survey evidence on 233 Belgian and Dutch journalists in 2018, this study explores whether and which journalists perceive their news outlets to be biased. Despite their aim to produce impartial coverage, we find that most journalists believe that their news outlet favors some parties over others. In particular, journalists feel that center parties are favored, while parties on the fringes, and especially extreme-right parties, are somewhat disadvantaged. Also, it shows that journalists working for the public broadcaster perceive their outlet to be more impartial than their colleagues working for commercial outlets. Journalists' political leaning does not seem to influence their perceptions of partisan bias, but journalists do feel that their outlet is biased to accommodate its "imagined audience". For instance, those who perceive their audience as more right-wing than the general public, feel that their medium advantages right-wing parties too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Journalists confront terror and war to report and document what is happening. Covering traumatic events is dangerous for the reporters on the scene and may leave them with distress responses. The aim of this study is to investigate the coping strategies journalists use to deal with danger and traumatic stress and to build resilience. Through in-depth interviews with journalists covering crisis and violent events, the article looks at the physical, practical and trauma aspects of crisis journalism, and contributes to the complex understanding of risk and resilience for journalists. The study is based on interviews with nine reporters from five countries. Between them, they have covered several conflicts, terror attacks and wars. The study shows that they use a variety of strategies. Memories from unpredictable assignments stick with them. However, eight would cover traumatic events again, and the majority have experienced post-traumatic growth. My results show that informal peer support is crucial, but media organizations have a long way to go to ensure adequate support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study employs positioning theory to examine the discursive power struggle and negotiation over the rights and duties of the news media in the United States and illustrates how journalists discursively construct their professional identity within a specific situational interaction. The examination of 480 editorials by 570 news organizations—which were published in response to President Trump's the news media "is the enemy of the people" accusation—reveals that news organizations around the country attempted to discursively re-position themselves and thus alter the local moral order defined by President Trump. Findings show that news organizations used three positioning practices (self-positioning, second-order or other positioning and third-order positioning) to not only reclaim professional, institutional and societal legitimacy respectively, but also undermine Trump's legitimacy as an attacker and change the anti-press narrative he promoted. In this process journalists dynamically construct their professional identity by altering their position within different storylines, which also created inconsistencies in their claims to their professional legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using survey and content analysis, this study investigates professional role conception and role performance among journalists in Vietnam, which offers a unique case to further our understanding of journalism ideals and practices in a socialist-communist country. This study combines the concept of professional role and the hierarchy of influences model as its theoretical frameworks. Findings indicated that organizational factors (i.e., funding and audience orientation) exert stronger influences on journalists' role conception, performance, and the perceived-practiced gaps. Theoretical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the literature on digitalisation of journalism by approaching the topic from an innovative angle, as a subjective, contextual, and dynamic process. The study focuses on digitalisation as a discursive construction and, particularly, on entrepreneurial journalism as an essential element of this construction. This allows to understand how it is interpreted and appropriated by actors of the journalistic field in their practices, as well as the impact of digitalisation on employment and the work futures of newcomer journalists in the current labour market. The study is based on interviews with journalism graduates and with media administrators in Cyprus, enhanced by quantitative data on recent graduates' employment and relation to work. The findings show how discourses forge the ideal type of the digital journalist, which encompasses the digital skills and the subjective attributes of a performant digital personality. Within the current organisation of the labour market, this re-skilling of journalistic activities can lead to a dis-qualification of journalism work positions occupied by newcomer journalists. As such, digitalisation affects the relation to work of graduates, particularly their horizons of expectations, which are fading, especially for some of them, confined in presentism, engaging in entrepreneurial strategies within a waged relation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This mixed-method study examines the mindset journalists in the United States bring to their work in an effort to gain insight into emerging journalistic viewpoints and their relationship to established doctrines and roles. Study 1 (n = 167) asked professional journalists, journalism professors, and student journalists to rank statements on journalism ethics and norms from most to least like their mindset toward the profession. Using the factor analysis procedure common to Q methodology, we identified two distinct mindsets among the participants. One factor expresses a neutral journalistic mindset that favors dispassionate reporting. The other shows more concern with the impact of journalism on its sources and a desire for more engagement in political discourse. A participant pool larger than that of a typical Q study allowed for additional quantitative analysis that identified significant differences in mindset by age, gender, professional experience, and journalistic platform. Using an explanatory-sequential design, study 2 (n = 16) further explored the journalistic mindset—the underlying web of beliefs and attitudes about the profession's core values—with a textual analysis of follow-up interviews. The results have applications to research on journalistic norms, boundaries, and ethics, and may provide insight into the divisions generating conflict in many newsrooms today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local news media are seen as key to local democracy and communal cohesion. This article asks how the community role of local journalism is understood and assessed by journalists and political actors. The study builds on 26 in-depth interviews with local journalists and local political actors involved in conflicts over localisation of hospitals in two different regions in Norway. Theoretically, the article draws on research into the roles of local news media and the place-making features of local journalism. We conceptualise the community role as an overarching role of local journalism, where characteristics related to, e.g., the watchdog and advocacy roles of local journalism may serve a community function. Our analysis shows that local patriotism is regarded as a key aspect of local journalism, where local news media are expected to report through specific spatial lenses to the benefit of the local community. Yet although local journalists and local political actors largely agree on key ideals of local journalism, they advance different perspectives on what form of local news reporting is in the best interest of the community. In sum, local patriotism is considered both a force and an obstacle when journalists are serving the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to define, historicize, and critique the phenomenon of trend journalism within American journalism. I position trend journalism as an outgrowth of journalistic movements that, since the mid-twentieth century, have sought to elevate the role of storytelling and thematic interpretation in journalistic practice. In addition to historically and theoretically contextualizing trend journalism, the article examines critiques of trend journalism and analyzes coverage of metrosexuality in the 2000s as an exemplar of the generic features and shortcomings of trend journalism. In sum, this article argues that trend journalism showcases the power as well as limits of trends as a prism through which journalists understand and explain the world to their readership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reporting on suicide has been a matter of concern for decades due to possible harmful effects. Media guidelines have been developed to facilitate responsible suicide reporting. However, there is no consensus among journalists on the newsworthiness of suicide. Through a random sample survey (n = 491) corresponding to 10% of the total number of national journalist licences, and based on 12 interviews, this study explores for the first time Portuguese journalists' experiences and perceptions of suicide reporting, and their knowledge of existing guidelines. Portuguese journalists are divided over the newsworthiness of suicide, but there is agreement on reporting suicide in the case of celebrities, as a social phenomenon, and amid efforts to promote mental health. More than half of the respondents answered that suicides should be reported to raise people's awareness of warning signs and encourage public debate, mirroring the view of professionals from other countries. Almost 60% stated not knowing the guidelines for responsible suicide reporting. This study, which surveyed the largest sample of journalists ever to be questioned about suicide reporting, shows that there has been a change in Portuguese journalism practices in that regard and indicates that the topic should be included in education and/or training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research observes the relationship between Latin American (LA) journalists from six countries that are rarely observed by international scholars (Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Peru and Venezuela) and artificial intelligence (AI). Particularly, it seeks to identify and compare their attitudes, perceived constraints, and knowledge on the state of the art of the application of AI to professional journalistic practices. In tune with the quantitative turn in contemporary journalism and due to the lack of quantitative measures in this field, this research also develops and psychometrically validates tools for measuring such aspects. The main results reveal the existence of differences in these journalists' attitudes and knowledge with regard to AI that can be attributed to their cultural context. They also show similarities to attitudes of journalists from Northern countries to AI. This research fills in the gap in the existing literature on journalism, AI, journalists' attitudes, Global South and LA journalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how investigative journalists, especially those working in newsroom contexts, deal with discrepancies between ideals and practice by actively negotiating their roles. Based on interviews with 28 Swiss journalists, it argues that despite having a strongly shared ideology revolving around the democratic roles of journalism, investigative reporters negotiate their investigative commitment on a daily basis. The study provides a conceptual model of this process based on a distinction between "liquid" and "solid" negotiation strategies, in the sense of Deuze. "Liquid" strategies involve reinterpreting, contesting and combining various journalistic roles, leading journalists to negotiate their investigative performance based on various individual organizational and institutional factors. Conversely, "solid" strategies tend to involve dogmatic attitudes toward investigative journalism. While this approach allows journalists to live by their ideals most of the time, it can also lead to simply dropping out. The study concludes with several important implications for research on journalistic identity and roles, as well as on media management, particularly regarding journalists' agency in redefining journalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research analyzes journalists' and audiences' responses to a critical incident: the coverage of Kobe Bryant's death, including whether it included accusations against Bryant, and of the Washington Post's brief suspension of reporter Felicia Sonmez, who, at his death, retweeted an old storey about rape charges filed against Bryant. Findings are that journalists focused on the complexity of Bryant's legacy and emphasized the journalistic values of professionalism and truth. Moreover, while journalists engaged in some boundary setting, this research suggests the value of seeing audiences as press critics not unlike professional journalists. Audiences acknowledged and endorsed journalistic principles but noted the importance of social norms; their expectations for good journalism suggest ways to rebuild trust in journalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A troubling trend in television and film is the female reporter who uses sexual temptation to unethically obtain information from male sources. Which viewers are most likely to believe that sexist tropes about female reporters are realistic? A pre-registered online survey (N = 580) revealed that stereotypes about female journalists were the largest predictor of perceived realism, followed by hostile sexism and journalist mistrust. Given that perceived realism is theorized to bolster the impact of media, these results suggest that viewers scoring highly in stereotyping or sexism are the most likely to be impacted by sexualized portrayals of journalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]