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This study presents the first global perspective on journalists’ perception of temporal acceleration in their professional life. Based on the second wave of Worlds of Journalism Study data, encompa...

Journalism has long been seen as a ‘young person’s occupation’. While the average age of journalists has increased from 35 to 39 in past 20 years, this article investigates what developments are covered, or covered up, by this average. The Worlds of Journalism Study data permit us to compare journalistic workforce ages with that of the general workforce, we juxtapose labour force median ages with journalists’ median ages in 60 countries. On realizing that age alone does not present experience, we also include years of professional experience as indicator for journalistic workforce profiling, and also analyse the journalistic and general workforce in age segments in 14 countries to arrive at a more detailed picture of age distribution. Our findings reaffirm that journalism is still an occupation for the young, and underscore the fact that in many countries journalists do not stay in the job for long. This leads us to contend that journalism lives with large numbers of young and relatively inexperienced workers, making it an easier transition into the digital age when journalism similarly is created from many diverse sources and with workers with varying levels of experience.

In answer to the question of how journalism studies can prove its continued significance, this article argues that journalism skills should be seen as bedrock for journalism studies. From a historical perspective, journalism studies has grown out of journalism education, with its emphasis on training journalists. From a global perspective, it is the skill of sourcing, verifying, and communicating news, which is common to journalists around the world, and sets them apart from other information providers. In this respect, both historically and globally, journalism skills are fundamental to journalism and, by extension, can aid journalism studies to locate its own center and draw distinctions from other fields of study.

Bhutan, a democracy since 2008 and one of the world's youngest, has transitioned from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy in an orderly fashion rarely seen. A free media, carried by skilled and responsible journalists, is part of that design but difficult to plan. This first comprehensive survey of Bhutan's journalists identifies some of the problems encountered in making journalism a profession that has taken root. Yet the survey results reveal none the less a broad understanding of the role the media are expected to play in a democracy, and a great deal of trust in the new political institutions.

This review article looks at books on journalism and the media coming from within the dominant discourse and concerning themselves with journalism globally or the media in several countries. It finds that in an era of growing global awareness research is only reluctantly acknowledging models other than the Anglo-American one. This has implications for the professional model of journalism and serves to perpetuate the gap between the principles of journalism and professional practice. It has further implications for journalism research in that the normative expectations skew results and veil actual practice.