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Journalism and communication courses almost unfailingly report a majority of female students such as the Journalism Students Around the Globe project (Mellado and Hanusch 2017), which has led schol...

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...

Review of: Beyond Journalism, Mark Deuze and Tamara Witschge (2020)Cambridge: Polity Press, 148 pp.,ISBN 978-0-74564-342-7, p/bk, $30.25ISBN 978-0-74564-341-0, h/bk, $57.00ISBN 978-0-74564-341-8, ebk, $26.99

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.

Despite many obstacles, investigative journalism continues to flourish in Australia. A significant part of the explanation for this appears to lie with universities which have journalism programs. Investigative journalism has a strong presence in these programs across Australia, a presence which is increasingly being felt at postgraduate level. As a result, an increasing number of journalism graduates have the skills and understanding necessary to embark on serious investigative work, and several institutions have embarked on projects with innovative approaches to collaborative investigative work. However, the wider context in which Australia’s tertiary institutions operate is far from benign, and journalism programs*and thus the teaching of investigative journalism*are subject to many pressures. The paper finds that, although university journalism programs are increasingly taking responsibility for educating their students about investigative journalism, thereby picking up a key responsibility which would once have been borne entirely by the industry, there are also forces at work which limit their capacity to do this. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

In posing the question ‘How much democracy does journalism need?’, much depends on the definition of journalism. This article suggests that journalism should be viewed not in terms of media systems but instead using journalism practice as the main frame of reference, as this allows for an appreciation of journalism beyond the confines of western democratic countries. The analysis of historical and current examples shows that journalism offering accurate and verified information resting on independent news judgement also happens in places that are deemed semi- or non-democratic. This article argues that it is not the political form of democracy that is essential to journalism but the freedom of expression and relative journalistic autonomy afforded to media workers. Democracies, as compellingly shown in recent years, may offer the legal framework for freedom of speech but they do not offer protection for journalistic services which have to be largely financed privately. The dependency on media owners is no less in many democratic nations than it is in non-democratic countries. Most importantly, journalism needs supporters who see value in independent information provision and credible news judgement.

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.

This contribution focuses on research conducted at the German national daily, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which is part of an ongoing exploration of the induction process of young journalists and/ or cadets into the newsroom. Touching on three theoretical areas; the question of comparative journalism research, the question of professional education and research into the importance of the organizational sphere shaping media content, this comparative study underpins the assumption that newsroom practices have an effect on how young journalists carry out their craft. By examining the rite of passage into the newsroom by presenting the same set of questions to young journalists and staff at papers in different geographical locations and operating under different political circumstances, it will be shown that newspapers, in turn, are strongly embedded in their country's media culture.