Conflictual Journalistic Creativity: When Journalists Got Caught in Inconsistent Media Professionalism and Inconsistent Political Ideology

Abstract

Creativity has been a thriving term ever since we have knowledge. Journalism industry is facing the challenge brought about by the digital world, the long time span on one printed newspaper has become a rare scene. Media pundits try every means to earn the survival of the industry, and creativity becomes the way out. Every breakthrough of knowledge requires creativity. To date, people offer a wide range of definitions on creativity in various fields. To be exact, creativity, in general, is a way that has not yet been adopted by other before. In the domain of journalism, it takes a prominent role for the pundits’ survival in the competitive media environment. As such, the thrust of narratives about journalistic creativity begin to take its shape. The article examines the debates about whether journalism has creativity in its competitive industry, and in the conflictual environment, what are the drive factors that catalyst creativity. We carried out 15 in-depth interviews with the experienced reporters and editors working in the frontline media environment, findings showed that all of them agree creativity has taken place in the industry. Closely aligned to journalistic creativity, inconsistent political ideology and inconsistent media professionalism have played inevitable role to the formation of journalistic creativity.