Journalism in the indefinite: A comparative perspective of a soft-retirement activity

Abstract

The international comparative study of journalism as a working activity shows various model of retirement going from a non-interrupted involvement to a complete change. To tight the classical distinction between occupation and profession as Everett Hughes put, the occupational identity goes with the unlimited working activity along the life of a journalist till he dies. While in Cameroon and Africa in general, the model of retirement is similar to the working life, journalists turning out here from resourcefulness to begging, in France to the contrary, a set of changing rules coming from a long process of syndication insure the protection of journalists. If the work of journalists is bound to come to an end in one way or the other, the authors inspired by a perspective based on rudology acknowledged a Three-scale Theory of Retirement (TSR) which accounts for the relationship maintained by sociological theory of retirement of journalists namely the everlasting model of retirement, the alternative oriented model and the liberal model. These models were articulated with each other to reveal the first category of journalists made up of a dominant group of media managers in public media and administrative companies with a guarantee of remuneration and social positions close to that of the other senior civil service and private sector categories. This first category enjoy a comfortable retirement condition The second category at the intermediate level is those of practioners taking the control of their living activity by creating media organs or acquiring them either. They are worked by a militant and even messianic vision of their activity and are involved in trade union dynamics. Their protection after the working life is then guaranteed by the inequal capacity to find another occupation, sometimes very different from journalism but not so far from communication. The last category is that of those who consider the corporate organizations to be detrimental to free competitions among workers. During their period of activity they were used to do many other activities and petit businesses which they will continue till the death. The authors advocate for a better supervision of the retirement of journalists by the state, the professional and the trade union circles.