What is a Journalist?

Abstract

The period 2009–2010 was characterised as an industry-transforming period of economic and professional “crisis” for news journalism, involving significant journalism job losses in most developed nations. However, at the same time that media employers were laying off journalists in unprecedented numbers, they were still hiring a small amount of new recruits to work as journalists. These job advertisements therefore provide a rich source of information about how employers defined “journalism” during a period of transformation. Focusing on jobs advertised by Australian media companies, this article shows that journalism was not a high priority as they sought to restructure. Employers advertised four times as many jobs for advertising, sales and marketing staff as they did for journalists. When they did seek to hire journalists, employers retained conservative views about the nature of journalism as a trade rather than a profession. They were focused upon centralised, low-pay positions where candidates’ malleability, experience and personal attributes were more important than formal qualifications. Employers’ advertisements also suggested they were ill-equipped to cope with the digital transition and viewed it as something that was occurring outside the domain of many journalism jobs.