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Journalist

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A journalist conducting an interview for German television.

A journalist is a person who practices journalism, the gathering and dissemination of information about current events, trends, issues and people.

Reporters are one type of journalist. They create reports as a profession for broadcast or publication in mass media such as newspapers, television, radio, magazines, documentary film, and the Internet. Reporters find the sources for their work, their reports can be either spoken or written, and they are generally expected to report in the most objective and unbiased way to serve the public good.

Depending on the context, the term journalist also includes various types of editors and visual journalists, such as photographers, graphic artists, and page designers.

Origin and scope of the term

In the early 19th century, journalist simply meant someone who wrote for journals, such as Charles Dickens in his early career. In the past century it has come to mean a writer for newspapers and magazines as well.

Many people consider journalist interchangeable with reporter, a person who gathers information and creates a written report, or story. However, this overlooks many other types of journalists, including columnists, leader writers, photographers, editorial designers, and sub-editors (British) or copy editors (American). The only major distinction is that designers, writers and art directors who work exclusively on advertising material - that is, material in which the content is shaped by the person buying the ad, rather than the publication - are not considered journalists.

Regardless of medium, the term journalist carries a connotation or expectation of professionalism in reporting, with consideration for truth, fairness, balance, decency and ethics - although standards can vary widely between publications. Some mass-market newspaper make no pretence of impartiality, though in countries such as the UK they generally adhere to an industry-wide code of conduct such, such as maintaining truthiness. Some editors argue that lack of bias is impossible to achieve, so it is in fact more honest to adopt an editorial opinion whilst ensuring that material is factually accurate

18th-century journalists

  • Joseph Addison - wrote many of the finest pieces in Steele's publications (1713-1714), The Monitor (1714), The Manufacturer (1719-21), The Commentator (1720) and The Director (1720-1721)
  • Daniel Defoe - as editor of the Review, he can claim to have invented many of the most popular formats, including the eye-witness report, the travel piece and the strongly opinionated column. Defoe's Review began publication on February 19, 1704, and lasted until June 11, 1713. He was also involved in several other periodicals, including The Master Mercury (1704), Mercator: or, Commerce Retrieved
  • Richard Steele - founded and edited London-based periodicals including The Guardian and The Spectator in the early 1700s.

19th-century journalists

20th-century print journalists

20th-century broadcast journalists

Internet-only journalists

In recent years the numbers of journalists publishing only on the Internet, as opposed to print or broadcast journalists whose work also appears online, has grown enormously. Some of the best-known include:

  • Matt Drudge - The first famous Internet-only journalist for his work around scandals of the Clinton administration, in the United States.
  • Richard Menta - Editor at MP3 Newswire and MP3.com
  • John Wilson journalist (1940 - ), Born Colac, Victoria, Australia. Journalist (The Age), (The Sydney Morning Herald), (Townsville Daily Bulletin), (National Times), (Queensland Times), (Ballarat Courier), (Daily Mirror - Sydney), (Channel Nine - Melbourne/Brisbane), (New Idea), (Brisbane Telegraph). Wrote under the name John Steed in New Zealand (The Dominion), (Sunday Times). Was Editor of ComputerNews (www.netspace.net.au/~johnw).

Journalists writing fiction

There are many examples of journalists who made their mark writing fiction or other non-journalism, including:

Modern journalists

The explosion of modern media, including the creation of Internet-based news sources and the possibility that citizen journalism will greatly expand the field, has made it all but impossible to identify which journalists are notable, in the sense that they could be identified in the past. The global justice protests in Seattle (1999) gave rise to the independent media movement, exemplified by the Indymedia Media Center network, a collective of independent media organizations and hundreds of journalists offering grassroots, non-corporate coverage. Indymedia is a democratic media outlet for the creation of progressive, accurate, and passionate tellings of truth.

Ethics in Journalism

Most journalists adhere to the standards and norms expressed in the Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics.[1] Foremost in the minds of most practicing journalists is the issue of maintaining credibility, "Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist's credibility."See Preamble

See also

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