ABSTRACT
The Oxford-based institute asked a number of journalists to define what being a journalist meant in their own country. The responses were varied, but core themes of public service and public interest came through, alongside some sort of defining perimeter defined by their paid/professional status within the news industry. The freelance journalist who successfully turned a small newspaper into an empire, Alfred Harmsworth (Lord Northcliffe), is reputed to have uttered the immortal words about journalism. A journalist used to be someone who supplied the news to us, usually in a regular and familiar format, perhaps an ‘article’, a ‘bulletin’ or ‘broadcast’ of some description. The industrial model of journalistic production and its attendant ideologies of professionalism and objectivity have dominated the 20th century and were a necessary response to the needs of capital. First, all production is organized this way in a capitalist mode of production; second, the expansion of consumer society required advertising; and third, by framing the news.
